How to make unpitched percussion and a pitched instrument share a staff in LilyPond?

Question

For parts where the percussionist switches from vibraphone to maracas, for example, is there a way to combine the two on the same staff? IIRC, LilyPond treats normal staves and percussion staffs completely separately.

Answer 1

I fear the only thing you can try is to just use a pitched staff for the maracas. You can adjust the visibility of accidentals and the line count of the system with overrides.

I am not fully sure, how your score will look in the end, but perhaps you could start like this:

\version "2.18.2"

startMaracas = {
  \stopStaff
  \override Staff.StaffSymbol.line-count = #1
  \override Staff.Accidental.stencil = ##f
  \override NoteHead.style = #'cross
  \startStaff
  \once \override Staff.BarLine.bar-extent = #'(-2 . 2)
}

endMaracas = {
  \stopStaff
  \revert Staff.StaffSymbol.line-count
  \revert Staff.Accidental.stencil
  \revert NoteHead.style
  \startStaff
}

\score {
  <<
  \new Staff {
    c'4^\markup{ "Vibraphone" } d' e' f' 
    c'4 d' e' f' 
    \startMaracas 
    bes'4^\markup{ "Maracas" } bes' bes' bes'
    bes'4 bes' bes' bes'
    \endMaracas 
    c'4^\markup{ "Vibraphone" } d' e' f' 
    c'4 d' e' f' 
  } 
  >>
}

Rendering as:

---

You can add the following function to your code if you want to use \changeInstrument "maracas" or \changeInstrument "somethingelse" instead of the defined macros:

changeInstrument = #(define-music-function (parser location instrument) (string?)
  (if (equal? instrument "maracas") 
    #{ \startMaracas #}
    #{ \endMaracas #} ) 
  )