Appreciation / financial support

[James Harkins]

Following up on the appreciation another user expressed for Lilypond's power -- 
I really have to echo the sentiment. I'm sure I've mentioned before that my 
current project is a piece for sheng and computer. The sheng is a Chinese 
"mouth organ" (the Thai khaen is another type of mouth organ). Like the guitar, 
it's a polyphonic instrument and usually notated on one staff[1] -- with all 
the challenges of (classical) guitar notation.

I'm attaching a couple of samples of today's typesetting work. The first is 
pretty well marked up. The second is mostly just the notes for now (needs 
articulation, dynamics and some adjustments of tie curves -- later). As in 
earlier work on this piece, it's kind of shocking how little tweaking I have to 
do, even for moderately complex notation.

Really, it blows me away. It's insane that notation software should be so 
smart. The LOMUS award is absolutely well-deserved. Many, many thanks and 
congratulations to the developers.

Related: I can't say I read the list very closely, so somehow I overlooked the 
fact before that David K.'s livelihood comes from working on Lilypond. I had 
assumed Lilypond was almost completely a volunteer effort (like SuperCollider, 
for which I contribute some code, bug fixes and documentation when I can), so I 
hadn't taken seriously the idea of supporting Lilypond financially. The recent 
thread changes my mind about that. I can't do it immediately for reasons I 
don't need to discuss, but after I get back to the US for summer holiday, I can 
make a donation on the order of a few years' worth of "Finale tax" (yearly 
$100-$120 US upgrade fee).

I'd urge other users to think in similar terms. If Lilypond is more valuable to 
you than Finale or Sibelius: How much do those packages cost? Does a $10-$15 
donation match the value you get out of Lilypond? My contribution may be a 
small amount of what David needs, but... if I can put that kind of value on 
Lilypond, maybe you can too.

hjh

[1] http://christopheradler.com/khaen-for-composers.pdf


--
James Harkins /// dewdrop world
address@hidden
http://www.dewdrop-world.net

"Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet has yet chanted,
Sing me the universal."  -- Whitman

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