Re: Is Lilypond right for this need?

[Ed Ardzinski]

> The suggestions would be great if I were more proficient at writing  out 
> music in general. I think what I'm trying to figure out is the  best way to 
> approximate the correct phrases quickly without taking  the time to be 
> accurate.

I understand the "not take the time to be accurate" but my guess is at some 
point you might want to be more accurate.  My general LP template uses 
voices for chord names, a rhythm context, and some other instrumental line - 
could be a vocal melody, but I'm primarily a bass player so more often than 
not it's a bass line.  I often don't take the time to write out my bass 
lines exactly (like I ever play them the same way twice!), and the few vocal 
charts I've put together I've found that being exact in terms of a melody 
can be frustrating.

So perhaps you could just write an approximate melody?  Between that and a 
rhythm context the chord placement should take care of itself.

> just trying to  write an app to  convert some simple text file into an .ly 
> file.

As for "converting" a text file to .ly - it's just a matter of having the 
correct extension from what I've found, and making sure you have no 
extraneous formatting characters creep in.  I've written my own editor using 
a rich text edit box so I can have drag and drop, and *sometimes* some weird 
things happen in the transition between reading the text file in and writing 
it out.  Probalby just my own programming mistakes!  But you could just save 
the file as a txt created in say Notepad (assuming Windows) and copy/rename 
it if you want to keep the text file around.

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