Re: Is method of using LilyPond compatible with creativity?

[Matthias Kilian]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2004 at 12:02:43AM +1000, Michael Edwards wrote:
> LilyPond is (I've learned in the last week or so) based on text
> input, and seems rather similar to computer programming (unless
> I've read people's comments wrongly).

Well, most of what you see that looks like programming are tweaks, i.e.
attempts to do something LilyPond doesn't do right yet. Most of the time
you'll just enter music expressions, i.e. sequences of single notes,
chords, polyphonic music, together with dynamics, articulations etc.

That music expressions are just, well, the *music*, so there's no
reason to discuss it here, and thus the mails on the mailinglist may
not reflect the reality of *entering* music.

Unless you're not working on perfectly looking prinout, you'll do nearly
no tweaking at all but juse writing the music as you think of it. And,
since that music consists of simple ascii characters, it's easy to change
the music, to move parts of music around, to copy and modify it, ...

However, since I'm not a composer, I'm not sure wether a composer would
really happy with this or not.

[...]
> In using it, do you have to think about what codes and parameters to
> enter, instead of what notes, harmonies, and rhythms you want to write?

See above. That codes and paramters typically come in play *after*
the music has been done. You'll probably have subobtimal printouts
before that, but who cares? Write your music, edit it until you think
the art's done, then have a break and start to tune layout, fix note
collisions, etc.

> Does this make LilyPond unsuitable for composing with, or for working
> out ideas, varying them, experimenting with them, and the like?

Remember that LilyPond doesn't even address composing, but engraving.
However, I could imagine that it *may* be used for composing.

Ciao,
        Kili