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>
62 add F<DIRECTORY> to the search path for input files.
68 This is an overview of the features that GNU LilyPond supports. For
69 details on how to use them, you should consult mudela(5)
75 ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse),
76 customizable notenames, customizable fontset
80 MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.
84 MIDI to Mudela conversion through the mi2mu program.
88 Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have a different meters.
92 multiple stafftypes (melodic, rhythmic) [broken from pl28 on]
96 beams, slurs, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text), triplets,
97 general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics, transposition
98 dynamics (both absolute and hairpin style)
102 multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared
103 between voices. Up to four voices is handled cleanly.
107 multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to
112 clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars
116 =head1 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>
126 Please consult the documentation file AUTHORS for more detailed
127 information, and small contributions.
133 Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@stack.nl>, http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen
139 Jan Nieuwenhuizen <jan@digicash.com>, http://www.digicash.com/~jan.
141 Context errors, Lyrics, mi2mu, MIDI stuff, make structure, bits of
142 FlowerLib, general comments, Mudela design.
146 Your name could be here! If you want to help, then take a look at the
147 SMALLISH PROJECTS section of in the file F<TODO>. Some do not involve
152 At this time, GNU LilyPond output looks nice, but is not of production
153 quality. If you're not discouraged; this is what I type in my xterm:
155 lilypond someinput.ly
159 This is what the output looks like over here:
161 hw:~/musix/spacer$ GNU LilyPond 0.0.60 #8/FlowerLib 1.1.14 #2
162 Parsing ... [./input/kortjakje.ly[lots of stuff]]
163 Setting up requests...Processing requests ...[8][16][24][25]
164 Preprocessing elements...
165 Calculating column positions ... [3][7][12][16][20][25]
166 Postprocessing elements...
167 TeX output to lelie.tex ...
169 hw:~/musix/spacer$ tex lelie
170 This is TeX, Version 3.14159 (C version 6.1)
172 Hyphenation patterns for english, dutch, german, loaded.
173 (/home/hw/lib/texmf/tex/lilypond/lilyponddefs.tex) [1] )
174 Output written on lelie.dvi (1 page, 8944 bytes).
175 Transcript written on lelie.log.
177 hw:~/musix/spacer$ xdvi lelie&
180 Check out the input files, some of them have comments
186 There is an extensive list of todoes and bugs. See F<TODO>. In
187 general, try to find out
193 if the bug has been fixed in a newer release.
197 if the bug has been found earlier, consult F<TODO>
201 where the bug comes from: if GNU LilyPond bombs out, then please
202 recompile using with debugging info turned on, and send a copy of the
203 input which causes the error and a gdb stacktrace of the crash. It
204 also helps if you can print the values of the objects. So if your
208 #0 Interval::operator+= (this=0x11fffec60..)
209 at ../flower/interval.hh:50
210 #1 0x12005195c in Item::width (this=0x14008a680) at src/item.cc:39
211 #2 0x12008fdbc in itemlist_width (its=0x11fffed58 ..
215 Than it would help if you send a dump of the Interval and the Item
216 (use: C<print *this> or use GNU LilyPond C<print()> methods).
220 Bug reports should be directed to
221 bug-gnu-music@vuse.vanderbilt.edu. In any case, they should contain a
222 description of the problem, an small input file which reproduces it
223 (if applicable), lilypond version and a description of the platform.
232 The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It
233 includes files from the directory F<init/>.
239 B<LILYINCLUDE> an (one) additional directory for finding lilypond data.
249 On technical details of LilyPond
257 Goals of the GNU LilyPond project.
261 The GNU LilyPond FAQ list
267 The GNU Music project. GNU LilyPond is part of the GNU Music
268 project. For more information on the GNU Music project,
270 =item http://www.stack.nl/~hanwen/lilypond/index.html
272 GNU LilyPond has her own webpage at
273 This webpage contains
274 the MIDI, GIF and PS files for some standard music files. It also has
275 the complete LilyPond documentation
281 updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at:
282 ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond.
284 For programs which part of the GNU music project, the following mailing list
290 =item info-gnu-music@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
292 For information on the GNU Music project, to subscribe: send mail with
293 subject "subscribe" to info-gnu-music-request@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
295 =item help-gnu-music@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
297 For help with programs from the GNU music project. To subscribe: send
298 mail with subject "subscribe" to
299 help-gnu-music-request@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
301 =item bug-gnu-music@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
303 If you have bugreports, you should send them to this list. If you want
304 to read all bugreports, you should subscribe to this list. To
305 subscribe: send mail with subject "subscribe" to
306 bug-gnu-music-request@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
308 =item gnu-music-discuss@vuse.vanderbilt.edu,
310 For discussions concerning the GNU Music project, to subscribe: send
311 mail with subject "subscribe" to
312 gnu-music-discuss-request@vuse.vanderbilt.edu,
318 GNU LilyPond has no connection with the music package Rosegarden, other
319 than the names being similar :-)
323 (for a detailed changelog, see F<NEWS>)
325 GNU LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane
326 MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen
327 wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my
328 attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of
329 easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some
330 code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken
331 to be repaired. It was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about
332 the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started
333 with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally
336 After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the
337 horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did
338 not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly
339 added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year
340 later later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I
341 announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some
342 technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times.
343 Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded
344 until it had doubled in size (pl 23).