It seems to me that cubic curves should be enough, providing you can join them in a
sequence of curves (composite Bézier curves), like all the vectoriel drawing software do
(Inkscape, InDesign, Scribus, LibreOffice Draw. Higher order Bézier would not give much
more flexibility.
One helpful thing would be to be able to draw the desired curve with a tool like Inkscape,
use the values than can be read directly from the property of the object to copy-paste
them into a Lilypond variable to create the desired slur.
Silvain
An example of the properties with 4 control points for 3 Bézier curves
m 18.315598,81.163238
c 0,0 38.046157,-45.868526 53.151148,-16.87908 10.089421,19.363581 -5.341884,27.903451
47.405074,25.498186 22.31512,-1.017572 48.8416,14.006046 48.8416,14.006046
Le 13.03.26 à 07:30, Kyle Baldwin a écrit :
Knute -
I think you're looking at more than third order Bezier. curve I found this in the
archive that is probably the way to do it in vanilla Lilypond.
https://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2016-09/msg00439.html
There also seemed to be some talk in the chain about making xth order curves available,
but the third order is hard coded into the code:
https://github.com/lilypond/lilypond/blob/38f1b21a9cadb9640f7d271980e47e32a2cbd1b3/lily/bezier.cc#L111
Even the graphic markup is limited to cubic curves.
-kwb
On Mar 12, 2026, at 3:47 PM, [email protected] wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Can't get a tricky slur correct (Knute Snortum)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:46:53 -0700
From: Knute Snortum <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Can't get a tricky slur correct
Message-ID:
<calmejxtkwwxnqiejnd03bsrdynny2tro7bwvqjuyoufr2qz...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Hello everyone,
I'm having a "how do I do that in LinyPond" moment because of a complex
slur I need to engrave (see first attachment). The closest I've gotten is
this (second attachment). The problem seems to be that there are three
"bends" in the curve but \shape can only make two. How would I do this in
LilyPond? (I've included the code used to make the second curve below in
case it's a helpful starting point.)
%%% Start
\version "2.24.4"
slurShapeA = \shape #'((0 . 0) (23 . -1) (-3 . 0) (0 . 0)) \etc
rightHand = \relative {
\partial 4 <c'' c'>4( |
<bes bes'>2. \once \override Stem.length = #11 <a a'>4) |
s2 s8 r q4
}
leftHandUpper = \relative {
\partial 4 s4 |
\voiceThree
\once \override Beam.positions = #'(4 . 6)
c,8-\slurShapeA ([ e c' e c' e, c a' |
\change Staff = "upper" \voiceFour c8 a' c e] c') s4. |
}
leftHandLower = \relative {
\partial 4 r4 |
\voiceTwo s2.. \once \hideNotes a8~ |
<e a e'>2.-> \oneVoice r4 |
}
leftHand = {
\clef bass
<<
\new Voice \leftHandUpper
\new Voice \leftHandLower
}
\score {
\new PianoStaff \with {
\override StaffGrouper.staff-staff-spacing.basic-distance = #10
} <<
\new Staff = "upper" \rightHand
\new Staff = "lower" \leftHand
}
%%% End
--
Knute Snortum
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