Re: stem directions in music for voice and guitar

[David Kastrup]

address@hidden writes:

> Attached is the beginning of an arrangement for
> voice and guitar.  The guitar part is two part counterpoint
> in which I would like to control where the steps go up or
> down.
>
> (1) In the guitar part, even though I have \voiceOne marked with \stemUp
> and \voiceTwo marked with \stemDown, why do the stems go down
> in both voices?

Because there is only ever one voice.  To create new voices, you need to
write << ... \\ ... >> or explicitly \new Voice.  If you write << ... >>
that is just a way of rearranging the writing order in a single voice.
In this particular case, all of \voiceOne \stemUp \voiceTwo \stemDown
happen at the same musical time in the same voice.  \voiceTwo takes
effect, and \stemDown does nothing more since it is already implied in
\voiceTwo.

>     <<
>     \voiceOne
>     {
>      \stemUp
>       c'2     c'4
>       b2      a4
>       c'8 d'8 e'4 f'4
>       e'4 d'2
>     }
>     \voiceTwo
>     {
>      \stemDown
>       c2   c4
>       g2   c'4
>       r4   g'4  d'4
>       g'4.   fs'4.
>     }
>     >>


-- 
David Kastrup