Re: Supporting my work on LilyPond financially

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On 01/12/13 15:09, immanuel litzroth wrote:
> 1) I don't seem to run into many of these problems with lilypond and I do
> transcriptions of small ensembles *and* export all
> the voices separately (that's including drums) -- I almost never have to clean
> up for readability issues, and don't have the
> time to do it for aesthetic issues.

Lilypond is generally better at automatically placing most musical elements in 
the right place.  There are usually fewer score --> parts discrepancies in 
Lilypond-engraved works as a result, but the general problem is still something 
that needs care and attention.

Don't forget, too, that part of the reason you get good results out of Lilypond 
is because _you_ are the one using Lilypond and you know what it is that you 
want to achieve in the score.  Part of the reason you know that you rarely have 
to clean up for readability issues in the parts is because ... you actually 
check the parts.  It's probably more than can be said for your Sibelius-using 
suppliers. :-)

After all, if they'd given a toss about the parts, that guitar part would have 
at least had a cue melody line in it ...

> 2) The contention was that this stuff would be easier in Sibelius. Not that you
> can get it right there too.

Sibelius doesn't get things automatically right as well as Lilypond does, but 
it's usually much, much easier to correct or customize them when it doesn't give 
you what you want, which in turn means that it's easier to get what you want in 
general.  But the lack of automation does make you vulnerable to idiots who 
don't do proper quality control or who have no clue about what is wanted.

I don't know if you use or have used Sibelius, but if you're judging it solely 
on the grounds of the bad parts you get from bad suppliers, you're not really 
assessing the software at all.  The real measure of engraving software shouldn't 
be, "How readily does it stop an idiot from getting it wrong?" but, "How readily 
does it let a user achieve the notation they want to achieve?"

For the record, I'm not speaking out in favour of Sibelius in any general sense 
here.  I just think that one should try and understand why it is that software 
like this has the user-base and staying power that it does.