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.
69 ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse),
70 customizable notenames, customizable fontset
73 MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.
76 MIDI to Mudela conversion through the mi2mu program.
79 Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have a different meters.
82 multiple stafftypes (melodic, rhythmic) [broken from pl28 on]
85 beams, slurs, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text),
86 triplets, general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics
89 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
90 between voices. (well, more than 2 voices won't look pretty --yet.)
93 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
97 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
101 =head1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
103 LilyPond was written with some considerations in mind:
108 Describing a well-defined language for defining music. We call
109 this language (rather arrogantly) The Musical Definition Language
110 (mudela for short). LilyPond reads a mudela sourcefile and outputs a
111 TeX file. This musical definition language should:
116 define the musical message of the writer as unambigiously as
120 be easily readable. (as compared to, say, MusixTeX input)
123 be writable in ASCII (with a simple texteditor).
127 At this time, the language isn't yet defined precisely. It is evolving as
128 LilyPond is getting more complex.
131 We want to provide an easy-to-use interface for typesetting music in
132 its broadest sense. This interface should be intuitive from a musical
133 point of view. By broadest sense we mean: it is designed for music
134 printed left to right in staffs, using notes to designate rythm and
138 LilyPond uses MusiXTeX fonts and TeX for its output. This is not a key
139 issue: in a future version, LilyPond might bypass TeX, but at the moment
140 TeX is very convenient for producing output.
143 Generate high-quality output. Ideally it should be of a professional
144 quality. We'd like to render Herbert Chlapiks words, "Fine music
145 setting is not possible without a knowledgeable printer," untrue.
148 LilyPond does not display notes directly, nor will it be rehacked to be
149 used interactively. LilyPond writes output to a file. It will not be
150 extended to play music, or to recognize music.
153 LilyPond is intended to run on Unix platforms, but it should
154 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.
161 LilyPond is written in GNU C++. It will not be downgraded/ported to fit
167 DISCLAIMER & COPYING POLICY
169 LilyPond is copyright 1996,97 by its authors. LilyPond is
170 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
171 License. LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever.
172 LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult
173 the GNU General Public License, which is in the file F<COPYING>
180 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, Main author
183 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, Context errors, Lyrics,
184 mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of FlowerLib, general
188 Mats Bengtsson <matsb@s3.kth.se>, bugfixes, testing, general comments.
192 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
193 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
198 At this time, LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
199 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
201 lilypond someinput.ly
205 This is what the output looks like over here:
207 LilyPond 0.0.40 #0/FlowerLib 1.1.7 #2. Compile: Mar 11 1997, 22:58:47 (g++ 2.7.2)
208 Parsing ... [./init//symbol.ini[./init//dynamic.ini][./init//dutch.ini][./init//script.ini][./init//table_sixteen.ini]][./input/wohltemperirt.ly]
209 Setting up music ...Processing music ............
211 Calculating column positions ... [3][6][9]
213 TeX output to lelie.out ...
214 midi output to lelie.midi ...
216 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex test
217 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
219 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, loaded.
220 (lilyponddefs.tex) (lelie.uit) [1] [2] )
221 Output written on test.dvi (2 pages, 8420 bytes).
222 Transcript written on test.log.
224 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi test&
227 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
232 If LilyPond bombs out, then please recompile using with debugging info
233 turned on, and send a copy of the input which causes the error and a
234 gdb stacktrace of the crash. It also helps if you can print the values
235 of the objects. So if your trace is
238 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
239 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
240 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
241 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
245 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
246 (use: C<print *this> or use LilyPond C<print()> methods).
248 This is a beta version of LilyPond. Please send your helpful comments
249 and patches to me (see AUTHORS section)
251 LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
252 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
260 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
261 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
267 There are some documentation files in the subdirectory F<Documentation/>,
268 among others: lilygut, lilyinput, error, faq,
272 LilyPond has no connection with the music package RoseGarden, other
273 than the names being similar :-)
277 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
279 LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
280 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
281 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
282 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
283 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
284 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
285 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
286 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
287 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
290 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
291 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
292 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
293 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
294 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
295 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
296 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
297 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
298 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).