Multiple voices (divisi) in one part

Question

In LilyPond, how do you produce results like this? I want to go from a regular section to divisi, but I am unable to figure it out.

I attempted to use \parallelMusic and \new StaffGroup, but those basically created a new time signature and I had to set the key again. Additionally, the aesthetics were strange.

How can I do something that will produce the same results as something like this?

Answer 1

One possibility is to typeset that music using two different parts. Then, you specify \RemoveEmptyStaves to hide the lower voice for the first few measures. If it's the opening measures you're hiding, you also need to override some \Score presets. Input into their correct \contexts, the necessary code will be:

\version "2.18.2"

sop = \relative c'' {
  c8 e g e c e g e |
  c e g e c e g e |
  c e g e c e g e |
  c e g e c e g e |
  c e g e c e g e |
  c e g e c e g e |
}

alt = \relative c'' {
  R1 |
  R |
  R |
  R |
  R |
  c2 e4 g |
}

\layout {
  \context { 
    \Staff \RemoveEmptyStaves 
  }
  \context {
    \Score
    \override VerticalAxisGroup.remove-first = ##t
  }
}

\score{
  \context StaffGroup <<
    \sop
    \alt
  >>
}

See more here at the LilyPond Snippet Repository.

Answer 2

Googling "lilypond multiple voices" could've helped ;) Depending on what you want to do exactly there's multiple options: http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/multiple-voices

For longer passages it would be: (example from the guide)

\new Staff <<
  \new Voice = "first"
    { \voiceOne r8 r16 g e8. f16 g8[ c,] f e16 d }
  \new Voice= "second"
    { \voiceTwo d16 c d8~ d16 b c8~ c16 b c8~ c16 b8. }
>>

I.e. you simply need to explicitly declare the separate voices