You might be interested in checking out LilyPond which is a freely available and open software. There is a learning curve, as I imagine it will harder
to use than graphical packages, but you have more flexibility which makes it suitable also for Arabic music.
If you're interested, I've written a document on how to use LilyPond to typeset Arabic music to complement the LilyPond documentation, that I plan to
offer to the Product Owner, so it can become part of the product. I've also added some definitions that will hopefully make LilyPond easier to use
with Arabic music. I would like first to get my document reviewed, so it is as accurate and clear as possible. If you have LilyPond, or willing to
download it, and try out the instructions in the document, and give me feedback, then that will be ideal, but you can also review the document for
accuracy on what I say about Arabic music by just reading it, and your feedback will be welcome too.
I will allow about one month for feedback. So if you can post any comments before the end April, that will be ideal.
Thankseliot - 3-30-2008 at 05:28 PM
hey joseph,
I use lilypond a lot, as well, though for the notation of Turkish music.
A bit busy for the next month, but we should keep in touch as time goes on about lilypond templates, tricks, etc.
Take care...
-eliotjoseph - 3-31-2008 at 04:05 AM
arabic.ly is required if you want to try out the instructions in arabic.pdf.joseph - 3-31-2008 at 04:17 AM
Hi eliot,
Thanks. I'm actually a relatively recent user of LilyPond. I would imagine that using LilyPond for Turkish music would be more difficult, because of
the extra chromatic notation that exists in Turkish music (At least, that's how I imagine it, because my knowledge of Turkish music is fairly
sketchy).
It would be good to get your feedback of course, but if you're fairly busy, I'm sure I'll have another go at this in future releases of LilyPond, if
the authors accept to include it. My knowledge of LilyPond will likely grow over time. By the way, the one month was just a rough estimate, as there
is no great rush, so if I find that some people would like to comment, but need some extra time, I'm sure I can wait a little longer for feedback as
long as I know it is coming.
I have another general wish through doing this, which is to encourage the writing of Arabic music by using free software. It would be wonderful if one
day, we could have something like the Mutopia project for Arabic music, and perhaps Turkish music too. I know, that with Arabic music in particular,
some people believe it is mainly an oral tradition, and don't believe much in writing music, but I personally think that you can have a great oral
tradition, and a great written tradition to go along with it as well.
Best regards
Joseph
Quote:
Originally posted by eliot
hey joseph,
I use lilypond a lot, as well, though for the notation of Turkish music.
A bit busy for the next month, but we should keep in touch as time goes on about lilypond templates, tricks, etc.
