Re: Is method of using LilyPond compatible with creativity?

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Friday 16 April 2004 10:02, Michael Edwards wrote:
>      I mentioned about a week ago that I was considering whether I
> might start using LilyPond.  I will need to get a new hard disk
> before I have enough room to use LilyPond, so perhaps there is not
> much point in asking any detailed questions yet about how the program
> works.  (I'm sure I will need to do that one day if I start using
> it.)
>      But I would like a few opinions on the following
> quasi-philosophical issue, please.
>
>      From responses to my previous posts (7 and 8 April), I got the
> impression that using LilyPond is a lot more like computer
> programming than is entering music notation visually as you would do
> in Finale or Sibelius or Igor. That's probably okay in itself, from
> my point of view.  I learned Turbo Pascal about 15 years ago, and I
> probably have an aptitude for computer programming, as I tend to have
> a logical sort of mind that does well at this kind of thing.
>      However, it occurs to me that you use very different mental
> processes in computer programming than you do when composing music. 
> In fact, I can scarcely think of two mental activities that are more
> different from each other - they seem to be at very opposite ends of
> a spectrum: programming is totally logical and structured, with
> everything in its place, and everything totally analyzable; composing
> music is subtle and elusive, and (apart from the basics of music
> theory) quite unanalyzable, as far as I can see.

You are saying that processes of the mind vary according to elements
of the problems which the mind solves.  True or untrue, of what use
is the answer to the question?  

>      The people who promote Sibelius make a lot of the graphical
> style of Sibelius,

If you want speed, the pencil and paper is the fastest way of noting,
because you can invent short cuts as you go, start in the middle or
at the end, etc..  Perhaps you write too neatly and completely too
soon.  You are the only one who has to be able to read that first
draft.  Write lightly and use that eraser.  When you've got something,
then you worry about the typesetting.

I'm saying that the pencil is faster, and that it always will be, but
that doesn't mean that it's better.  I don't know the answer to that
one.

The fact that lilypond encourages thinking in terms of voices was a
major factor in making me a user, but the inability to see many parts at
once was a sort of limitation before sly.  Sly permits you to see any
number of simultaneous measures, or groups of measures, at the same time
in your editor.  By taking the notes out of the lilypond source file,
you are removed a bit (maybe) psychologically from the programming
aspects because you are (probably) just working with notes blocks in a
sly file.  If you are writing large works, sly is a big help.  Even
a stock arrangement would usually have six parts: melody, chords,
lyrics, piano1, piano2, global.  daveA

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D. Raleigh Arnold dra@ (http://www.) openguitar.com address@hidden