Hiding staves - GNU LilyPond
Description: GNU LilyPond

Next: Quoting other voices, Previous: Automatic part combining, Up: Orchestral music

#### 8.3.2 Hiding staves

In orchestral scores, staff lines that only have rests are usually removed; this saves some space. This style is called `French Score'. For Lyrics, ChordNames and FiguredBass, this is switched on by default. When the lines of these contexts turn out empty after the line-breaking process, they are removed.

For normal staves, a specialized Staff context is available, which does the same: staves containing nothing (or only multi-measure rests) are removed. The context definition is stored in `\RemoveEmptyStaffContext` variable. Observe how the second staff in this example disappears in the second line

>          \layout {
>            \context { \RemoveEmptyStaffContext }
>          }

>          {
>            \relative c' <<
>              \new Staff { e4 f g a \break c1 }
>              \new Staff { c4 d e f \break R1 }
>            >>
>          }

The first system shows all staves in full. If empty staves should be removed from the first system too, set `remove-first` to true in VerticalAxisGroup.

    \override Score.VerticalAxisGroup #'remove-first = ##t

To remove other types of contexts, use `\AncientRemoveEmptyStaffContext` or `\RemoveEmptyRhythmicStaffContext`.

Another application is making ossia sections, i.e., alternative melodies on a separate piece of staff, with help of a Frenched staff. See `input/test/ossia.ly` for an example.

This page is for LilyPond-2.8.8 (stable-branch).

Other languages: English.
Using automatic language selection.