Re: Graphical scores

[Francisco Vila]

2012/7/23 Thomas Baruchel <address@hidden>:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012, Thomas Baruchel wrote:
>>
>> is it possible to use lilypond for typesetting some (not too much)
>> graphical scores? To be more precise, I would like to know a little
>> about "absolute positionning" of notes.
>
>
> In order to be more precise, would it be possible, for instance, to
> typeset the following page of Jean Catoire's opus 312 (a french modern
> composer, see http://www.lephenomenesonore.com/ ). The first page of the
> work can be seen there: http://cjoint.com/12ju/BGblUIFGde5.htm

Here is my opinion. The way LilyPond is designed to work, makes easy
to typeset plain old music where a big number of decisions have to be
taken, and it makes that easy because it takes them for you, thus
allowing you to concentrate in music content.

Graphical scores already contain all the decisions, so LilyPond is not
the tool. A drawing program would be. LilyPond is not a drawing tool.

That said, I think this score could still be made with lily using
proportional spacing and transparent notes, but given that (as I said)
the aim of it is to interpret the music as you enter it and decide by
itself how to lay it out on the page, you are effectively fighting
continuously against the spacing engine.

A mixed approach you could use is to typeset a similar score in SVG
with lily and then tweak it graphically with Inkscape. It could
possibly be less time-consuming that overriding everything from lily,
for this specific work.
-- 
Francisco Vila. Badajoz (Spain)
www.paconet.org , www.csmbadajoz.com