### 2.17 Single staff polyphony

When different melodic lines are combined on a single staff they are printed as polyphonic voices: each voice has its own stems, slurs and beams, and the top voice has the stems up, while the bottom voice has them down.

Entering such parts is done by entering each voice as a sequence (with `{ .. }`), and combining those simultaneously, separating the voices with `\\`

>          << { a4 g2 f4~ f4 } \\
>             { r4 g4 f2  f4 } >>

For polyphonic music typesetting, spacer rests can also be convenient: these are rests that do not print. It is useful for filling up voices that temporarily do not play. Here is the same example with a spacer rest instead of a normal rest

Again, these expressions can be nested arbitrarily

More features of polyphonic typesetting in the notation manual in Polyphony.

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