How music schools can reap the benefits of Open Source and Free Culture
LilyPond is a powerful and high-quality music notation program. So far its adoption in music schools has been hindered mainly because it has not (yet) a GUI: you write music in a text file, then LilyPond interprets it and produces the output (just like LaTeX). Unfortunately, text input scares people away.
But LilyPond has a huge potential. On the technical side, the quality of its output is unbeatable: even commercial competitors can't reach such a high level. On the social and cultural side, LilyPond has become the tool for open content music libraries and publishers. Mutopia - a library of free content sheet music - is the most successful example.
Demystifying text input and organizing LilyPond classes in music schools would be the best way to open the potential of LilyPond to every musician.
The talk will provide a quick overview of LilyPond, focusing on its strenghts and main features. In the last part I'll list some reasons why conservatories and modern music schools should adopt it.
Knowledge of LilyPond synthax is not required.
Federico Bruni is a Free Software advocate and guitar player.
In spring 2009 he found out about an effort of making tablature support in LilyPond closer to the layout standards of modern notation. Motivated by the beautiful output of LilyPond, he overcame the apparent unfriendliness of the program and he quickly got completely hooked on it.
He is testing the new features for tablature users and translating the huge documentation into italian.
His dream is introducing musicians and music schools to LilyPond and other related open source software (Ardour,Rosegarden,Solfege,..).
He is based in Copenhagen and he's currently working as a freelance webdesigner.
http://gnurag.net/blog/
http://identi.ca/brunology
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| lilypond.pdf | 875.01 KB |