GNU LilyPond

This is the user manual for GNU LilyPond 2.10.x series. (See the bottom of this page for the exact version number).

More information can be found at http://www.lilypond.org/. The website contains on-line copies of this and other documentation.

GNU LilyPond — The music typesetter
Preface
1 Introduction
- 1.1 Engraving
- 1.2 Automated engraving
- 1.3 What symbols to engrave?
- 1.4 Music representation
- 1.5 Example applications
- 1.6 About this manual
2 Tutorial
- 2.1 First steps
- 2.2 Single staff notation
- 2.3 Multiple notes at once
- 2.4 Songs
  - 2.4.1 Printing lyrics
  - 2.4.2 A lead sheet
- 2.5 Final touches
3 Putting it all together
- 3.1 Extending the templates
- 3.2 How LilyPond files work
- 3.3 Score is a single musical expression
- 3.4 An orchestral part
4 Working on LilyPond projects
- 4.1 Suggestions for writing LilyPond files
- 4.2 Saving typing with identifiers and functions
- 4.3 Style sheets
- 4.4 Updating old files
- 4.5 Troubleshooting (taking it all apart)
- 4.6 Minimal examples
5 Tweaking output
- 5.1 Moving objects
- 5.2 Fixing overlapping notation
- 5.3 Common tweaks
- 5.4 Default files
- 5.5 Fitting music onto fewer pages
- 5.6 Advanced tweaks with Scheme
- 5.7 Avoiding tweaks with slower processing
6 Basic notation
- 6.1 Pitches
- 6.2 Rhythms
- 6.3 Polyphony
- 6.4 Staff notation
- 6.5 Connecting notes
- 6.6 Expressive marks
- 6.7 Repeats
7 Instrument-specific notation
- 7.1 Piano music
- 7.2 Chord names
- 7.3 Vocal music
- 7.4 Rhythmic music
- 7.5 Guitar
- 7.6 Bagpipe
  - 7.6.1 Bagpipe definitions
  - 7.6.2 Bagpipe example
- 7.7 Ancient notation
- 7.8 Other instrument specific notation
  - 7.8.1 Artificial harmonics (strings)
8 Advanced notation
- 8.1 Text
- 8.2 Preparing parts
- 8.3 Orchestral music
- 8.4 Contemporary notation
- 8.5 Educational use
9 Changing defaults
- 9.1 Automatic notation
  - 9.1.1 Automatic accidentals
  - 9.1.2 Setting automatic beam behavior
- 9.2 Interpretation contexts
- 9.3 The \override command
10 Non-musical notation
- 10.1 Input files
- 10.2 Titles and headers
  - 10.2.1 Creating titles
  - 10.2.2 Custom titles
- 10.3 MIDI output
- 10.4 Displaying LilyPond notation
- 10.5 Skipping corrected music
11 Spacing issues
- 11.1 Paper and pages
  - 11.1.1 Paper size
  - 11.1.2 Page formatting
- 11.2 Music layout
  - 11.2.1 Setting the staff size
  - 11.2.2 Score layout
- 11.3 Breaks
- 11.4 Vertical spacing
- 11.5 Horizontal Spacing
- 11.6 Displaying spacing
12 Interfaces for programmers
- 12.1 Music functions
- 12.2 Programmer interfaces
  - 12.2.1 Input variables and Scheme
  - 12.2.2 Internal music representation
- 12.3 Building complicated functions
- 12.4 Markup programmer interface
- 12.5 Contexts for programmers
  - 12.5.1 Context evaluation
  - 12.5.2 Running a function on all layout objects
- 12.6 Scheme procedures as properties
13 Running LilyPond
- 13.1 Invoking lilypond
  - 13.1.1 Command line options
  - 13.1.2 Environment variables
- 13.2 Notes for the MacOS X app
- 13.3 Updating with convert-ly
- 13.4 Reporting bugs
- 13.5 Error messages
- 13.6 Editor support
- 13.7 Point and click
14 lilypond-book: Integrating text and music
- 14.1 An example of a musicological document
- 14.2 Integrating LaTeX and music
- 14.3 Integrating Texinfo and music
- 14.4 Integrating HTML and music
- 14.5 Integrating DocBook and music
- 14.6 Music fragment options
- 14.7 Invoking lilypond-book
- 14.8 Filename extensions
- 14.9 Many quotes of a large score
- 14.10 Inserting LilyPond output into OpenOffice.org
- 14.11 Inserting LilyPond output into other programs
15 Converting from other formats
- 15.1 Invoking midi2ly
- 15.2 Invoking etf2ly
- 15.3 Invoking musicxml2ly
- 15.4 Invoking abc2ly
- 15.5 Generating LilyPond files
Appendix A Literature list
Appendix B Scheme tutorial
Appendix C Notation manual tables
- C.1 Chord name chart
- C.2 MIDI instruments
- C.3 List of colors
- C.4 The Feta font
Appendix D Templates
- D.1 Single staff
- D.2 Piano templates
- D.3 String quartet
  - D.3.1 String quartet
  - D.3.2 String quartet parts
- D.4 Vocal ensembles
- D.5 Ancient notation templates
  - D.5.1 Transcription of mensural music
  - D.5.2 Gregorian transcription template
- D.6 Jazz combo
- D.7 Lilypond-book templates
  - D.7.1 LaTeX
  - D.7.2 Texinfo
Appendix E Cheat sheet
Appendix F GNU Free Documentation License
Appendix G LilyPond command index
Appendix H LilyPond index

GNU LilyPond — The music typesetter

Table of Contents