4 CALL FOR HACKERS: LilyPond, the Music Typesetter
6 [Sorry if this is a bit off-topic; I want to announce this software to
7 small crowd, because it is still test-stage]
11 this is to announce the availability of the first public release
12 (v0.1) of my music typesetter.
16 Technically it is a preprocessor which generates TeX
17 (or LaTeX) output which contains information to typeset a musical
18 score. Practically it is a typesetter, which only uses TeX as an
19 output medium. (this is handy because there exist music fonts for TeX)
21 As a bonus, you can also output a MIDI file of what you typed.
25 The input is a script file (example appended) which is read. The
26 script file is a "music definition", ie, you type the melody as if it
29 LilyPond interprets this melody and generates appropriate output items
30 (balls, stems, beams), and calculates where they should be put. Then
31 it outputs a TeX file. Warning: this said calculations is *slow* (a full
32 page of music typically takes 1 minute on my 486/66)
34 WHY IS THIS A TEST VERSION
36 There a lot of advanced features (grace notes, piano staffs) which are
37 VapourFeatures (tm). We're not sure about the language. It may change;
38 having a large user base is a burden then.
40 WHY A CALL FOR HACKERS
42 Currently, the development team has three people. I'd this project to
43 have more people working on it (there is a lot of work to be done) I
44 think this program is pretty original, so join in if you know anything
45 about music and computers!
47 As an aside, I really like the anarchist approach of linux development.
51 LilyPond is written in Gnu C++, and it is (if I say so myself) written
52 very cleanly (Lots of classes, lots of comments, small files/small
53 functions) and with extensions in mind.
55 - Coding. For this time, there won't any biggish (global)
56 source hackings. There are a lot of small projects which could use
59 - Some TeX hacking. I know little about TeX
61 - Documentation. I don't have time for this
65 You can download it at:
67 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond
69 or visit the incredibly lousy webpage at:
71 http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html
76 % twinkle twinkle little star
79 c c | g g | a a | g g |
80 f f | e e | d d8.( e16 | )c2 |
82 g g | f f | e e | d d |
83 g g | f f | e( e8. f16 | e )d |
85 c c | g g | a a | g g |
86 f f | e e | d d8.( e16 | )c2
93 When the bla- zing sun is gone,2
94 When he no- thing shines up- on,2
95 Then you show your lit- tle light,2
96 Twin- kle, twin- kle, all the night.2
97 Twin- kle, twin- kle, lit- tle star,2
98 How I won- der what you are!2
102 english_staf = staff {
108 staff { melodic music { melody } }
109 staff { english_staf }