re: blind user, installing on Windows

[David Bobroff]

Orlando,

>Okay, how do you label your staves?

Let me get back to you on this one.  I haven't been working with LilyPond
in the past couple of weeks and I always have to backtrack a bit when I get
back to using it.

>I'm thinking that I could send the input files to Finale users for printing 
>on their end.

This will not work.  You can, however, send them PDF files which they
should be able to print.  Acrobat Reader is freely available and is used
for reading PDF files.

>Would I want staff paper?

No, LilyPond prints it's own staff lines.

>What are most parts printed on these days?

I think a lot of the older engraved music was printed on 9x12 inch
"Concert" paper.  Most people are probaly using letter paper.  I normally
use A4, I live in Iceland.

>The graphic output will be useless to me, but I should be able to learn the 
>input syntax by comparing the files to the midi I hear.

>I can't see anything near or far from me, which isn't necessarily darkness 
>because I've never seen darkness as such.  Does that make any sense?

Ok, now I have a better understanding of why you want to see some input for
music that you know.

> >Outputting printed music would be an extra
> >challenge for those with serious visual impairments.
>
>Definitely true.  I don't have a clue as to how I'd regulate that.

I think LilyPond will offer some advantages that other programs don't
offer.  LilyPond aims to be an automatic music typesetting program.  It
mostly does the "right thing" leaving the user free to concentrate on the
content.  This would likely be ideal for you.

Now to get back to your question about the labelling of staves.  LilyPond
input files are built up from simple building blocks like complex math
formulas.  Groupings are done using curly braces { and }.  I don't know if
Window-eyes will make sense of that or not.  Here goes:

% This is a comment line.  It starts with a %.  LilyPond ignores this.
% The next short section defines a one octave c major scale for oboe.
% It is all quarter notes.  The note values stay the same until changed.
% This is an identifier.  You can give it any name you want.

oboe = \notes \relative c' {
    c4 d e f g a b c
}

% Same story here, only this is called clarinet.
% We'll do a bit of transposing for this later.
% It is exactly the same material.

clarinet = \notes \relative c' {
    \key c \major
    c4 d e f g a b c
}

% The next section shows an assembled score.
% It uses the above material.

\score {
    \new StaffGroup <<
        <<
            \new Staff \oboe
            \new Staff <<\transpose c d \clarinet>>
        >>
>>
}

Notice that it is possible to use a shorthand for the notes.  We already
created identifiers at the beginning which contained all of the musical
information.  In the \score block we assembled those parts into a score.
The score block starts with:

\score

And is followed by a { then the musical information, or identifier, and then }

Groupings can take place within other groups as well.  For example:

\new StaffGroup

Starts a new staff group.  The staves within this group are held inside <<
this and  >>

Then a new staff:

\new Staff \oboe

That simply places the information defined in the first section in this
place in the score.

Then anoter new staff:

\new Staff <<\transpose c d \clarinet>>

This starts another new staff and contains another grouping which takes
care of transposing the music up a whole step.

Does Window-eyes tell you about things like backslashes, carets,
underscores, dashes, angle brackets, and curly braces?  These are all used
quite a bit in LilyPond syntax.

-David