How to start measure halfway?

Question

In my hymn, I need to start the first measure halfway through. It has a time of 3/4, but I have to insert two empty, non-showing eighth notes. How do I do that?

I've used o4 o4 c8[ d] below for the first measure, but lilypond does not like this. What's the right way?

Here's the line:

o4 o4 c8[ d] e4 e4 e8[ f] g4 g4 f8[ e] d4 d4 g8[ f] e2

Answer 1

For upbeats, there's a special command \partial available. In your case, you should notate a quarter partial:

\relative c' {
    \time 3/4
    \partial 4
    c8 d | e4 e4 e8 f | g4 g4 f8 e | d4 d4 g8 f | e2
}

This results in: