Skip to content
/ wikinder Public

Music notation on computers

Jump to bottom Edit New page
yuuki edited this page Sep 10, 2025 · 29 revisions

MusicXML is an interchange format for sheet music. However, it is too verbose to write by hand. MuseScore is a practical application that supports it.

LilyPond notation is useful for writing simple scores. It is less interchangeable, although python-ly provides limited support for converting to MusicXML.

Below are LilyPond fragments for nursery rhymes. See #How to convert LilyPond scores for instructions. All files are available in my repo.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

\relative c' {
  \time 6/8
  c4. c4. | c4 d8 e4. | e4 d8 e4 f8 | g2. |
  c8[ c8 c8] g8[ g8 g8] | e8[ e8 e8] c8[ c8 c8] | g'4 f8 e4 d8 | c2. \fine
}

Sheet music for "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

row.webm

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

\relative c' {
  \time 4/4
  c4 c4 g'4 g4 | a4 a4 g2 | f4 f4 e4 e4 | d4 d4 c2 |
  g'4 g4 f4 f4 | e4 e4 d2 | g4 g4 f4 f4 | e4 e4 d2 |
  c4 c4 g'4 g4 | a4 a4 g2 | f4 f4 e4 e4 | d4 d4 c2 \fine
}

Sheet music for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"

twinkle.webm

How to convert LilyPond scores

[show]

Prerequisites:

Example of the full LilyPond score for "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (row.ly):

\version "2.24.4"

\paper {
  indent = #0
  line-width = #120
}

\header {
  title = "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
}

\score {
  <<
  \chords {
    c,2.*4 |
    c,2.*2 | g,2. | c,2.
  }
  \relative c' {
    \time 6/8
    c4. c4. | c4 d8 e4. | e4 d8 e4 f8 | g2. | \break
    c8[ c8 c8] g8[ g8 g8] | e8[ e8 e8] c8[ c8 c8] | g'4 f8 e4 d8 | c2. \fine
  }
  >>

  \layout {
    \autoBreaksOff
    \numericTimeSignature
  }

  \midi {
    \tempo 4. = 120
  }
}

Convert LilyPond to SVG and MIDI:

lilypond --svg -dcrop -dmidi-extension=mid row.ly

Set the SVG background to white:

rsvg-convert -b white -f svg -o row.cropped.svg row.cropped.svg

Convert MIDI to WAV:

fluidsynth -ni /path/to/FluidR3_GM.sf2 row.mid -F row.wav

Convert WAV to WebM:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i 'color=c=black:s=320x180' -i row.wav -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libopus -af 'silenceremove=stop_periods=1:stop_threshold=-50dB' -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p row.webm

Convert LilyPond to MusicXML (extracting only the \relative block):

python3 -c 'import re, sys; print(re.search(r"\\relative.*?{.*?}", open(sys.argv[1]).read(), re.DOTALL).group(0))' row.ly \
| ly musicxml -o row.musicxml

🧸 Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.

Add a custom sidebar
Clone this wiki locally