Re: LilyPond, Finale and Sibelius (was Review of Valentin's Opera)

[Andrew Hawryluk]

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 1:44 PM, Chris Snyder <address@hidden> wrote:
> Valentin Villenave wrote:
>> To me, note entry is much, much, much faster with LilyPond than with
>> Fin/Sib. (even using a MIDI keyboard -- which, by the way, is one of
>> the less enjoyable experiences I know of).
>
> I concur here. I am much faster with Lily than I suspect I ever could be
> with a graphical interface. It's so much more intuitive to me, and
> actually feels more musical - I have to think about the relationships
> between notes in a much more musical way, especially when dealing with
> multiple voices.
>

Since the topic came up, I just finished writing up some tests I did
on my own music entry speeds in each of three ways:
Finale MIDI input
LilyPond typing
LilyPond, with MIDI input for pitch names

The full report is at
http://www.musicbyandrew.ca/finale-lilypond-4.html, but here's my
conclusion:
"At least for me, MIDI entry is much faster than typing the pitches
and durations myself. However, for all the other musical elements, I
can type them faster in LilyPond than I can enter them in Finale with
the mouse. By using MIDI input in LilyPond I am getting the best of
both worlds, and preliminary testing suggests that I am now faster in
LilyPond than in Finale."

Andrew