Ancient note heads - GNU LilyPond
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#### 7.7.1 Ancient note heads

For ancient notation, a note head style other than the `default` style may be chosen. This is accomplished by setting the `style` property of the NoteHead object to `baroque`, `neomensural`, `mensural` or `petrucci`. The `baroque` style differs from the `default` style only in using a square shape for `\breve` note heads. The `neomensural` style differs from the `baroque` style in that it uses rhomboidal heads for whole notes and all smaller durations. Stems are centered on the note heads. This style is particularly useful when transcribing mensural music, e.g., for the incipit. The `mensural` style produces note heads that mimic the look of note heads in historic printings of the 16th century. Finally, the `petrucci` style also mimicks historic printings, but uses bigger note heads.

The following example demonstrates the `neomensural` style

>          \set Score.skipBars = ##t
>          \override NoteHead #'style = #'neomensural
>          a'\longa a'\breve a'1 a'2 a'4 a'8 a'16

When typesetting a piece in Gregorian Chant notation, the Gregorian_ligature_engraver will automatically select the proper note heads, so there is no need to explicitly set the note head style. Still, the note head style can be set, e.g., to `vaticana_punctum` to produce punctum neumes. Similarly, a Mensural_ligature_engraver is used to automatically assemble mensural ligatures. See Ligatures for how ligature engravers work.

##### See also

Examples: `input/regression/note-head-style.ly` gives an overview over all available note head styles.

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

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