GNU LilyPond

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Default contexts

Most music expressions don't need an explicit \context declaration: they inherit the notation context from their parent. Each note is a music expression, and as you can see in the following example, only the sequential music enclosing the three notes has an explicit context.

     \score { \notes \context Voice = goUp { c'4 d' e' } }
     

There are some quirks that you must keep in mind when dealing with defaults:

First, every top level music is interpreted by the Score context; in other words, you may think of \score working like

     \score {
       \context Score music
     }
     

Second, contexts are created automatically to be able to interpret the music expressions. Consider the following example.

     \score { \context Score \notes { c'4 ( d' )e' } }
     

The sequential music is interpreted by the Score context initially (notice that the \context specification is redundant), but when a note is encountered, contexts are setup to accept that note. In this case, a Thread, Voice, and Staff context are created. The rest of the sequential music is also interpreted with the same Thread, Voice, and Staff context, putting the notes on the same staff, in the same voice.

This is a convenient mechanism, but do not expect opening chords to work without \context. For every note, a separate staff is instantiated.

     \score { \notes <c'4 es'> }
     

Of course, if the chord is preceded by a normal note in sequential music, the chord will be interpreted by the Thread of the preceding note:

     \score { \notes { c'4 <c'4 es'> } }
     

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

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