Immediate Need For Midi Output

[Jared Wright]

Hello all, I've only today stumbled across this application and find it to hold a
lot of promise. I am a blind musician, and as a result, more graphically intensive
scorewriters, (Sibelius and its contemporaries) are usually irritating due to screen
reading technology not being developed with musical notation in mind. Composing and
writing music in plain text without actually having to manipulate the notation could
be the best way to circumnavigate this problem. Double that with the reasons sighted
musicians offer for utilizing LilyPond over its competitors, and I'm pretty eager
to dive into this one.
My first stumbling block with LilyPond is the different approach I must use when
reviewing work done in it. The .pdf output is of little practical use to me personally;
its use will come when printing completed projects to give to other musicians. But
I must "view" my own work in progress, both while experimenting with the software
and then while working on actual compositions, via the midi output feature.
   MIDI topics are found quite a ways into the documentation, and at least for me,
they assume quite a bit of knowledge about LilyPond when explaining how to best get
midi output from an input file. For example, it frequently references the similarities
between making a midi block and making a layout block. But since I'm trying to master
getting good midi output before good printed output, this is ending up a mental exercise.
   If anyone with more general knowledge about all of LilyPond's facets could show
me some basic demonstrations of LilyPond input resulting in midi output, or directing
me to already existing code snipets that demonstrate this, I'd be appreciative. For
now, just things like scales and perhaps some simple chords will do. I feel like
I am grasping how to notate with LilyPond, but I have no way of knowing, since I
can't truly examine the printed notation that is the primary form of output. My goal
is to examine the sintax combined with the resulting midi representations and then
start to hear how my own input files are coming out and hopefully confirm that I'm
grasping LilyPond's basic features before moving onto trickier notation. Thanks very
much.
Jared