3 LilyPond - a music typesetter
7 lilypond [options] [inputfiles]
11 Technically LilyPond is a preprocessor which generates TeX
12 (or LaTeX) output which contains information to typeset a musical
13 score. Practically it is a typesetter, which only uses TeX as an
14 output medium. (this is handy because there exist music fonts for TeX)
16 As a bonus, you can also output a MIDI file of what you typed.
18 It translates script files (mudela files or F<*.ly>'s) into TeX input.
19 Typesetting music is a complex task, whereas the message that printed
20 music conveys is usually a simple one. LilyPond is a try at providing
21 a simple interface for setting music.
28 =item B<-I,--include>=F<FILE>,
30 add F<FILE> to the search path for input files.
39 Turn debugging info. LilyPond will read the file F<.dstreamrc>, which
40 tells for what functions and classes may produce copious debugging
43 =item B<-w,--warranty>,
45 Show the warranty with which LilyPond comes. (It comes with B<NO WARRANTY>!)
47 =item B<-o,--output=>F<FILE>,
49 Set the default output file to F<FILE>.
53 Show a summary of usage
55 =item B<-i,--init=>F<FILE>
57 set init file to F<FILE> (default: F<symbol.ini>)
59 =item B<--include, -I>=F<DIRECTORY>
60 add F<DIRECTORY> to the search path for input files.
70 ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse),
71 customizable notenames, customizable fontset
75 MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.
79 MIDI to Mudela conversion through the mi2mu program.
83 Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have a different meters.
87 multiple stafftypes (melodic, rhythmic) [broken from pl28 on]
91 beams, slurs, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text), triplets,
92 general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics, transposition
96 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
97 between voices. (well, more than 2 voices won't look pretty --yet.)
101 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
106 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
110 =head1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
112 LilyPond was written with some considerations in mind:
118 Describing a well-defined language for defining music. We call
119 this language (rather arrogantly) The Musical Definition Language
120 (mudela for short). LilyPond reads a mudela sourcefile and outputs a
125 We want to provide an easy-to-use interface for typesetting music in
126 its broadest sense. This interface should be intuitive from a musical
127 point of view. By broadest sense we mean: it is designed for music
128 printed left to right in staffs, using notes to designate rythm and
133 LilyPond uses MusiXTeX fonts and TeX for its output. This is not a key
134 issue: in a future version, LilyPond might bypass TeX, but at the moment
135 TeX is very convenient for producing output.
139 Generate high-quality output. Ideally it should be of a professional
140 quality. We'd like to render Herbert Chlapiks words, "Fine music
141 setting is not possible without a knowledgeable printer," untrue.
145 LilyPond does not display notes directly, nor will it be rehacked to be
146 used interactively. LilyPond writes output to a file. It will not be
147 extended to play music, or to recognize music.
151 LilyPond is intended to run on Unix platforms, but it should
152 be portable to any platform which can run TeX and the GNU tools
156 LilyPond is free. Commercial windows packages for setting music are
157 abundant. Free musicprinting software is scarce.
161 LilyPond is written in GNU C++. It will not be downgraded/ported to fit
167 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
169 LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. LilyPond is
170 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
171 License. LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
172 LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
173 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
181 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, Main author
185 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, Context errors, Lyrics,
186 mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of FlowerLib, general
187 comments, Mudela design.
191 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
195 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
196 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
201 At this time, LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
202 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
204 lilypond someinput.ly
208 This is what the output looks like over here:
210 LilyPond 0.0.40 #0/FlowerLib 1.1.7 #2. Compile: Mar 11 1997, 22:58:47 (g++ 2.7.2)
211 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dynamic.ini][./init//dutch.ini][./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
212 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
214 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
216 TeX output to lelie.out ...
217 midi output to lelie.midi ...
219 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
220 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
222 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
223 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
224 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
225 Transcript written on test.log.
227 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
230 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
235 If LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
236 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
237 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
238 of the objects. So if your trace is
241 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
242 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
243 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
244 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
248 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
249 (use: C<print *this> or use LilyPond C<print()> methods).
251 This is a beta version of LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
252 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
254 LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
255 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
263 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
264 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
270 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
271 among others: lilygut, lilyinput, error, faq,
275 LilyPond has no connection with the music package RoseGarden, other
276 than the names being similar :-)
280 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
282 LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
283 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
284 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
285 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
286 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
287 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
288 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
289 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
290 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
293 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
294 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
295 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
296 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
297 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
298 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
299 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
300 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
301 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).