Re: Real-world usage of Lilypond

[Tim McNamara]

On Apr 9, 2009, at 1:38 AM, Wei-Wei Guo wrote:

> I don't know there are many different systems. I'm working on a  
> songbook
> for our family church, but I have little knowledge of music. So I  
> started
> learning music script about a month ago. Since it's difficult for  
> me to
> remember and understand those music symbols, I want to record those
> symbols and make learning notes in my reading notices system.  
> That's why
> I keep on asking about methods of inputing music symbols in several
> mailing list threads. Sorry for making those noises.

Well, you have to ask questions to learn and I have found this  
mailing list has been very patient with my stumbling along and asking  
questions with obvious answers.

Learning both music notation and LilyPond simultaneously is a  
daunting challenge.  My advice would be to first learn the basics of  
music notation: what the staves mean, time signatures, etc.  Without  
that knowledge it is very difficult to decide what to do with  
LilyPond.  Interesting but probably excessive information about music  
notation systems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_notation

European classical music notation, which is probably the most widely  
used method other than learning by ear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheet_music

> Now I kind of know how to input those symbols with \markup. But I  
> feel it
> is somehow inconvenience. I asked whether Lilypond has any  
> application on
> music textbook because I want to get some clues to some easier way of
> inputing symbols. It's seem not. Then I feel a little pity and  
> asked the
> question in previous mail.

LilyPond is designed for having complete control over the printed  
music, which means that the entry of the data is a bit cumbersome at  
times.  There are, for some operating systems, some GUI style  
frontends than can be used but there aren't any for my OS so I can't  
really talk about those.  I would imagine that those are designed to  
simplify the input.  There are text editors that have syntax modules  
for LilyPond which colors the text and makes it easier to lay things  
out and to find mistakes in the code (Emacs and, I think, jEdit are  
two examples).

There are basically two types of entry in LilyPond code.  One is the  
content (notes, rests, chords) and the other is the formatting (how  
the content is arranged and printed).  Learning to use LilyPond means  
learning the coding language, which is a steep learning curve.   
However, that means that within about a week or two of diligent study  
you can be producing useful sheet music.

> Sorry Tim, I don't understand what you said. Could you point me to  
> a link
> explaining those systems?

Well, there are multiple systems of music just in European world;  
they look mostly similar on the paper but use different terminology.   
The first link given above covers some of this and other non-European  
systems as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_notation

Other than for basic intellectual curiosity, I'd recommend just  
picking the one that is predominant in the area where you live and  
sticking with that.  The default in LilyPond is the Dutch system,  
IIRC (one of the main differences is that natural notes are input as  
c4, d4, e4 (for quarter notes), flat notes are input as ces4, des4,  
ees4 and sharp notes are input as cis4, dis4, eis4.  If, for example,  
you live in the US you might use the English terminology (c4, cf4,  
cs4 respectively for natural, flat and sharp).

The best place to start is the learning tutorial (lilypond- 
learning.pdf) which was included with the download package.  Then  
lilypond.pdf is the reference guide and lilypond-snippets.pdf offers  
specific coding to achieve specific printed output.

Since I use LilyPond to write jazz lead sheets, which are really  
pretty rudimentary, my expertise at using LilyPond is somewhat  
limited.  I can get a lead sheet written up in LilyPond in under an  
hour these days, and then can use the transposition function to make  
charts for the horn players in just a few seconds.  I can make lead  
sheets with lyrics for the singers in a few minutes (thanks to being  
able to find the lyrics to almost any standard online).  W00t!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet

I hope some of this helps!