Next: How to read the manual, Previous: Simple notation, Up: First steps
LilyPond input files are similar to source files in many common
programming languages. They are case sensitive, and white-space
is generally ignored. Expressions are formed with curly braces
{ }, and comments are denoted with %
or
%{ ... %}
.
If the previous sentences sound like nonsense, don't worry! We'll explain what all these terms mean:
a, b, s, t
) or upper case (e.g. A, B, S, T
).
Notes are lower case: { c d e }
is valid input;
{ C D E }
will produce an error message.
{ c d e }
means the same thing as
{ c
d e } and:
{ c d e }
Of course, the previous example is hard to read. A good rule of thumb is to indent code blocks with either a tab or two spaces:
{ c d e }
()
in mathematics. The braces should be surrounded by a
space unless they are at the beginning or end of a line to avoid
ambiguities.
A LilyPond command followed by a simple expression in braces (such
as \relative { }
) also counts as a single music
expression.
%
introduces a line comment; anything after %
on
that line is ignored. By convention, a line comment is placed
above the code it refers to.
a4 a a a % this comment refers to the Bs b2 b
A block comment marks a whole section of music input as a comment.
Anything that is enclosed in %{
and %}
is ignored.
However, block comments do not ‘nest’. This means that you
cannot place a block comment inside another block comment. If you
try, the first %}
will terminate both block
comments. The following fragment shows possible uses for
comments:
% notes for twinkle twinkle follow c4 c g' g a a g2 %{ This line, and the notes below are ignored, since they are in a block comment. f f e e d d c2 %}
This page is for LilyPond-2.11.58 (development-branch).
Report errors to http://post.gmane.org/post.php?group=gmane.comp.gnu.lilypond.bugs.
Your suggestions for the documentation are welcome.