GNU LilyPond

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custos-interface

A custos is a staff context symbol that appears at the end of a staff line with monophonic musical contents (i.e. with a single voice). It anticipates the pitch of the first note of the following line and thus helps the player or singer to manage line breaks during performance, thus enhancing readability of a score.

Custodes were frequently used in music notation until the 16th century. There were different appearences for different notation styles. Nowadays, they have survived only in special forms of musical notation such as via the editio vaticana dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.

[TODO: add to glossary]

adjust-if-on-staffline (boolean):

If this grob is on a staff line, adjust its appearance, so that it better fits into the staff. E.g., if set true on stem grobs, flares of mensural flags will always be aligned with the staff lines, regardless if the associated note head is printed on a staff line or inbetween. Default value: (unset)

neutral-direction (direction):

Where to go if we're on the neutral position of the staff (by default, the middle of the staff; see also grob-property neutral-position). [Ross] has the following to say about this: Some engravers consider the middle line neutral, and take the option of using either up- or down-stems for notes that fall on it. However, more up-to-date engraving no longer permits an option; now a down-stem is always appropriate. Default value: (unset)

neutral-position (number):

Position (in half staff spaces) where to flip the direction of stems: by default, custodes above this position get their stems downwards; custodes below this position get their stems upwards. A value of 0 designates the center of the staff. Use property neutral-direction to control the behaviour of stems on the neutral position itself. (Note: currently, neutral-position is supported only for custodes; for stems of note heads, neutral-position is currently fixed to 0, i.e. the middle of the staff.) Default value: (unset)

style (symbol):

a string determining what style of glyph is typeset. Valid choices depend on the function that is reading this property. . Default value: (unset)

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Copyright (c) 1997--2002 Han-Wen Nienhuys and Jan Nieuwenhuizen.

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