Re: Absurd thing to do

[Michael Ellis]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 9:29 AM, Christopher R. Maden <address@hidden> wrote:
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> On 03/31/2011 12:30 AM, Shane Brandes wrote:
> > Does anyone have any experience converting lilypond to finale type
> > files? I only ask this because I have had a run in with a publisher
> > who thinks it would be too much work as all their output is from that
> > app and all mine is now on lilypond. I gave him a pretty good lecture
> > on the awesome nature of Lilypond, but to no avail. Not that it would
> > change our other argument (I am an "obsolete" composer), but I want to
> > at least abolish that one if possible. I suspect it is possible to run
> > a .ly into an .xml and then import it somehow but have not had the
> > opportunity to try it out myself. Nor do I really want to.
>
> I can’t say for certain, but converting text formats is what I do, so I
> may be able to help.  I’m not familiar with the Finale XML format, but
> if you can send me a sample or a specification, I’ll see what I can do.
>

A few comments:

1. I don't think there's anything absurd about wanting to generate
MusicXML output.  IMO, it's seriously needed by anyone who want to
collaborate with other composers.  I work almost 100% in LilyPond even
though I own a full copy of Finale 2010.  LilyPond produces better
looking output and, for me anyway, it's far faster to enter any music
that has a significant number of articulations and dynamics.  OTOH, I
was recently working with a very fine arranger to harmonize a song I
wrote.  She works in Finale only and is not likely to convert to
LilyPond anytime soon.  So I had to use Finale while we were
collaborating and then re-enter the finished composition by hand in
LilyPond to get the output quality I wanted.

2. In the same vein,  Finale's midi creation and playback capabilities
are currently very far ahead of LilyPond.  However, I can't easily
avail myself of them because  so much is lost trying to import
LilyPond midi output to Finale.  OTOH Finale does a very good job of
importing MusicXML and generating midi from that.

3.  MuseScore looks very promising as a free GUI and it can output .ly
xml2ly but can't go the other way.

4.  I realize it's a difficult problem.  From what I think I
understand from Reinhold K's prior work,  successful translation
requires more than syntax mapping from .ly to .xml -- there are also
semantic differences, ie. LilyPond expresses more of the musical
intent than MusicXML.   Hence it's unlikely that a musicxml2ly program
can do the job without re-creating all of Lily's internal logic.

5. Apparently Reinhold, Han-Wen, and others came to the conclusion
that the right way to go involves creating an additional backend for
LilyPond to generate the MusicXML.  However, as discussed in the
thread linked below, it seems as though such a backend would have to
access at least two different stages in the processing chain.

http://old.nabble.com/MusicXML-backend-for-lilypond--td17957920.html

I'd be willing to help out -- in whatever small way I can -- if
someone wants to revive the effort.

Cheers,
Mike