3/16/2023 0 Comments Two line arranger lilypond![]() ![]() While intricate, complicated situations are probably always going to require a bit of finagling, for run-of-the-mill notational situations, I often don’t have to make any adjustments whatsoever to the default output. ![]() The out-of-the-box notational quality is simply superb. To be perfectly honest, this is the biggest reason for me to use LilyPond. In this way it’s not really code in the intense programmer sense of the word - you don’t have to understand for loops or if-then constructions for the most part, you can think like a musician and you’ll be fine.) I’m not going to insert the complete text of the learning manual here, but the “r” for rests and note names for notes (the -is suffix denotes a sharp) should likewise be pretty intuitive. Leaving aside the various “\set”s and “\override”s (which, cleverly, set and override various settings), you’ll start to see things like “\clef bass” and “\time 2/4”, which are hopefully not mysterious. (If you take a closer look at the snippet posted above, you can probably start to make intuitive sense of it. The same thing is true of LilyPond notation, and it’s much easier to get your head around to boot! ![]() Imagine, if you will, that you had no knowledge of music notation whatsoever and someone sprang this page from the score to Mahler’s third symphony on you:Ĭhaos! Confusion! What is going on*? And yet, once you know Western music notation, this page is actually pretty simple to understand - many of you can probably tell the exact moment in the piece that this page corresponds to with very little effort. Then again, if you know how to read Western music notation, you’ve already come to grips with a far more daunting system of abstract musical representation. And I’m not going to lie, LilyPond definitely has a learning curve - it’s not a program where you can open it up and start clicking away you kind of have to read the learning manual before you begin. Unlike the more popular What You See Is What You Get programs (like Sibelius and Finale) where you make the output look pretty without being able to tell exactly what the computer thinks is going on (thus often leading to problems when you need to change things down the line), with a program like this, you tell the computer what’s going on (”OK, computer, I need these notes in these rhythms … ”) and then the computer takes care of the fussy details of making it look nice on the page. This, my friends, is a What You See Is What You Mean program. This isn’t music! This is code! Just what kind of a music notation program is this? And then I pull up a screen that looks something like this: The first thing that usually happens when I start gassing on about LilyPond and someone is intrigued is that they ask to see it in action. But this is my blog, and notation software is in the air, so today I’m clambering up on my soapbox and opening up about this program that I love so much. I have kind of an Overwhelming Number of Feelings about LilyPond, but normally I try to keep my proselytizing on a pretty tight leash, because let’s be real: No one wants that in the middle of a seminar on how to write for wind quintet. If you’ve ever spent time in a composition seminar with me, at one point you’ve probably run into the fact that I use an entirely different notation from the two mentioned above. They have it pretty well covered between them, so take that as background for what I really want to talk about today. The Sibelius Blog has a good run-down of the (scanty) new features and (expensive) new licensing scheme, and Bill Holab has a piece over at New Music Box that gives an overview of the history of computer engraving programs and considers the question of whether the update is worth it at more length. No, not the lost last symphony of the Finnish master, but rather the most recent update to one of the two most popular music notation programs (the other being Finale). ![]() If you’re a composer, or are friends with a bunch of composers, you’ve probably seen some buzz and hand-wringing over Sibelius 8. ![]()
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