Finale for Free: LilyPond Music Notation Software

I have been a user of Finale, MakeMusic's industry-standard music engraving program, on and off throughout its 20 years of existence. Two things have always frustrated me about it: the significant cost of the software and the huge time investment required to learn (and relearn) it.

On the user-interface end of my complaint, I recall a choral composition class I took in grad school in the early 90s: Our final project was to "publish" the project we'd been working on--both in the computer lab and in class--using Finale. I never could get my project to look the way I wanted it. After many hours of cursing in the computer lab, I finally threw up my hands, jotted out my work on regular staff paper and turned it in along with a print-out of what I'd been able to cajole Finale into doing. I think, with Finale 2008, I could do the task in a couple of days of on and off work. Unfortunately, the price point for the software has remained a sticking point: A completely new, full-blown version of Finale 2009, the latest, greatest version, will set you back $600; previous release owners may upgrade for "only" $149. To their credit, MakeMusic has heard the poor musicians' pleas over the years and you can now buy the "lite"-est version of Finale for $99, or even download a completely-no-frills version called, cleverly, "NotePad," for free.

But, despite Finale's dominance, alternative programs exist. For example, in Europe, the equally full-featured Sibelius is very popular. But for the past several weeks I've been playing with a very comprehensive and relatively easy-to-use software called LilyPond.

My two sticking points about Finale are rather moot with LilyPond.

First of all, LilyPond is free for anyone to download and install. It is based on GPL, the GNU Public License model of software development. Without going into too much detail (esp. about the "GNU" part of the acronym), basically, GPL is based on the idea that if we all try to get along and help each other, the world will be a better place. Software under the GPL may not be sold for profit; in addition, software is required to be collaborative, i.e., the raw computer code for GPL programs must be offered up for modification by other programmers as long as those programmers, in turn, offer their improved/modified versions up for modification by anyone else.

Second, LilyPond is rather ridiculously easy to use at its most basic level. The ".ly" files are merely text files. A budding composer may open up a regular letters-words-paragraphs-type note pad (not the Finale Note Pad) program and type in his score using very intuitive notation: For instance, if I were to transcribe "Hot Cross Buns," it would look something like this:

\relative c' {
e4 d c2 | e4 d c2 | c8 c c c d d d d | e4 d c2 |
}

The above notation would be translated--"compiled," in computer programmer speak--by LilyPond into a PDF file that looked like



which could be printed out and given to any musician.

Now, granted, this is a very simple example, but what is immediately evident to any musician is that, by looking at the above code, most anyone could hazard a guess at what the output score would look like. Better yet, anyone could type in that sequence of letters and numbers with a minimum amount of instruction. Wanna get more complicated? Try this:

\relative c'' {
\clef treble
\key c \major
\time 6/8

% You could notate "Chopsticks" as two separate voices on the staff

<<
{ g8 g g g g g | g g g g g g | b b b b a b | c4 c8 c b a | } \\
{ f8 f f f f f | e e e e e e | d d d d e d | c4 c8 c d e | }
>>

\break

% or you could notate it chordally

<f g>8 <f g> <f g> <f g> <f g> <f g> | <e g> <e g> <e g> <e g> <e g> <e g> |
<d b'> <d b'> <d b'> <d b'> <e a> <d b'> | <c c'>4 <c c'>8 <c c'> <d b'> <e a> |
}

And get this



Obviously, some things do take getting used to--all the braces and brackets and such. And I admit that I'd be able to hack out "Hot Cross Buns" and "Chopsticks" just as fast in Finale. However, as the music gets more complex, LilyPond remains fairly easier to use. An example from the first movement of J.S. Bach's Cantata No. 78, "Jesu, der du meine Seele":



The cross-staff voicing is hard to do in both programs... well, it's pretty hard to do even when you're writing stuff out by hand, but, trust me, Finale's method is far more convoluted. To change the staff in Finale, you have to enter the music in its original staff, select the cross-staff notes, and then find the right tool dialog buried deep within many menu options... and hope you've made the right option selections. You'd then have to go back and add the cross-staff lines with another tool. Within LilyPond, you merely note "\set followVoice = ##t \change Staff = lower" within the score description.

Okay, complex music requires complex measures in both programs. But perhaps the best thing about LilyPond is that rather than developing code to draw and print music with a computer, the LilyPond developers studied the ancient art of music engraving, i.e., how publishers through the years have printed music on the page, and then designed their software to recreate those functions. I could go on, but the authors make their very cogent argument in favor of LilyPond in this article, as well as giving an excellent introduction to music engraving in general. (BTW, we call it "engraving" because the original printers of music in the 15th century used blocks of wood that they would engrave with woodcutting tools to create a "stamp" that would be inked and then laid onto blank paper.)

In sum, I've been very impressed with both the ease of use of LilyPond and the quality of the music I've printed with it.

Let's face it! The quality a printed score is of primary importance in the creation of the actual artistic entity that is music. Certainly, at some time or another, we've all had to read off of an original hand-written manuscript. Generally, composers are more concerned with getting ideas on the page than they are making their ideas clear to performers. Barring the actual presence of a composer to interpret the score when any questions arise, it has always been the engravers job to make the composer's ideas clear. While Finale and Sibelius (who each claim to be "No. 1" in the music creation business) will continue to dominate the market, the discerning musician will look for the best tool for the best job, the one that is easiest and fastest to use and creates the best score engravings. I definitely intend to make LilyPond--and some of its other incarnations/helper programs a large part of my musical scoring tools

Example of J.S. Bach's manuscript from St. Matthew Passion