Hello, I'm a musician (cellist, arranger, composer), long time user of music writing applications (like Encore, every Finale from 97 on, Sibelius, etc.) and I think that Lilypond is the best music typesetting application available, or at least considering the ones I know. I'd like to share with you what I consider is the key question around why Lilypond is not so widely used as it deserves to be. Please don't consider this a critisism in the bad sense, but I think that Lilypond is so close to being THE perfect application for writing music that I don't lose anything sharing this with you and so much can be gained. I'm not a developer but what is called a "skilled user" so take this into account. I believe that if I have to copy a score, I wouldn't hesitate in using Lilypond, because the final output is extremely good. But I do hesitate if I have to arrange or compose.
I think that the main obstacle for the common musician trying to write some music in Lilypond is that music develops simultaneously in the horizontal and vertical level (I read very interesting opinions around this issue in this forum). So the paradigm of writing music only horizontally is not so valid as is for TEX users, for instance, because in music things are happening at the same time (in a document, a letter, a math paper, arguments are developed sequentially). So if I have to create something in music, I must be able to see what is happening at the same time, i.e. if I'm typing into a staff, I should be able to see what is in the others staffs that sound at the same time. I think Lilypond already does the most difficult thing: produces a beautiful output. That's the most important thing. I think that some work by some developers could be done towards making easier for the musician to compose or to arrange in Lilypond, yet alone transcribe. This what happens to me. When I write something in Lilypond I write 'round 20 bars of one staff, compile it, open the pdf viewer, check what I wrote and return to the editor to continue writing. I think that the (text) keyboard input is the best way to write music and that's fine. What is so tiring is the compilation (this is not the right word I think, but you understand)-change of application-check-return sequence. Why I have to do this? Because I need to see what's happening in the others staffs, what's happening at the same time! Besides, Lilypond lasts 7 seconds to compile (perfectly) three pages of music to the utmost detail. I'd like to know if some "helper" could be developed so that can show to a certain extent what's going on. I don't consider this a GUI or something, because I don't pretend to do anything by the mouse or whatever. I only want to see what I am typing. I checked the existing projects around Lilypond (denemo, noteedit, rosegarden, etc.) but they aim to prevent the user write in Lilypond directly. That's not what I think. So, I foresee this fictional application as follows. A text editor (fulfilled with some Lilypond-command help in the way lilypondtool does) which at some moment, by pressing a certain key, shows a sketch, an image of the score at the point I'm writing. This image doesn't need to be as perfect as the final output. I don't know how much of the processing time of Lilypond could be saved by this, but I think this is always preferable to the compile-pdf viewer-etc. sequence. All the same, the final polish will have to be made compilling the PDF. I know Lilypond already have a PNG export command, so I think, and that's why I'm writing, that most of the tools are already there. So that's why I believe that this fictional application should be developed inside the Lilypond project. Otherwise, some other will get the prize when almost all the work (specially the most difficult one) is already done. Some improvements I foresee are: - some capability to clicking somewhere on the image and the cursor going to the selected place (some like the PDF referenced files that Lilypond already does) - some capability to play MIDI output around the place selected - even, some capability to input notes through a MIDI keyboard, converting MIDI events in text output I hope this can be a great project for some developers with spare time who want to help the musicians community. With these functions, I think I'll never use finale or sibelius again, and the revenues of the companies which develop them will fall dramatically. If someone is interested in my experience as a musician using computer typesetting tools for developing something like this, please don't hesitate to contact me at fsarud at [(yahoo) or (gmail)] dot com. Again, please don't consider this a destructuve critisism but a constructive one. I love Lilypond! Regards, Federico Buenos Aires- Argentina. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Towards-something-like-a-%22helper%22-to-write-in-Lilypond-tp18163705p18163705.html Sent from the Gnu - Lilypond - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
