3 LilyPond - a music typesetter
7 lilypond [options] [inputfiles]
11 LilyPond typesets music. It translates script files (mudela files or
12 F<*.ly>'s) into TeX input. Typesetting music is a complex task,
13 whereas the message that printed music conveys is usually a simple
14 one. LilyPond is a try at providing a simple interface for setting
15 music. LilyPond has these features:
21 ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse),
22 customizable notenames, customizable fontset
25 MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.
28 Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have a different meters.
31 multiple stafftypes (melodic, rhythmic) [broken from pl28 on]
34 beams, slurs, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text),
35 triplets, general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics
38 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
39 between voices. (well, more than 2 voices won't look pretty --yet.)
42 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
46 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
50 =head1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
52 LilyPond was written with some considerations in mind:
57 Describing a well-defined language for defining music. We call
58 this language (rather arrogantly) The Musical Definition Language
59 (mudela for short). LilyPond reads a mudela sourcefile and outputs a
60 TeX file. This musical definition language should:
65 define the musical message of the writer as unambigiously as
69 be easily readable. (as compared to, say, MusixTeX input)
72 be writable in ASCII (with a simple texteditor).
76 At this time, the language isn't yet defined precisely. It is evolving as
77 LilyPond is getting more complex.
80 We want to provide an easy-to-use interface for typesetting music in
81 its broadest sense. This interface should be intuitive from a musical
82 point of view. By broadest sense we mean: it is designed for music
83 printed left to right in staffs, using notes to designate rythm and
87 LilyPond uses MusiXTeX fonts and TeX for its output. This is not a key
88 issue: in a future version, LilyPond might bypass TeX, but at the moment
89 TeX is very convenient for producing output.
92 Generate high-quality output. Ideally it should be of a professional
93 quality. We'd like to render Herbert Chlapiks words, "Fine music
94 setting is not possible without a knowledgeable printer," untrue.
97 LilyPond does not display notes directly, nor will it be rehacked to be
98 used interactively. LilyPond writes output to a file. It will not be
99 extended to play music, or to recognize music.
102 LilyPond is intended to run on Unix platforms, but it should
103 be portable to any platform which can run TeX and the GNU tools
106 LilyPond is free. Commercial windows packages for setting music are
107 abundant. Free musicprinting software is scarce.
110 LilyPond is written in GNU C++. It will not be downgraded/ported to fit
119 =item B<-I,--include>=F<FILE>,
121 add F<FILE> to the search path for input files.
125 Turn debugging info. LilyPond will read the file F<.dstreamrc>, which
126 tells for what functions and classes may produce copious debugging
129 =item B<-w,--warranty>,
131 Show the warranty with which LilyPond comes. (It comes with B<NO WARRANTY>!)
133 =item B<-o,--output=>F<FILE>,
135 Set the default output file to F<FILE>.
139 Show a summary of usage
141 =item B<-i,--init=>F<FILE>
143 set init file to F<FILE> (default: F<symbol.ini>)
145 =item B<--include, -I>=F<DIRECTORY>
146 add F<DIRECTORY> to the search path for input files.
151 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
153 LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. LilyPond is
154 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
155 License. LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
156 LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
157 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
161 For compilation you need.
166 Unix. LilyPond is known to run on Linux, AIX, Digital Unix and
167 Solaris (if you have the Cygnus WIN32 port of the GNU utils, it will
168 even work in Lose NT/95)
171 GNU C++ v2.7 or better, with libg++ installed. Version 2.7.2
172 or better recommended. I doubt if it will compile with AT&T CC.
178 Flex (2.5.1 or better)
184 The "Flower" library, which should be available from the same
185 source you got this from. The version of flower lib should match the
186 one which is found in the F<configure> script.
189 Perl. The Makefile uses Perl for trivial operations, and you
190 could tinker with it to use sed or awk.
194 LilyPond does use a lot of resources. For operation you need the following:
199 a fast computer (a full page of music typically takes 1 minute
200 on my 486/66, using the DEBUG compile. It's lot slower than most
201 MusiXTeX preprocessors)
207 The MusixTeX fonts. (I use version those found in MusixTeX
216 tar zxf flower-1.11.9.tar.gz
217 tar zxf lilypond-1.2.13.tar.gz
222 You might want to edit Variables.make to tailor the compilation flags.
223 why G++ >= 2.7? LilyPond & FlowerLib uses:
234 operator <?, operator >?
240 class Rational (libg++)
252 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, Main author
255 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, Context errors, Lyrics,
256 bits of FlowerLib, general comments.
259 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
263 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
264 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
269 At this time, LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
270 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
272 lilypond someinput.ly
276 This is what the output looks like over here:
278 LilyPond 0.0.pre32-3/FlowerLib 1.0.27. Compile: Feb 18 1997, 11:21:57 (g++ 2.7.2)
279 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dutch.ini][./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
280 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
282 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
284 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.555556)
285 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.588346)
286 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.523166)
287 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (0.571915)
288 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.555556)
289 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.588346)
290 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.523166)
291 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (0.571915)
292 output to lelie.out...
294 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
295 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
297 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
298 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
299 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
300 Transcript written on test.log.
302 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
305 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
310 If LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
311 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
312 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
313 of the objects. So if your trace is
316 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
317 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
318 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
319 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
323 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
324 (use: C<print *this> or use LilyPond C<print()> methods).
326 This is a beta version of LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
327 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
329 LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
330 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
338 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
339 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
345 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
346 among others: lilygut, lilyinput, error, faq,
350 LilyPond has no connection with the music package RoseGarden, other
351 than the names being similar :-)
355 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
357 LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
358 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
359 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
360 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
361 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
362 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
363 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
364 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
365 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
368 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
369 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
370 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
371 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
372 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
373 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
374 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
375 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
376 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).