Re: improving LilyPond useability

[David Kastrup]

"Mark Stephen Mrotek" <address@hidden> writes:

> Since my practice and performance of Lilypond spans less than a year
> (installed 21 May 2013), I might qualify to comment on the "attractiveness"
> and/or "accessibility" of Lilypond to a newbie.
>
> Preservation of a two-part invention written for an undergraduate course
> (1967) in Baroque Music Practice was the impetus to diving into Lilypond
> (pardon the pun). The web page offered everything that I needed to start;
> basic tutorials, which really go somewhat beyond just basic, and several
> text editors. I chose Frescobaldi. A comment was made that the "drag and
> drop" instructions for the test leaves one "hanging." Well, that may be true
> for someone who does not peruse the tutorials or the manual readily
> available on the web site.
>
> Some criticism has been made about the length of the manual. I started
> with an IBM PS2 (1982) using a non-graphical interface Microsoft
> Word. The manual, if my addled memory is correct was somewhere around
> 300+ pages.

Aaaaand cut.

"Wrangling down that attacking Rottweiler was actually not all that
hard.  It boils down to the same grips and holds we used to employ for
killing lions when I was young."

I think LilyPond is reasonably sellable to old hands at computing.  But
they are an endangered species.  LilyPond nowadays has to teach people
first what being an old hand is like.

> My learning process is basically: I want to do this, how do I do this,
> where is this in the manual (the "search" provision is very helpful
> here), experiment with the command(s) in the score, copy the
> successful command onto a cheat sheet with notation.

And if you do that with good reference material, systematically and
determinedly for a year, you'll be able to read the Iliad in the
original.  It's a fad nerds indulged in before computers were invented.

Where do we get with today's capability of people to focus and work on a
given task?

Well, at least we are dealing with musicians here.

> To date I have transcribed some 25+ piano scores for use on my PC
> Slate. The PDF's produced by Lilypond are crisper than other published
> or scanned scores. The consistent spacing allows my eyes to track in
> the same manner from score to score. Lilypond allows me to make my own
> "edition" of the score with personal fingering, dynamics, and
> reminders. It also allows me to eliminate editorials with which I do
> not agree.

Man, the cluttered scores...  At baroque time, players were supposed to
do their own embellishments and extemporize from figured bass.  Nowadays
it is too much to ask to figure out your fingerings.

Of course, it's particularly annoying for me as a button accordion
player playing piano music.  But it was already as a violinist playing
violin music.

> Not having any experience with any other engraver (have recently
> dabbled with Demeno), I cannot make comparisons. I do know that from
> the start Lilypond may have challenged me. It never frustrated me.

Your frustration tolerance has seriously been tampered with in your
early years.

Perhaps LilyPond should be obligatory school material.  Better get the
kids into the right frame of mind early.  It will help them with more
than one thing later in life.  Which is basically how Latin is still
getting sold as school material, and it is somewhat less applicable to
modern life livelihoods.

-- 
David Kastrup