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With a focus on classic notation, you might wonder whether LilyPond is suited for modern music. Fortunately, the answer is a resounding yes.

“Look ma, no hacks!”

If you generate music with software, publishing it is as easy as writing simple ASCII files. If you do avant-garde music then you will love Lily's flexibility with measures and time signatures. Here is a sample with nested tuplets. The spacing is exactly proportional to the duration of each note. Notes don't have to fill measures, and two notes are only aligned only if they start exactly together.

click for a PDF file.

In any other program, getting this output requires massive ad-hoc fiddling and tweaking. In LilyPond, one simply enters the notes, with their rhythmic structure,

\times 7/9 {
  \times 4/6 {
     r8 c32[ c c c c c c c] r4
     c32[ c32 c16
  }
  \times 5/4 {
    c16 c c] c32[ c32 c16 c] r8
  }
}

If you are familiar with the programming language Scheme, you can even compose algorithmically inside LilyPond!

“Look ma, easy hacks!”

Need anything non-standard? With a small twist, you can use Lily's unlimited flexibility to make Schenker diagrams,

Graphics editing

If that's not enough, you can always make Lily write an SVG file, and edit the final result in an SVG editor, such as Inkscape

Back to the tour

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