Flamenco notation

For flamenco guitar, some special notation is used.

• A golpe symbol indicates a slap on the guitar body with the nail of the ring finger.
• An arrow indicates (the direction of) strokes.
• Different letters for fingering are used (“p”: thumb, “i”: index finger, “m”: middle finger, “a”: ring finger and “x”: little finger).
• Marking 3- and 4-finger rasgueados: stroke upwards with all fingers, ending with an up- and down using the index finger.
• Abanicos are strokes (in tuples) with thumb (down), little and index finger (both up). There’s also an abanico 2 where middle and ring finger are used instead of the little finger.
• Alza pua indicates fast playing with the thumb.

Most figures use arrows in combination with fingering; with abanicos and rasgueados, note heads are printed only for the first chord.

This snippet contains some header-like code that can be copied as flamenco.ly and included in source files.

\version "2.24"

%%%%%%%  Cut here ----- Start of `flamenco.ly`.

% Text indicators.
abanico = ^\markup \small { \italic Abanico }
rasgueado = ^\markup \small { \italic Ras. }
alzapua = ^\markup \small { \italic Alzapua }

% Finger stroke symbols.
strokeUp = \markup {
  \combine
    \override #'(thickness . 1.3) \draw-line #'(0 . 2)
    \raise #2 \arrow-head #Y #UP ##f }
strokeDown = \markup {
  \combine
    \arrow-head #Y #DOWN ##f
    \override #'(thickness . 1.3) \draw-line #'(0 . 2) }

% Golpe symbol.
golpe = \markup {
  \filled-box #'(0 . 1) #'(0 . 1) #0
  \hspace #-1.6
  \with-color #white
  \filled-box #'(0.15 . 0.85) #'(0.15 . 0.85) #0
} 

% Strokes, fingers, and golpe command.
RHp = \rightHandFinger #1 
RHi = \rightHandFinger #2
RHm = \rightHandFinger #3
RHa = \rightHandFinger #4
RHx = \rightHandFinger #5
RHu = \rightHandFinger \strokeUp 
RHd = \rightHandFinger \strokeDown
RHg = \rightHandFinger \golpe

% Various shorthands.
tupletOff = {
  \once \omit TupletNumber
  \once \omit TupletBracket
}

tupletsOff = {
  \omit TupletNumber
  \override TupletBracket.bracket-visibility = #'if-no-beam
}

tupletsOn = {
  \override TupletBracket.bracket-visibility = #'default
  \undo \omit TupletNumber
}

headsOff = {
  \hide TabNoteHead
  \hide NoteHead
  \override NoteHead.no-ledgers = ##t
}

headsOn = {
  \override TabNoteHead.transparent = ##f
  \override NoteHead.transparent = ##f
  \override NoteHead.no-ledgers = ##f
}

%%%%%%%  Cut here ----- End of `flamenco.ly`.


part = \relative c' {
  \set strokeFingerOrientations = #'(up)
  \key a\major

  <a, e' a cis e\RHu\RHi>8
    <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHi>8
    r4
    r2^\markup\golpe |
  <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHi>8
    <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHi>8
    <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHi\RHg>8
    <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHi>8
    r2 |
  <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHa>16\rasgueado
    \headsOff
    <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHm>
    <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHi>
    <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHi>~
    \headsOn
    <a e' a cis e>2
    r4 |
  \tupletOff
    \tuplet 5/4 {
      <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHx>16\rasgueado
      \headsOff
      <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHa>
      <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHm>
      <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHi>
      <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHi>~
      \headsOn
    }
    <a e' a cis e>2
    r4 |
  <>\abanico
    \tupletsOff
    \repeat unfold 4 {
      \tuplet 3/2 {
        <a e' a cis e\RHd\RHp>8
        \headsOff
        <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHx>
        <a e' a cis e\RHu\RHi>
        \headsOn
      }
    }
    \tupletsOff |
  <>\alzapua
  \override Beam.positions = #'(2 . 2)
    \repeat unfold 4 {
      \tuplet 3/2 {
        a8\RHp
        <e' a\RHu\RHg>
        <e a\RHd>
      }
    }
    \tupletsOn |
  <a, e' a\RHu\RHm>1 \bar "|."
}

\score {
  \new StaffGroup <<
    \context Staff = "part" {
      \clef "G_8"
      \part
    }
    \context TabStaff {
      \part
    }
  >>
  \layout {
    ragged-right = ##t
  }
}