3 lilypond - the GNU music typesetter
7 lilypond [options] [inputfiles]
11 Technically GNU 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. GNU 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. GNU 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 GNU LilyPond comes. (It comes with B<NO
48 =item B<-o,--output=>F<FILE>,
50 Set the default output file to F<FILE>.
54 Show a summary of usage
56 =item B<-i,--init=>F<FILE>
58 set init file to F<FILE> (default: F<symbol.ini>)
60 =item B<--include, -I>=F<DIRECTORY>
61 add F<DIRECTORY> to the search path for input files.
67 This is an overview of the features that GNU LilyPond supports. For
68 details on how to use them, you should consult mudela(5)
74 ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse),
75 customizable notenames, customizable fontset
79 MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.
83 MIDI to Mudela conversion through the mi2mu program.
87 Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have a different meters.
91 multiple stafftypes (melodic, rhythmic) [broken from pl28 on]
95 beams, slurs, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text), triplets,
96 general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics, transposition
97 dynamics (both absolute and hairpin style)
101 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
102 between voices. (well, more than 2 voices won't look pretty --yet.)
106 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
111 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
116 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
118 GNU LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. GNU LilyPond is
119 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
120 License. GNU LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
121 GNU LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
122 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
130 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen
136 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, http://www.digicash.com/~jan.
138 Context errors, Lyrics, mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of
139 FlowerLib, general comments, Mudela design.
143 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
147 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
148 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
153 At this time, GNU LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
154 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
156 lilypond someinput.ly
160 This is what the output looks like over here:
162 GNU LilyPond 0.0.40 #0/FlowerLib 1.1.7 #2. Compile: Mar 11 1997, 22:58:47 (g++ 2.7.2)
163 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dynamic.ini][./init//dutch.ini]
164 [./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
165 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
167 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
169 TeX output to lelie.out ...
170 midi output to lelie.midi ...
172 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
173 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
175 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
176 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
177 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
178 Transcript written on test.log.
180 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
183 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
188 If GNU LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
189 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
190 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
191 of the objects. So if your trace is
194 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
195 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
196 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
197 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
201 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
202 (use: C<print *this> or use GNU LilyPond C<print()> methods).
204 This is a beta version of GNU LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
205 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
207 GNU LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
208 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
217 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
218 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
224 B<LILYINCLUDE> an (one) additional directory for finding lilypond data.
232 On technical details of LilyPond
240 Goals of the GNU LilyPond project.
242 =item The GNU LilyPond FAQ list
246 GNU LilyPond has her own webpage at
247 http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html. This webpage contains
248 the MIDI, GIF and PS files for some standard music files. It also has
249 the complete LilyPond documentation
253 GNU LilyPond has no connection with the music package Rosegarden, other
254 than the names being similar :-)
258 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
260 GNU LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
261 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
262 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
263 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
264 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
265 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
266 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
267 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
268 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
271 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
272 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
273 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
274 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
275 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
276 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
277 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
278 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
279 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).