Composing music with Lilypond

[Karim Khakimov]

Hi everyone,

I am an amateur composer.

To compose music, I usually start by writing it down on paper. Then, I typeset it using Lilypond, which I prefer over anything else. However, it is sometimes easier to use a computer program directly, for example when arranging pieces. Although I love lilypond's idea of text input, it becomes hard to compose music using just variables without having it written down first, as it's hard to see how the parts align vertically. 

In keyboard music, it's easy to handle, with \parallelMusic. However, writing in parallel can become difficult to manage with multiple instruments (more than, like, 8). 

So my question is: if you compose/arrange without sketching out your music first, especially with multiple instruments, do you have any tips that can help handle text input? 

Thank you so much!

Karim