The Sound of Linux Music: Denemo and LilyPond Reviewed
The Sound of Linux Music: Denemo and LilyPond
Reviewed
by Jason
Guidry
Today most professional and academic composers and
arrangers of music run Windows or Macintosh operating systems on their
computers, so it is not surprising to find that the state of commercial Linux
music notation software tools is still well behind their mass marketed
counterparts. And with Coda Music
Software <http://www.codamusic.com/> and
Sibelius
<http://www.sibelius.com/> making no plans
to port their applications to *nix (Coda will even pass on OS X), the open
source community has a great opportunity to step in and innovate with music
notation for Linux.
However, these projects do take time. Finale, the
Mac/Windows standard to which all notation programs are inevitably compared, was
out for at least five years before it became the full-featured 'word processor'
of music it is today. And as most notation programs for Linux are either in or
just out of beta, they still have a way to go.
But they are gaining ground. In particular two programs
that have been around for a while and are gaining acceptance,
Mup
<http://www.arkkra.com/> and
LilyPond
<http://lilypond.org/development/>. Both of
these require the user to input a coded text version of the music, from which
the program generates sheet music. Many problems arise from this interface, not
the least of which are the terrific learning curves placed on musicians forced
to learn a language and understand a lengthy 'debugging' process that must take
place for each score produced. A user must find errors in an output file and
then wade through thousands of lines of code to make note and rhythm changes.
While this is perhaps appropriate for short examples or simple piano pieces, it
is completely unsuited for jazz band or symphony orchestra arranging on a
deadline.
Denemo
<http://denemo.sourceforge.net/>, a Gtk+
application, aims to bridge the gap between composition and lengthy text input
files. Denemo serves as a graphical frontend to the LilyPond music typesetter.
It provides a musical score into which the user inputs musical notes, rhythms,
and other musical markings.
RPMs are offered for Both Denemo and LilyPond, available
from their project's homepage. LilyPond requires both
GhostScript
<http://www.ghostscript.com/> and TeX to
work. in my experience both installed in Mandrake 8.0 with no problems, and
neither program crashed during use.
Denemo's interface is very menu driven. Time and key
signature changes, adding and removing staves and midi playback controls are all
accessed under the appropriate menu. While this program is still in alpha, it
contrasts sharply with other graphical music editors like Finale, which assign
frequently accessed features to buttons on a toolbar. Musical notes are easily
entered into the staff with the numeric pad, with each rhythmic duration
assigned a number:
0=whole note
1=half note
2=quarter note
and so on. The user moves a cursor with the arrow keys
to place notes on different lines and spaces. Notes are easily removed using the
delete key.
Despite its rather limited functionality, Denemo has
some very thoughtful and innovative features. Most impressive is the complete
control given to the user over key bindings. This can greatly reduce the amount
of time a new user takes to learn the program, as well as allow the ex-Finale
user to assign familiar key bindings. Another is the use of a green cursor which
turns red when a measure is full, much more friendly than Finale's error
messages. Also available is the automatic spacing of notes, which saves a lot of
editing time. This feature wasn't available in Finale until quite recently.
One major concern with this release is that there
doesn't seem to be any way to switch between staves once they are added. The
user must make sure that they are completely finished with a staff before they
add another. Taking care of this flaw will greatly improve the usability of this
program.
As far as development, both Denemo and LilyPond have a
way to go before they can replace their Mac and Windows counterparts. Fonts and
expressions are not quite manuscript looking, with beaming on 8th and 16th notes
needing particular attention. Also, time signatures are written in a
courier-like font rather than the more stylized numerals in printed music. The
example above illustrates this, as well as Denemo/LilyPond's bizarre way of
marking tuplets (note septuplets in the bass staff). This will surely improve
with the program's graphics overall, but seems to be a symptom of LilyPond's
text based roots.
Currently, developers are focusing on expanding the
functionality of their program, providing mass editing options, repeat notation,
and a point-and-click keyboard to assist note entry. The developers will also
have to look at providing buttons for frequently used features, as well as
giving more options to use the mouse on the score, for moving notes, placing
expressions and the like. While this is an issue with any GUI frontend, it's
more so with a music editor, since notation itself a graphic.
So for the time being, Denemo is best suited for quick
musical examples and writing out individual parts, and it fills those
requirements nicely. However, it is not yet a Finale replacement, and it will be
a while before it is. But the areas in which this program excels makes it a very
exciting project to watch, and one that I'll be rooting for.
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