Coloring notes in Lilypond by pitch

Question

lilypond can color notes in a arbitrary way using

\override NoteHead #'color = #red c

with the default color is black. But I like to color all notes by pitch, so that my kids can more easily learn to recognize the notes as the c, d, e, f, ... are associated with its own color. The above allows me to do this, but is rather verbose.

Is there a shortcut, macros of some sort, that allow me to do something along the lines of:

redc greend bluee

or even overwriting the default colors for each note by pitch so that I can even simply do:

c d e

and have each of them have a different color?

Compared with Sibelius it's pretty painful, in my experience, though. I've done music typesetting with both so far but I liked it better graphically :) — Joey, Dec 14 '09 at 18:30
I'm pretty much an musical amateur... Lilypond does what I need, runs on Linux, and is free. — Egon Willighagen, Dec 14 '09 at 19:18

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-21T19:13:27.760

There is an example for this in the snippets:

%Association list of pitches to colors.
#(define color-mapping
  (list
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 0 0) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 0 1/2) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 1 -1/2) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 2 0) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 2 1/2) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 3 -1/2) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 3 0) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 4 1/2) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 0) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 -1/2) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 6 1/2) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 1 0) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 3 1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 4 -1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 6 -1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    ))

%Compare pitch and alteration (not octave).
#(define (pitch-equals? p1 p2)
  (and
    (= (ly:pitch-alteration p1) (ly:pitch-alteration p2))
    (= (ly:pitch-notename p1) (ly:pitch-notename p2))))

#(define (pitch-to-color pitch)
  (let ((color (assoc pitch color-mapping pitch-equals?)))
    (if color
      (cdr color))))

#(define (color-notehead grob)
  (pitch-to-color
    (ly:event-property (ly:grob-property grob 'cause) 'pitch)))

\score {
  \new Staff \relative c' {
    \override NoteHead #'color = #color-notehead
    c8 b d dis ees f g aes
  }
}

Sample image

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 11 '18 at 00:08

3

There's a question It is possible to color note heads depending on their pitch? at the LilyPond Snippet Repository. You get the answer by clicking on the stave.

edited Dec 11 '18 at 00:08

fedelibre

398
1
8

answered Dec 14 '09 at 18:26

Ewan Todd

7,315
26
33

I've seen that example, but clearly not musically literate enough to recognize that this is not the same pitch change as on a keyboard :) This does the job indeed! – Egon Willighagen Dec 14 '09 at 18:41

Egon Willighagen · Answer 3 · 2010-01-08T09:53:09.903

OK, for the book Kid's Keyboard Course - Book #1 I bought earlier this year in Cambridge, I now have this color coding:

#(define color-mapping
  (list
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 0 0) (x11-color 'magenta))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 1 -1/2) (x11-color 'grey))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 1 0) (x11-color 'grey))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 1 1/2) (x11-color 'grey))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 2 0) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 2 1/2) (x11-color 'red))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 3 -1/2) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 3 0) (x11-color 'green))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 4 -1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 4 0) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 4 1/2) (x11-color 'blue))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 0) (x11-color 'yellow))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 -1/2) (x11-color 'yellow))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 5 1/2) (x11-color 'yellow))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 6 1/2) (x11-color 'purple))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 6 0) (x11-color 'purple))
    (cons (ly:make-pitch 0 6 -1/2) (x11-color 'purple))))

Coloring notes in Lilypond by pitch

3 Answers3

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