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
93 dynamics (both absolute and hairpin style)
97 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
98 between voices. (well, more than 2 voices won't look pretty --yet.)
102 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
107 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
111 =head1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
113 LilyPond was written with some considerations in mind:
119 Describing a well-defined language for defining music. We call
120 this language (rather arrogantly) The Musical Definition Language
121 (mudela for short). LilyPond reads a mudela sourcefile and outputs a
126 We want to provide an easy-to-use interface for typesetting music in
127 its broadest sense. This interface should be intuitive from a musical
128 point of view. By broadest sense we mean: it is designed for music
129 printed left to right in staffs, using notes to designate rythm and
134 LilyPond uses MusiXTeX fonts and TeX for its output. This is not a key
135 issue: in a future version, LilyPond might bypass TeX, but at the moment
136 TeX is very convenient for producing output.
140 Generate high-quality output. Ideally it should be of a professional
141 quality. We'd like to render Herbert Chlapiks words, "Fine music
142 setting is not possible without a knowledgeable printer," untrue.
146 LilyPond does not display notes directly, nor will it be rehacked to be
147 used interactively. LilyPond writes output to a file. It will not be
148 extended to play music, or to recognize music.
152 LilyPond is intended to run on Unix platforms, but it should
153 be portable to any platform which can run TeX and the GNU tools
157 LilyPond is free. Commercial windows packages for setting music are
158 abundant. Free musicprinting software is scarce.
162 LilyPond is written in GNU C++. It will not be downgraded/ported to fit
168 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
170 LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. LilyPond is
171 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
172 License. LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
173 LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
174 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
182 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, Main author
186 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, Context errors, Lyrics,
187 mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of FlowerLib, general
188 comments, Mudela design.
192 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
196 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
197 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
202 At this time, LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
203 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
205 lilypond someinput.ly
209 This is what the output looks like over here:
211 LilyPond 0.0.40 #0/FlowerLib 1.1.7 #2. Compile: Mar 11 1997, 22:58:47 (g++ 2.7.2)
212 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dynamic.ini][./init//dutch.ini]
213 [./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
214 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
216 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
218 TeX output to lelie.out ...
219 midi output to lelie.midi ...
221 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
222 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
224 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
225 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
226 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
227 Transcript written on test.log.
229 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
232 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
237 If LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
238 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
239 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
240 of the objects. So if your trace is
243 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
244 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
245 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
246 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
250 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
251 (use: C<print *this> or use LilyPond C<print()> methods).
253 This is a beta version of LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
254 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
256 LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
257 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
265 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
266 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
272 B<LILYINCLUDE> an (one) additional directory for finding lilypond data.
278 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
279 among others: lilygut, error, faq,
281 http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html
285 LilyPond has no connection with the music package RoseGarden, other
286 than the names being similar :-)
290 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
292 LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
293 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
294 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
295 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
296 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
297 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
298 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
299 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
300 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
303 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
304 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
305 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
306 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
307 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
308 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
309 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
310 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
311 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).