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GNU LilyPond is a free software program for engraving sheet music for all common operating systems; it is written in C++ and assembled by a Scheme library (GNU Guile) which also allows user customization and extension^[1]. It uses a simple text notation for music, which is then compiled into PDF (via PostScript), SVG or other formats. LilyPond can also automatically generate MIDI files from music specified in the LilyPond format.

Unlike some commercial proprietary programs such as Finale and Sibelius, LilyPond does not contain its own graphical user interface for the creation of scores. It does, however, have the same aim of producing output comparable to professionally-engraved scores. Some graphical music notation programs such as Rosegarden, NoteEdit and Canorus can export files directly to LilyPond format.

One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved following the traditional layout rules of the era when scores were engraved by hand.

The Mutopia project, which distributes free content sheet music, uses LilyPond to typeset its music, as does Musipedia, a collaborative music encyclopedia. WikiTeX, a MediaWiki interface, supports editing LilyPond notation directly in wiki articles.

First measures of Adeste Fideles, generated by LilyPond.

Text after a percent sign (%) is a comment. Double percent signs are used here for readability.

In LilyPond, notes are entered in note, pitch and length format; pitch is represented with series of single quotes or commas, each representing an octave up or down from the base. For example, a'4 is an A, one octave up from the base, of quarter note length. As a curious syntactical rule, all other modifiers - even ones containing parentheses, which by usual writing rules should go before the note - are added after the note, so d8[ c] is an eighth-note pair with a beam as signified by the brackets.

LilyPond has two modes of entering the note pitches: Absolute and relative. In absolute mode, note pitches are always given, for each note, relative to the base; in relative mode, when the melody stays within limits, notes with unspecified pitch are assumed to be "near" the last note, and pitch markers are used only when the interval from the preceding note is more than a fourth. This example uses the relative mode.

The only character encoding that LilyPond understands is UTF-8. This allows for the combination of Danish, Hebrew, Korean, etc. in the same file. The first line in the file tells emacs that this file should always be read and written as UTF-8. If one uses other editors than emacs, it is necessary to make sure that they use UTF-8 too; otherwise anything but ASCII will break.

#!lilypond firebreathers.ly -*- coding: utf-8; -*-
%% Theme to "Fire Breathers", a homebrew NES game perpetually 
%% under development.  Composed by Urpo Lankinen.

%% Note: The composer has made this source code available 
%% to Wikipedia under the GFDL license.  Some previous versions
%% of this code may also be available under CC BY-SA license.

%% This file uses Finnish note names (for example, where 
%% Americans use "F#" and "Bb", Finns use "Fis" and "B"). 
%% Dutch note names are used by default.
\include "suomi.ly"

%% Optional language upgrade helper.
\version "2.6.0"

%% The header block defines the titles and texts.
\header {
    title = "Theme to ``Fire Breathers!''"
    instrument = "For the 2A03 or SID"
    composer = "Urpo Lankinen"
    enteredby = "Urpo Lankinen"
    updatedby = "Jan Nieuwenhuizen"
    date = "June 2005"
}

Melody = \relative c'' {
   \clef treble
   \time 3/4
   \key a \minor

   %% The piece starts with a quarter-note partial bar, "\partial 4"
   %% tells so to LilyPond.
   \partial 4
   a4 | e'4.( d8[ c]) r8 | d4.( c8[ h]) r8 | a2. | e2
   a4 | e'4.( d8[ c]) r8 | d4.( e8[ f]) r8 | e2. | r2
   e4 |  f4.( e8[ d]) r8 | d4.( c8[ h]) r8 | a2. | e2
   a4 | e'4.( d8[ c]) r8 | d4.( c8[ h]) r8 | a2. ~ a2 r4 | \bar "|."
}

%% This is the second voice.
SecondVoice = \relative c {
   \clef bass
   \time 3/4
   \key a \minor

   \partial 4
    r4 | e2.              | d2.             | a2. | e2
    a4 | e'2.             | d2       f4     | e2. | r2.
       |  f2.             | d2.             | a2. | e2
    a4 | e'2.             | d2       h4     | a2. ~ a2 r4 | \bar "|."
}


%% Melodies, lyrics and chords can be assigned to a variable and then
%% be *reused* elsewhere.  Here are three different accompaniment
%% patterns, which are used throughout the accompaniment melody.
AccompA = \relative c { a4 e'8 a, e' a, | }
AccompB = \relative c { g4 d'8 g, d' g, | }
AccompC = \relative c { e,4 h'8 e, h' e, | }

Accompaniment = {
   \clef bass
   \time 3/4
   \key a \minor

   \partial 4
    r4 | \AccompA \AccompB \AccompA \AccompA
        \AccompA \AccompB \AccompA \AccompA
        \AccompC \AccompC \AccompA \AccompA
        \AccompA \AccompB \AccompA | a2 r4 | \bar "|."
}

%% The top level music definition.
<<
  \new Staff \Melody
  \new Staff \Accompaniment
  \new Staff \SecondVoice
>>

Free software Portal

• LilyPond GUIs : Denemo, NoteEdit, Rosegarden
• Mutopia project, a project to publish sheet music for copyright-expired works
• *.kar files with notes and lyrics.
• GUIDO music notation

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Music markup

• Official LilyPond website
• "Lilypond, a system for automated music engraving" -(by Han-Wen Nienhuys, Jan Nieuwenhuizen; PDF)
• LilyPond Forum - hosted by Nabble archiving LilyPond mailing lists into a searchable forum.
• The LilyPond Wiki
• Lilypond-based Musical Scores Archive
• Denemo, a GUI for LilyPond.
• LilyPondTool, a plug-in for jEdit with sophisticated LilyPond support.
• lilypond-mode, an elisp extension for emacs
• Musipedia, a collaborative music encyclopedia that uses LilyPond

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