LilyPond - 2.10.33-1

I just installed Lilypond 2.10.8. It took something like 10 minutes to compile the test file the first time, although it was faster on subsequent attempts (about 1 minute). Will try 2.11.8 if problem persists.

While I'm writing, I thought I'd take a moment to comment on the quality of Lilypond's music engraving. I'm a professional copyist and composer; I've been using Finale for as long as it's existed. The last time I used Lilypond (version 2.4 or so), I found that there were things (can't recall what now) that were easy to do in Finale, but nearly impossible in Lilypond; the reverse was also true. My impression at the time was that Lilypond was very promising, and quite suitable for certain tasks, but that it was not quite ready to replace Finale. I look forward to seeing if that's still true...I sure would like to save the $100 a year I pay for Finale upgrades, and perhaps replace my iBook with a Linux laptop at some point. As it stands, while I can't get rid of Finale quite yet, Lilypond is an excellent free tool, and should be completely adequate for most uses.

Complaints about the lack of a GUI miss the point, I think. The Lilypond team has only worked on the file format and the rendering engine. It would be possible to make a graphical editor that saves Lilypond files; in fact, there have been a few attempts at this already. The last time I used Lilypond, I was using the command-line interface, and it was quite tedious to do the sort of precise positioning that I'm used to in Finale. But the current IDE seems to make that easier, particularly since the notes in the PDF file are linked to their spots in the source code.

One more thing: it bothers me that Lilypond is being marketed partly through inaccurate comparisons with Finale. Many of the complaints about Finale on the website are dead wrong -- the sample output showed collisions that, with the default settings, Finale would have automatically known to avoid (such as the F and flat sign in m. 13). And this was with Finale 2003...current version is now 2007, and there have been many enhancements along the way. Certainly Finale has its problems, but these are not insurmountable. The decisions of any notation program (including Lilypond) will need some tweaking to produce high-quality output. Software just isn't that smart yet (although Lilypond's default decisions are quite good).

This next remark is controversial and speculative, but I might even go so far as to say that until software can make 100% of the right decisions, there may be a benefit to having it not make 99% of the right decisions. After all, if 99% of the score looks fine, I have to look very carefully for that 1% that needs tweaking (and I may not bother if I'm in a hurry), whereas if 80% of the score looks fine, then I know beforehand that I'm going to have to make a final "tweaking pass" before considering the project done. YMMV.

And the G clef in the Feta font looks ugly and amateurish. I suppose I'll have to use a modified font if I want professional-level output.

Lilypond was started because programs such as Finale, Sibelius, or Overture by default produce a score layout that is well below publication quality. While the majority of musicians might be surprised to hear this, genuinely professional engravers know of the problems and they modify the score to meet their high standards. The occasional element clashes produced by Lilypond are very minor compared to the engraving problems produced by Finale or Sibelius.

I came across a score by Meridian Publishing, Inc. that quite clearly used the default output. Fine for casual use, unacceptable for publication.

Contrary to what zimbop says almost every aspect of Lilypond's output can be modified. Granted, figuring out how is not always very straightforward. But doing things such as adjusting spacing and moving elements to avoid clashes is usually fairly simple.

The high-quality output of Lilypond is due to the fact that they haven't spent any time developing a GUI, but rather focused on researching excellent engraving practices and developing Lilypond to reproduce them automatically. As a composer who takes pride in my scores, I have switched to Lilypond and do not intend to go back.

Lilypond is probably not for the person who likes to print up scores on the computer with a minimum of fuss. But Lilypond is for the composer or musician who is willing to spend a little more time in order to produce a beautiful score. And it really only takes a little more time once you become accustom to Lilypond's input. But it does have a reasonable learning curve.