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.
130 Turn debugging info. LilyPond will read the file F<.dstreamrc>, which
131 tells for what functions and classes may produce copious debugging
134 =item B<-w,--warranty>,
136 Show the warranty with which LilyPond comes. (It comes with B<NO WARRANTY>!)
138 =item B<-o,--output=>F<FILE>,
140 Set the default output file to F<FILE>.
144 Show a summary of usage
146 =item B<-i,--init=>F<FILE>
148 set init file to F<FILE> (default: F<symbol.ini>)
150 =item B<--include, -I>=F<DIRECTORY>
151 add F<DIRECTORY> to the search path for input files.
156 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
158 LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. LilyPond is
159 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
160 License. LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
161 LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
162 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
166 For compilation you need.
171 Unix. LilyPond is known to run on Linux, AIX, Digital Unix and
172 Solaris (if you have the Cygnus WIN32 port of the GNU utils, it will
173 even work in Lose NT/95)
176 GNU C++ v2.7 or better, with libg++ installed. Version 2.7.2
177 or better recommended. I doubt if it will compile with AT&T CC.
183 Flex (2.5.1 or better)
189 The "Flower" library, which should be available from the same
190 source you got this from. The version of flower lib should match the
191 one which is found in the F<configure> script.
194 Perl. The Makefile uses Perl for trivial operations, and you
195 could tinker with it to use sed or awk.
199 LilyPond does use a lot of resources. For operation you need the following:
204 a fast computer (a full page of music typically takes 1 minute
205 on my 486/66, using the DEBUG compile. It's lot slower than most
206 MusiXTeX preprocessors)
212 The MusixTeX fonts. (I use version those found in MusixTeX
221 tar zxf flower-1.11.9.tar.gz
222 tar zxf lilypond-1.2.13.tar.gz
227 You probably want to edit Variables.make to tailor the compilation
228 flags. If you're not into debugging C++, then you should go for no
236 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, Main author
239 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, Context errors, Lyrics,
240 bits of FlowerLib, general comments.
243 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
247 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
248 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
253 At this time, LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
254 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
256 lilypond someinput.ly
260 This is what the output looks like over here:
262 LilyPond 0.0.pre32-3/FlowerLib 1.0.27. Compile: Feb 18 1997, 11:21:57 (g++ 2.7.2)
263 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dutch.ini][./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
264 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
266 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
268 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.555556)
269 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.588346)
270 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.523166)
271 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (0.571915)
272 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.555556)
273 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.588346)
274 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (-0.523166)
275 warning: slope_index(): beam steeper than 0.5 (0.571915)
276 output to lelie.out...
278 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
279 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
281 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
282 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
283 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
284 Transcript written on test.log.
286 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
289 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
294 If LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
295 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
296 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
297 of the objects. So if your trace is
300 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
301 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
302 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
303 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
307 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
308 (use: C<print *this> or use LilyPond C<print()> methods).
310 This is a beta version of LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
311 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
313 LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
314 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
322 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
323 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
329 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
330 among others: lilygut, lilyinput, error, faq,
334 LilyPond has no connection with the music package RoseGarden, other
335 than the names being similar :-)
339 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
341 LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
342 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
343 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
344 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
345 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
346 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
347 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
348 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
349 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
352 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
353 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
354 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
355 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
356 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
357 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
358 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
359 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
360 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).