GNU LilyPond Notation Reference: 2.1.1 Common notation for vocal music

### 2.1.1 Common notation for vocal music

This section discusses issues related to vocal music in general, and to some particular styles of vocal music.

#### References for vocal music and lyrics

Various issues may arise when engraving vocal music. Some of these are discussed in this section, while others are explained elsewhere:

- Most styles of vocal music use written text as lyrics. An introduction to this notation is to be found in Setting simple songs.
- Vocal music is likely to require the use of `markup` mode, either for lyrics of for other text elements (character’s names, etc.). This syntax is described in Text markup introduction.
- Lead sheets may be printed by combining vocal parts and ‘chord mode’; this syntax is explained in Chord notation.
- ‘Ambitus’ may be added at the beginning of vocal staves, as explained in Ambitus.
- Vocal parts may be printed using traditional clefs, as shown in Clef.
- Ancient vocal music is supported, as explained in Ancient notation.

#### Opera

TBC

#### Song books

TBC

#### Selected Snippets

Simple lead sheet

When put together, chord names, a melody, and lyrics form a lead sheet:

>     <<
>       \chords { c2 g:sus4 f e }
>       \relative c'' {
>         a4 e c8 e r4
>         b2 c4( d)
>       }
>       \addlyrics { One day this shall be free __ }
>     >>

#### See also

Notation Reference: Chord notation.

#### Spoken music

Such effects as ‘parlato’ or ‘Sprechgesang’ require perfomers to speak without pitch but still with rhythm; these are notated by cross note heads, as demonstrated in Special note heads.

#### Chants

TBC

#### Ancient vocal music

TBC

#### See also

Notation Reference: Ancient notation.

Other languages: español, deutsch.

#### Notation Reference