I have been using Lilypond for some time, and have used MIDI sequencing software before, too. Back in the early 90s I taught myself Cakewalk Apprentice with MIDI output for my early composition projects. :) But I am a beginner regarding the inner workings of MIDI. I have some beginner questions about soundfonts.
1. Is the choice of soundfont a property of the MIDI file itself, or a property of the playback software? (Or both?) I have Timidity++ and found a place in timidity.cfg where I can specify a soundfont. But would I have to go into the config file every time I wanted to open a new file for playback, if I had files that used different soundfonts? If the choice of soundfont is a property of the MIDI file, can I specify it in a Lilypond file's MIDI output block?
2. Is there an easy way to see a list of all the instruments in a soundfont and hear samples of the sounds?
I am using Ubuntu Linux 11.04 on an Acer Aspire 5253. My Lilypond workflow is to type code into gedit (text editor), run lilypond in a terminal, check the score output with evince (pdf viewer), listen to MIDI with Timidity, occasional postprocessing in Audacity after converting MIDI to wave with Timidity.