[linux-audio-user] notation program needed

[Atte André Jensen]

Josh Lawrence wrote:

> I've worked with Lilypond, and while it is amazing and very powerful,
> it is too powerful and complex for my needs.

Did you look at abc (http://www.walshaw.plus.com/abc)?

I've used it for can't-remember-how-many-years for everything from 
making small examples for a book to a full-blown big band score. It's 
most powerful however for small things.

It's basically text-driven (like lilypond) but has much, much more 
compact and human-readable syntax. There are also a number of front ends 
out there, but although I tried a few none of them suited my needs, 
YMMV. If you're into such things there's also a nice emacs-mode.

Most users agree that the best software for generating prints from abc 
is abcm2ps (http://moinejf.free.fr/).

As an example of something like you want to do, the following sniplet 
generates http://atte.dk/download/chord.pdf (full page) or 
http://atte.dk/download/chord.eps (small example), both generated 
directly and no post editing was done (except convert ps to pdf):

X:1
L:1/1
%%staves {RH LH}
M:none
K:none
V:RH
"Cmaj9"[DEG]
V:LH clef=F
[CB]

-- 
peace, love & harmony
Atte

http://www.atte.dk      | quintet:      http://www.anagrammer.dk
                         | compositions: http://www.atte.dk/compositions