LilyPond – Music notation for everyone: Introduction

# Introduction

### Our Goal

LilyPond came about when two musicians wanted to go beyond the soulless look of computer-printed sheet music. Musicians prefer reading beautiful music, so why couldn’t programmers write software to produce elegant printed parts?

The result is a system which frees musicians from the details of layout, allowing them to focus on making music. LilyPond works with them to create publication-quality parts, crafted in the best traditions of classical music engraving.

### What LilyPond does

- Features: What can LilyPond do?
- Examples: I want to see some music!
- Freedom: LilyPond is Free Software.
- Background: Our computational aesthetics.

### LilyPond in use

- Productions: Real-life use of LilyPond.
- Reviews: What do people say?

### How LilyPond works

- Text input: You write music as text?!
- Easier editing: Other ways of working with LilyPond.

Other languages: česky, deutsch, español, français, magyar, italiano, 日本語, nederlands, 中文.

### Validation

Thanks to webdev.nl for hosting `lilypond.org`.