Piano “half sustain pedal” indications - Revision history

Ksnortum: Formatting

2026-03-19T20:18:43Z

Formatting

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:18, 19 March 2026
Line 1:		Line 1:
	When playing the piano, there a quite a few songs that require you to only press the sustain pedal half way (or even a quarter of the way in some cases).~~<br />~~		When playing the piano, there a quite a few songs that require you to only press the sustain pedal half way (or even a quarter of the way in some cases).
	There is currently not a way to show these indications on the generated music in an intuitive way. This snippet provides functions that allow you to easily do this.~~<br />~~
			There is currently not a way to show these indications on the generated music in an intuitive way. This snippet provides functions that allow you to easily do this.

	The implementation is quite complicated, but basically there are two music functions that get defined, <code>sustainHalfOn</code> and <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. You can use these just like you would normally use <code>sustainOn</code> and <code>sustainOff</code>. You can use any of the sustain pedal styles, and everything will work as expected. You do need to add an explicit call to <code>sustainHalfOff</code> when you want the half pedal to end. Calling <code>sustainOn</code> does not automatically turn off <code>sustainHalfOn</code>.		The implementation is quite complicated, but basically there are two music functions that get defined, <code>sustainHalfOn</code> and <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. You can use these just like you would normally use <code>sustainOn</code> and <code>sustainOff</code>. You can use any of the sustain pedal styles, and everything will work as expected. You do need to add an explicit call to <code>sustainHalfOff</code> when you want the half pedal to end. Calling <code>sustainOn</code> does not automatically turn off <code>sustainHalfOn</code>.

Line 106:		Line 108:

	\new Staff {		\new Staff {

	\set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'mixed		\set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'mixed

	\sustainHalfOn		\sustainHalfOn
	b'16 c' d' e'		b'16 c' d' e'
Line 118:		Line 118:
	a' a'		a' a'
	\sustainOn		\sustainOn
	a'		a' a'
	a'
	\sustainOff\sustainOn		\sustainOff\sustainOn

	a' a' a' a'		a' a' a' a'
	\sustainOff		\sustainOff

Lemzwerg: Lemzwerg moved page Piano "Half Sustain Pedal" Indications to Piano “half sustain pedal” indications without leaving a redirect: Only the first letter of a title should be uppercase

2025-11-24T05:41:33Z

Lemzwerg moved page Piano "Half Sustain Pedal" Indications to Piano “half sustain pedal” indications without leaving a redirect: Only the first letter of a title should be uppercase

← Older revision	Revision as of 05:41, 24 November 2025
(No difference)

Lemzwerg: New category

2025-11-21T23:21:04Z

New category

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:21, 21 November 2025
Line 141:		Line 141:
	[[Category:Expressive marks]]		[[Category:Expressive marks]]
	[[Category:Workaround]]		[[Category:Workaround]]
	[[Category:Tweaks and overrides]][[Category:Snippet]]		[[Category:Tweaks and overrides]]
			[[Category:Snippet]]

Lemzwerg at 22:57, 21 November 2025

2025-11-21T22:57:21Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:57, 21 November 2025
Line 141:		Line 141:
	[[Category:Expressive marks]]		[[Category:Expressive marks]]
	[[Category:Workaround]]		[[Category:Workaround]]
	[[Category:Tweaks and overrides]]		[[Category:Tweaks and overrides]][[Category:Snippet]]

Jean Abou Samra: Replace version="2.24.0" with version="2.24" now that the LilyWiki extension supports auto-selecting the latest release in a stable series

2025-11-16T18:54:27Z

Replace version="2.24.0" with version="2.24" now that the LilyWiki extension supports auto-selecting the latest release in a stable series

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:54, 16 November 2025
Line 5:		Line 5:
	Under the covers, this works by representing sustain half on/half off as Una Corda pedal events. The logic temporarily changes the rendering of Una Corda pedals when you call <code>sustainHalfOn</code>, and changes it back when you call <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. We also temporarily change the value of <code>Staff.unaCordaPedalStyle</code> to match the value of <code>Staff.sustainPedalStyle</code> for the duration of the half sustain event so that the intended sustain pedal style will be used.		Under the covers, this works by representing sustain half on/half off as Una Corda pedal events. The logic temporarily changes the rendering of Una Corda pedals when you call <code>sustainHalfOn</code>, and changes it back when you call <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. We also temporarily change the value of <code>Staff.unaCordaPedalStyle</code> to match the value of <code>Staff.sustainPedalStyle</code> for the duration of the half sustain event so that the intended sustain pedal style will be used.

	<lilypond version="2.24.0">		<lilypond version="2.24">
	%% This snippet defines functions that enable "1/2" pedal indications		%% This snippet defines functions that enable "1/2" pedal indications
	%% to be used. Using this is quite easy, just add \sustainHalfOn		%% to be used. Using this is quite easy, just add \sustainHalfOn

Jean Abou Samra: Import snippet from LSR

2025-10-26T22:50:41Z

Import snippet from LSR

New page

When playing the piano, there a quite a few songs that require you to only press the sustain pedal half way (or even a quarter of the way in some cases).<br />
There is currently not a way to show these indications on the generated music in an intuitive way. This snippet provides functions that allow you to easily do this.<br />
The implementation is quite complicated, but basically there are two music functions that get defined, <code>sustainHalfOn</code> and <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. You can use these just like you would normally use <code>sustainOn</code> and <code>sustainOff</code>. You can use any of the sustain pedal styles, and everything will work as expected. You do need to add an explicit call to <code>sustainHalfOff</code> when you want the half pedal to end. Calling <code>sustainOn</code> does not automatically turn off <code>sustainHalfOn</code>.

Under the covers, this works by representing sustain half on/half off as Una Corda pedal events. The logic temporarily changes the rendering of Una Corda pedals when you call <code>sustainHalfOn</code>, and changes it back when you call <code>sustainHalfOff</code>. We also temporarily change the value of <code>Staff.unaCordaPedalStyle</code> to match the value of <code>Staff.sustainPedalStyle</code> for the duration of the half sustain event so that the intended sustain pedal style will be used.

<lilypond version="2.24.0">
%% This snippet defines functions that enable "1/2" pedal indications
%% to be used. Using this is quite easy, just add \sustainHalfOn
%% in place of \sustainOn and \sustainHalfOff in place of \sustainOff
%%
%% This implementation fully supports 'mixed, 'text, and 'bracket pedal modes
%%
%% The new functions will honor the value of Staff.sustainPedalStyle when
%% doing the rendering.
%%
%% The implementation of these functions is a bit complicated. In order to
%% force a new pedal indication when changing from half pedal to full pedal
%% or vice versa in mixed or bracket mode, internally this implementation
%% represents the half pedal events as UnaCorda pedal events. Basically,
%% when \sustainHalfOn is called, we temporarily change the rendering
%% of the UnaCorda pedal indications so they look like a half pedal.
%% When \sustainHalfOff is called, they are changed back. A side effect of
%% this is that having the UnaCorda pedal and 1/2 pedal active at the
%% same time is not possible with this implementation.

%% Definitions of half-pedal functions. Moving these to a Lilypond include file is recommended.

#(define (half-pedal-stencil grob)
(grob-interpret-markup
grob
(markup #:raise 0.1 "½" #:hspace -0.5 #:musicglyph "pedal.Ped")))

#(define (add-sustain-on note-event)
(set! (ly:music-property note-event 'articulations)
(cons
(make-music 'UnaCordaEvent 'span-direction -1)
(ly:music-property note-event 'articulations)))
note-event)

#(define (override-una-corda-strings)
(context-spec-music
(make-sequential-music
(list
(make-property-set 'pedalUnaCordaStrings (list "Ped." "*Ped." "*"))
(make-apply-context
(lambda (context)
(ly:context-set-property!
context
'pedalUnaCordaStyle
(ly:context-property context 'pedalSustainStyle))))))
'Staff))

#(define (revert-una-corda-strings)
(context-spec-music
(make-sequential-music
(list
(make-property-unset 'pedalUnaCordaStrings)
(make-property-unset 'pedalUnaCordaStyle)))
'Staff))

#(define (add-sustain-off note-event)
(set! (ly:music-property note-event 'articulations)
(cons
(make-music 'UnaCordaEvent 'span-direction 1)
(ly:music-property note-event 'articulations)))
note-event)

#(define (use-half-pedal-stencil)
(context-spec-music
(make-grob-property-set
'UnaCordaPedal
'stencil
half-pedal-stencil)
'Staff))

#(define (revert-pedal-stencil)
(context-spec-music
(make-grob-property-revert
'UnaCordaPedal
'stencil)
'Staff))

sustainHalfOn =
#(define-music-function
(note)
(ly:music?)

(make-sequential-music
(list
(override-una-corda-strings)
(use-half-pedal-stencil)
(add-sustain-on note))))

sustainHalfOff =
#(define-music-function
(note)
(ly:music?)
(make-sequential-music
(list
(revert-pedal-stencil)
(add-sustain-off note)
(revert-una-corda-strings))))

%% Half Pedal Example

\new Staff {

\set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'mixed

\sustainHalfOn
b'16 c' d' e'
\sustainHalfOff
f'
\sustainOn
g' a' a' a' a' a' c'
\sustainOff
a' a'
\sustainOn
a'
a'
\sustainOff\sustainOn

a' a' a' a'
\sustainOff
\set Staff.pedalSustainStyle = #'text
a'
\sustainHalfOn
a' a' a' a'
\sustainHalfOff
a'
\sustainOn
a' a' a' a' a'
\sustainOff
a'
}
</lilypond>

[[Category:Scheme]]
[[Category:Contexts and engravers]]
[[Category:Expressive marks]]
[[Category:Workaround]]
[[Category:Tweaks and overrides]]