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 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 GNU 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). GNU 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 GNU LilyPond uses MusiXTeX fonts and TeX for its output. This is not a key
135 issue: in a future version, GNU 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 GNU LilyPond does not display notes directly, nor will it be rehacked to be
147 used interactively. GNU LilyPond writes output to a file. It will not be
148 extended to play music, or to recognize music.
152 GNU 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 GNU LilyPond is free. Commercial windows packages for setting music are
158 abundant. Free musicprinting software is scarce.
162 GNU LilyPond is written in GNU C++. It will not be downgraded/ported to fit
168 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
170 GNU LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. GNU LilyPond is
171 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
172 License. GNU LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
173 GNU 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>, http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen
188 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, http://www.digicash.com/~jan.
190 Context errors, Lyrics, mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of
191 FlowerLib, general comments, Mudela design.
195 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
199 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
200 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
205 At this time, GNU LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
206 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
208 lilypond someinput.ly
212 This is what the output looks like over here:
214 GNU LilyPond 0.0.40 #0/FlowerLib 1.1.7 #2. Compile: Mar 11 1997, 22:58:47 (g++ 2.7.2)
215 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dynamic.ini][./init//dutch.ini]
216 [./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
217 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
219 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
221 TeX output to lelie.out ...
222 midi output to lelie.midi ...
224 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
225 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
227 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
228 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
229 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
230 Transcript written on test.log.
232 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
235 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
240 If GNU LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
241 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
242 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
243 of the objects. So if your trace is
246 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
247 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
248 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
249 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
253 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
254 (use: C<print *this> or use GNU LilyPond C<print()> methods).
256 This is a beta version of GNU LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
257 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
259 GNU LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
260 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
268 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
269 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
275 B<LILYINCLUDE> an (one) additional directory for finding lilypond data.
281 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
282 among others: lilygut, error, faq,
284 http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html
288 GNU LilyPond has no connection with the music package Rosegarden, other
289 than the names being similar :-)
293 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
295 GNU LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
296 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
297 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
298 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
299 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
300 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
301 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
302 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
303 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
306 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
307 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
308 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
309 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
310 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
311 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
312 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
313 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
314 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).