Re: Immediate Need For Midi Output

[Mats Bengtsson]

The section on "Creating MIDI files" should hopefully provide all the 
necessary information. As described there, the basic structure is
\score {
 ...music...
 \midi { }
 \layout { }
}

for example
\score {
 \relative c'{ c d e f g a b c }
 \midi { }
 \layout { }
}

The first example of the page also contains some extra lines to specify 
the tempo to be used in the MIDI file. If you accept the
tempo to also appear in the printed output as a metronome mark, you 
could istead use the following syntax, which is easier to remember:
\score {
 \relative c'{
   \tempo 4 = 72
   c d e f g a b c
 }
 \midi { }
 \layout { }
}


  /Mats

Quoting Jared Wright <address@hidden>:

> Hello all, I've only today stumbled across this application and find 
> it to hold a
> lot of promise. I am a blind musician, and as a result, more 
> graphically intensive
> scorewriters, (Sibelius and its contemporaries) are usually 
> irritating due to screen
> reading technology not being developed with musical notation in mind. 
> Composing and
> writing music in plain text without actually having to manipulate the 
> notation could
> be the best way to circumnavigate this problem. Double that with the 
> reasons sighted
> musicians offer for utilizing LilyPond over its competitors, and I'm 
> pretty eager
> to dive into this one.
> My first stumbling block with LilyPond is the different approach I 
> must use when
> reviewing work done in it. The .pdf output is of little practical use 
> to me personally;
> its use will come when printing completed projects to give to other 
> musicians. But
> I must "view" my own work in progress, both while experimenting with 
> the software
> and then while working on actual compositions, via the midi output feature.
>   MIDI topics are found quite a ways into the documentation, and at 
> least for me,
> they assume quite a bit of knowledge about LilyPond when explaining 
> how to best get
> midi output from an input file. For example, it frequently references 
> the similarities
> between making a midi block and making a layout block. But since I'm 
> trying to master
> getting good midi output before good printed output, this is ending 
> up a mental exercise.
>   If anyone with more general knowledge about all of LilyPond's 
> facets could show
> me some basic demonstrations of LilyPond input resulting in midi 
> output, or directing
> me to already existing code snipets that demonstrate this, I'd be 
> appreciative. For
> now, just things like scales and perhaps some simple chords will do. 
> I feel like
> I am grasping how to notate with LilyPond, but I have no way of 
> knowing, since I
> can't truly examine the printed notation that is the primary form of 
> output. My goal
> is to examine the sintax combined with the resulting midi 
> representations and then
> start to hear how my own input files are coming out and hopefully 
> confirm that I'm
> grasping LilyPond's basic features before moving onto trickier 
> notation. Thanks very
> much.
> Jared