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5.15.10 Hiding staves

In orchestral scores, staff lines that only have rests are usually removed. This saves some space. This style is called `French Score'. For Lyrics (lilypond-internals) , ChordNames (lilypond-internals) and FiguredBass (lilypond-internals) , this is switched on by default. When the lines of these contexts turn out empty after the line-breaking process, they are removed.

For normal staves, a specialized Staff (lilypond-internals) context is available, which does the same: staves containing nothing (or only multi-measure rests) are removed. The context definition is stored in \RemoveEmptyStaffContext variable. Observe how the second staff in this example disappears in the second line

     \layout {
       \context { \RemoveEmptyStaffContext }
     }
     
     {
       \relative c' <<
         \new Staff { e4 f g a \break c1 }
         \new Staff { c4 d e f \break R1 }
       >>
     }

[image of music]

The first system shows all staves in full. If empty staves should be removed from the first system too, set remove-first to false in RemoveEmptyVerticalGroup (lilypond-internals) .

Another application is making ossia sections, i.e., alternative melodies on a separate piece of staff, with help of a Frenched staff. See input/test/ossia.ly for an example.

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