Testimonials

“... I've written a couple of encore pieces for solo cello which I've printed with LilyPond and which I'm going to submit to Schirmer for publication. I'll bet their engraved version wouldn't look half as sharp as mine!”

Carter Brey, Principal Cellist, New York Philharmonic

“Although I don't know [LilyPond] very well yet, I'm *very* impressed. I used the program to input a motet of Josquin Desprez in mensural notation and there's no doubt that lilypond outscores all other notation programs easily concerning speed, ease of use and look!”

Orm Finnendahl, professor of Composition, Musikhochschule Freiburg

Composer Darius Blasband studying a LilyPond score while recording The Legend of the Toad.

“ [..after the first orchestra rehearsal] I got numerous compliments about the quality of the scores. Even more importantly, while Lilypond provides numerous hacks to improve the way its scores look, what the orchestra got from me is basically the raw, untouched output. ”

Darius Blasband, composer (Brussels, Belgium)

“thanks and kudos to the development team for their incredible work. I've never seen anything approaching the output that I get from Lilypond -- I'm totally confident that my music publishing needs will be fulfilled beyond my expectations using this great application. [..] basically untweaked Lilypond output [..] looks better than most recent "professional" publications I've compared it to (q.v., just about any Warner Bros. score, and even many of the most recent by "the old houses"). [..]

Beat that, Finale/Sibelius/Igor/whatever!!!”

Kieren MacMillan, composer (Toronto, Canada)

“I think that Lilypond is already ready for "prime time" -- I've used it for two years in a university music composition course, thereby saving me hundreds of dollars (or whatever the "cheap" student versions of Finale or Sibelius costs). And some people exclaim "wow! How did you get Finale to make music that looks so good?"”

Graham Percival, composition student and cello teacher.

“Lilypond is obviously the zillion-ton gorilla [of great music typesetting].”

Chris Cannam, lead programmer of the RoseGarden project.

“I think Lilypond is great [..] The more I learn about LilyPond the more I like it!”

David Bobroff, Bass Trombone, Iceland Symphony Orchestra

“ I am super impressed with LilyPond [..]

THIS IS THE BEST PROGRAM EVER!!!

Thank you all SO MUCH for your hard work and dedication!”

Vaylor Trucks, Electric guitar player (Yes, related to)

“I had a kind of hate-passion relationship with it. Passion because the first score I saw was so amazing! The description of LilyPond lies about its beautifulness, it is too modest! [..] as LilyPond is getting always better, and as I look closer how things are done in scheme, I have less and less frustrations. Anyway, what I mean is: thank you for providing LilyPond, it is really good.”

Nicolas Sceaux, Mutopia contributor

“Anyway, LilyPond does an amazingly good job!

Werner Lemberg, Conductor at the Theatre in Koblenz, Germany and distinguished GNU Hacker.

i think [LilyPond is] an incredible program, and it produces wonderful, wonderful output. when i read an interview about it last year, i was raving to several friends of mine about its potential

Paul Davis, developer of JACK and Ardour.

Why all the praise?

LilyPond closely mimics the looks of hand-engraved music, while most other programs don't. If you want to understand this difference (or if you simply are interested), then read our treatise on automated music engraving.

Of course, you can also continue with seeing LilyPond in action.