LilyPond(1)

NAME
LilyPond - the GNU Music Typesetter

SYNOPSIS
lilypond [OPTION]... [MUDELA-FILE]...

DESCRIPTION

LilyPond is the GNU Project music typesetter. This program can print beautiful sheet music from a music definition file. It can also play mechanical performances to a MIDI file. Features include multiple staffs, meters, clefs, keys, lyrics, versatile input language, cadenzas, beams, slurs, triplets, formatting scores, part extraction. It includes a nice font of musical symbols.

OPTIONS

-I,--include=FILE
    add FILE to the search path for input files.

-M,--midi
    This disables TeX output. If you have a \midi definition, it will do the midi output only.

-d,--dependencies
    Also output rules to be included in Makefile.

-D,--debug
    Turn debugging info on. GNU LilyPond reads the file .dstreamrc, which lists what functions and classes may produce copious debugging output.

-t,--test
    Switch on any experimental features. Not for general public use.

-w,--warranty
    Show the warranty with which GNU LilyPond comes. (It comes with NO WARRANTY!)

-o,--output=FILE
    Set the default output file to FILE.

-h,--help
    Show a summary of usage.

-i,--init=FILE
    Set init file to FILE (default: init.ly).

--include, -I=DIRECTORY
    Add DIRECTORY to the search path for input files.

--ignore-version, -V
    Make incompatible mudela version non-fatal.

--find-fourths, -Q
    Warn about melodic intervals larger than a fourth. Useful for converting absolute octave mode stuff to relative octaves.

FEATURES

This is an overview of the features that GNU LilyPond supports. For details on how to use them, you should consult the Mudela tutorial, which is included with the package.

o   ASCII script input, with identifiers (for music reuse), customizable notenames, customisable fontset.

o   MIDI output lets you check if you have entered the correct notes.

o   MIDI to Mudela conversion through the mi2mu program.

o   Multiple staffs in one score. Each staff can have different meters.

o   Beams, slurs, ties, chords, super/subscripts (accents and text) triplets, general n-plet (triplet, quadruplets, etc.), lyrics, transposition dynamics (both absolute and hairpin style).

o   Multiple voices within one staff; beams optionally shared between voices. Up to four voices is handled cleanly.

o   Multiple scores within one input file. Each score is output to a different file.

o   Clef changes, meter changes, cadenza-mode, key changes, repeat bars.

DISCLAIMER

GNU LilyPond is copyright 1996-1998 by its authors. GNU LilyPond is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. GNU LilyPond is provided without any warranty what so ever. GNU LilyPond may be freely distributed. For further information consult the GNU General Public License, from the file COPYING.

PROBLEMS

There is an extensive list of todoes and bugs. See TODO. If you have a problem you should try to find out

o   If the bug has been fixed in a newer release.

o   If the bug has been found earlier, consult TODO and BUGS.

If you have found a bug, then you should send a bugreport.

o   Send a copy of the input which causes the error.

o   Send a description of the platform you use.

o   Send a description of the LilyPond version you use (with compile/configure options please).

o   Send a description of the bug itself.

o   Send it to bug-gnu-music@gnu.org <bug-gnu-music@gnu.org> (you don't have to subscribe to this mailinglist).

FILES

init.ly
    The initialisation file with symbol tables etc. It includes files from the directory init/.

manspagesection(environment)

LILYINCLUDE
    additional directories for finding lilypond data. The format is like the format of PATH.

LANG
    selects the language for the warning messages of LilyPond.

BUGS

Lots of them. See TODO and BUGS

SEE ALSO

internals
    On technical details of LilyPond

mudela-man
    On the input format. This is a LilyPond-enhanced LaTeX document.

MANIFESTO
    Goals of the GNU LilyPond project.

FAQ The GNU LilyPond FAQ list

GNU LilyPond
    has her own webpage. This webpage contains the MIDI, GIF and PS files for some standard music files. It also has the complete LilyPond documentation

GNU LilyPond is updated very frequently, the latest version is always available at: ftp://pcnov095.win.tue.nl/pub/lilypond. This FTP site is mirrored at a number of sites; consult the project web pages for information about mirrors.

For programs which are part of the GNU music project, the following mailing list have been setup:

info-gnu-music@gnu.org <info-gnu-music@gnu.org>
    For information on the GNU Music project, to subscribe: send mail with subject "subscribe" to info-gnu-music-request@gnu.org <info-gnu-music-request@gnu.org>

help-gnu-music@gnu.org <help-gnu-music@gnu.org>
    For help with programs from the GNU music project. To subscribe: send mail with subject "subscribe" to help-gnu-music-request@gnu.org <help-gnu-music-request@gnu.org>

bug-gnu-music@gnu.org <bug-gnu-music@gnu.org>
    If you have bugreports, you should send them to this list. If you want to read all bugreports, you should subscribe to this list. To subscribe: send mail with subject "subscribe" to bug-gnu-music-request@gnu.org <bug-gnu-music-request@gnu.org>

gnu-music-discuss@gnu.org <gnu-music-discuss@gnu.org>
    For discussions concerning the GNU Music project, to subscribe: send mail with subject "subscribe" to gnu-music-discuss-request@gnu.org <gnu-music-discuss-request@gnu.org>

Announces of new versions will be sent to info-gnu-music and gnu-music-discuss.

REMARKS

GNU LilyPond has no connection with the music package Rosegarden, other than the names being similar (:-)

HISTORY

(for a detailed changelog, see NEWS)

GNU LilyPond's roots lie in MPP, a preprocessor to the rather arcane MusiXTeX macro package for TeX. A friend of mine, Jan Nieuwenhuizen wrote the first 44 versions (0.01 to 0.44), then his program caught my attention, and I was slowly sucked in to the interesting problem of easily producing beautifully printed music. I contributed some code. We soon realised that MPP's design was too fundamentally broken to be repaired, so it was decided to rewrite MPP. We debated a lot about the requirements to an inputformat (fall 1995). I sat down and started with a parser-first, bottom-up rewrite called mpp95 (which totally failed, obviously).

After long and hard thinking, I came up with an algorithm for the horizontal spacing of multiple staffs (april 1996) I coded it (and did not test it). After starting with this fundamental piece, I slowly added the stages which come before spacing, and after. A half year later, I had a first working version, (october 1996). I announced Patchlevel 0.0.7 (or 8) to the mutex list after asking some technical details on spacing; it was downloaded approximately 4 times. Then I got the hang of it, and in the subsequent two months, I coded until it had doubled in size (pl 23).

Most the other history is described in the NEWS file. The first large scale release (0.1) was done after approximately 78 patchlevels on August 1, 1997.

AUTHOR

Please consult the documentation file AUTHORS.txt for more detailed information, and small contributions.

o   Han-wen Nienhuys <hanwen@cs.uu.nl> http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen

o   Jan Nieuwenhuizen <janneke@gnu.org> http://www.xs4all.nl/~jantien