RE: problems with learning lilypond

[Ed Ardzinski]

I don't know how applicable this is since everyone is different, but my tack was to start small, then work up.  I can't honestly say that I'm expert or even very good at using LP, but it is allowing me to score out my ideas and create some decent sounding demos of my songs.  I started scoring out a bass solo I wrote as a kid, then I discovered how to add a drum part and made a midi file...soon I was finding all sorts of things out how make my scores look better.
 
But I know I'm not nearly exploiting what this program can do...I've only recently begun to try and add dynamic marks, and as a composer (using the term loosely) I still struggle to understand how exactly to score out what I do on the piano...but using LP has made a far better arranger.
 
Being in Silicon Valley I can only presume that the OP is computer savvy, and sometimes that might be a bit of a barrier.  Maybe you have to try and remember the first halting steps you made programming and how difficult it was to get help from the help files.  I know for myself I can look at the LP documentation now and get more out of it quicker than I could in the beginning days of my experience (not quite 3 years now).  Of course hindsight and experience tend to make vision far better than 20/20...
 
And I also have never met another LP user face to face.  Most people who might have any inkling of using a computer to score music are lost when I describe it.  Heck, most people who play instruments these days can't even read standard notation, and many musicians who can read music are not strong enough with their computer skills to use a system like this.
 
Again, I'm not sure what help this might be, but maybe I can add a little perspective...

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