Linuxmusician.com Interviews LilyPond Authors

jcn writes "Chris Cannam talks to the authors of one of the best-known and most ambitious music programs for Linux, the LilyPond score engraving system. Unlike other typesetting software like Finale or Sibelius, LilyPond is not a score editor, it aims to use simple textual description of the music and turn it into the highest possible quality output, automatically. Han-Wen says: In my opinion, any file format that claims to be universal should have two properties: it should have an expressive structure, so other formats can be expressed in it, and it should be as lean as possible, so that converting from other formats amounts to removing information. I think that MusicXML fits neither. Ouch."

Comments

Music Notation and Freedom of Thought

[myownkidney]

The notation used for traditional music in my country, Sri Lanka, is one of the most primitive notations I have ever seen. My friend Jim claims that the notation system used in Europe is far too restrictive. The same way a person's thought processes are controlled by the language, music is also partially constricted by the notation system used.

Jim claims that the traditional music in Sri Lanka has far greater diversity than its western counterpart. Thus a simple music notation system, in his opinion at least, is far better than a complex rigorous one.