I know this is late in the thread, but I wanted to make a comment about LilyPond.
I've gotten right up to the point of creating modern scores in LilyPond. I've learned how to tweak all of the elements of the page, spacing, etc. I've used it to publish several academic and scholarly projects in recent years. I've used it for my own music. I've been working with it since 2008.
What I can say confidently is that LilyPond is only usable when the following three conditions are met:
- You use it with an editor that autocompletes your code (such as Frescobaldi)
- You read the learning manual and recreate all of the examples from scratch (a la "Learn Python the Hard Way")
- You must be good at googling and using the lingo found in the Notation Reference
That last one is crucial. It is so much like programming, and I've been around enough programmers to know that they are dedicated enough to finding solutions to problems, and lazy enough to avoid learning how to do it from scratch (if the solution exists in someone else's snippet). I started using LilyPond before I started using broadband internet, and so my only source of comfort was downloading the Notation Reference and Learning Manual to aimlessly search for a solution). One of the first biggest projects I made in LilyPond was back in 2013 when I was asked to arrange a selection of a famous work by Brahms for String Quartet. At the last minute, I had additional instruments added to the project, and it was the proving grounds for a lot of concepts in LilyPond.
There are a few things I begged for in LilyPond from the getgo:
- Better system-system management of spacing styles. It would be amazing to simply say something to the effect of
Code: Select all
page.number = 1 system.number = 3 spacing.after = 4
and see the spacing after system 3 be tweaked. Right now it is a little better, but there are too many places to keep track of spacing and it's not as elegant as other aspects of the program. Also, if you don't know exactly what you are doing you will be banging your head against the wall when trying different numbers in the tweak yield ZERO effect.
- More intuitive control of slurs and ties. There are still some things that I cannot do.
- Modern music tools: presets for aleatoric boxes, squiggles, lines, etc.
- Part extraction: To get automatic part extraction, you have to save each instrument in a separate file, link them in a master file, and edit back and forth. Essentially, you are setting up an old-school computer directory, and if you don't know what you are doing (meaning, you have to know a little bit of coding) you'll get frustrated. Also, editing spacing, tweaks, etc in those parts is a NIGHTMARE. You'll basically do better keeping two copies of the same music, one in a part file and one in a master score file. That's twice as many places to get notes and have discrepancies between the sources.
I still use it for examples, small projects, easy stuff. But, I've given up on my dream of using only open source apps. I love the "openness" of the file structure, but its biggest strength is also its greatest weakness. Sure, I can semantically parse what's going on without the program (if it were to be abandoned), but at the same time that kind of work is as intensive as creating the file in the first place.
Musescore is next for me, but I won't entertain it probably until 4 (edit: I mispoke). By then, more of the glyphs which are missing should be filled in (on the new Leland font... so gorgeous!), and maybe some better intuitive pallets and being able to use open meter, irrational meter, etc. I'd love to use it for analytic notation, but I'm not sure about that yet. Also, it's still too basic to reproduce some scores of Bach, such as keyboard works with 6 voices per staff!