[LAU] leadsheet software needed

David Baron d_baron at 012.net.il
Tue Oct 16 15:13:54 EDT 2007


On Tuesday 16 October 2007, Josh Lawrence wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I group I recently joined is doing a gig in two weeks.  After a few
> months of practicing, there are still a few tunes that I don't have
> memorized, so I need to generate a lead sheet pretty quickly.  I could
> write them out by hand fairly easily, but I would like to keep a
> digital library of leadsheets.  Is there a program that will generate
> "realbook-style" leadsheets for Linux?  I basically need just a simple
> staff with what I call rhythm slashes, and a mechanism for putting
> chord symbols above the staff.  (Jazz players who have spent many
> nights in a dark room reading the original - and illegal - Real Book
> know exactly what I'm looking for here.)
>
> I realize there are complex tools like Lilypond that will probably do
> this, but I would like something simpler, maybe with a gui.
>
> Thanks!

Lilypond is a formatter. You need something to score, but not really. No 
notes, just slashes and chord names.

Noteedit and its successor nted will not do this for you. No slash symbol in 
either.

Musescore (mscore) will let you pick and place a slash symbol on your staff. 
Not the easiest interface for this particular task and you must enter every 
single one of them (this is otherwize a better up-and-coming WYSIWYG scorer, 
not dependent upon Lilypond), but it will work!

If you have any version of "Jammer" around (windows, not GPL, costs $), it 
will run using wine and  lead-sheets is what this program does. Formatting 
for printout is not up to Lilypond and such but it does work. You do not need 
to enter the slashes. (After you have entered some chords, you can try some 
styles and see what an arranging tool this thing is!)



More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list