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Questions tagged [lilypond]

GNU LilyPond is Free Software for engraving music, with a strong emphasis on very high quality output.

LilyPond is a computer program for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.

LilyPond is different from conventional commercial typesetting software in that the input is code written in plain text, which LilyPond compiles into output formats such as PostScript, PDF, and MIDI. There are various front-ends available to make editing of this code easier.

LilyPond is available for several common operating systems. It is released as part of the GNU project, and under the terms of the GNU General Public License, it is Free Software.

LilyPond uses the Scheme programming language, both as part of the input syntax, and as internal mechanism to glue modules of the program together. [...]

LilyPond uses the GNU Guile implementation of Scheme, which is based on the Scheme “R5RS” standard.

— from the LilyPond documentation - Scheme tutorial.

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What is the best way to automatically transpose a LilyPond source file into multiple keys?

problem I'm using LilyPond to typeset sheet music for a church choir to perform. Depending on who is available on any given week, songs will be played in various keys. We have an amazing pianist who can play anything we throw at her and the…
Michael Steele
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Lyrics for additional verses in LilyPond?

Is there a way in LilyPond to simply list the lyrics corresponding to additional verses after the end of the music, with one paragraph per verse? (N.B. This exact question has been asked before, in 2001, but the first answer ("read this book")…
dumbledad
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Mathjax analog for lilypond

Is there something that can render Lilypond content to an image, such as mathjax? Also, in my mind it would be nice to open a Stack Exchange forum about music. Such a thing would bring nice functionality to it, like LaTeX in…
ASten
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Changing all the colors in Lilypond

In Lilypond I can change the color of one type of object with a line like \override Staff.Clef #'color = #(rgb-color 0.4 0.5 0.6) I'd like to have everything in the same (non-default) color, but I neither found a list of all the objects I could…
Martin Küttler
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How to start measure halfway?

In my hymn, I need to start the first measure halfway through. It has a time of 3/4, but I have to insert two empty, non-showing eighth notes. How do I do that? I've used o4 o4 c8[ d] below for the first measure, but lilypond does not like this. …
bgmCoder
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Define function inside \score in LilyPond

I compile a large song book, and for that I would like to have many local definitions of functions, that will, in the end, be in an \include d file, but that makes no difference here. For this, I need to define the functions inside \score{ ... }…
yo'
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Coloring notes in Lilypond by pitch

lilypond can color notes in a arbitrary way using \override NoteHead #'color = #red c with the default color is black. But I like to color all notes by pitch, so that my kids can more easily learn to recognize the notes as the c, d, e, f, ... are…
Egon Willighagen
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Lilypond snippet for a separate coda

I'm hoping to Lilypond something not at all uncommon in pop sheet music but missing from the snippet repository and eluding my search phrases. It's basically an inline block of coda set apart from the bars preceding it. (My attempts at the code are…
Janne
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Export LilyPond file to MusicXML then importing that into MuseScore

I am trying to use MuseScore 3 as some sort of editor for small music snippets e.g. nursery rhymes opened from MusicXML files. However my attempts to use the Frescobaldi Python library python-ly seem to lead to some very weird import errors on the…
TPPZ
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break line after some number of measures in lilypond

I have this as a sample notation example. How would I specify to have exactly 4 measures per line, throughout the whole piece. I searched the whole documentation and did not find such a simple feature. Am I missing something? \version "2.18.2" %…
branquito
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How to abbreviate 'note with the same note an octave higher, parenthesized' in Lilypond?

Currently I write lilypond code that looks like this: \version "2.14.2" P = #parenthesize \relative c, { \clef bass 2 4 2 } where I repeatedly mean 'this note, together with the…
MarnixKlooster ReinstateMonica
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LilyPond: Extracting pitch names from music

I use LilyPond to create practice scores and etudes. I've figured out how to allow note entry in Moveable Do solfege notation and have a template (see below) that supports displaying the solfege symbols as lyrics beneath the notes. At present, I…
Mike Ellis
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Lilypond displays chords over every bar

According to Lilypond's documentation, you can choose to only have chords displayed when they change. I cannot get this behaviour. Here is the snippet: \new ChordNames { \chordmode { d1:7 d1:7 } } Here is the…
Peter
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LilyPond: Is it possible to revert to "atonal" key?

In LilyPond, there is a distinction between specifying \key c \major and leaving the key blank. In the former case, transposing instruments will change the key signature accordingly, while in the latter case, no key signature will be added. Using…
Micah Walter
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What is this Lilypond warning: "no viable initial configuration found: may not find good beam slope"?

This code: \version "2.18.2" lh = { \change Staff = "down" \stemUp } rh = { \change Staff = "up" \stemDown } \new PianoStaff << \new Staff = "up" { \new Voice { \numericTimeSignature \lh a16 \rh e' a' \lh a \rh…
Harold
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