I tried using lilypond ( http://www.lilypond.org/ )
for typesetting of sheet music.

While the output looks nice, the input language IMHO is quite horrible,
because the underlying data/execution model is underspecified.
For some parts, it tries to describe the logical structure of the score;
but for others, the layout; and in addition it has several non-obvious
context-dependencies (but see below), preventing modularity.

Is there a better option? E.g., starting from a clear mathematical model,
as in Haskore, and use lilypond only as a PDF rendering engine?

Do I want hly / hts perhaps?  http://rd.slavepianos.org/?t=hly


As I see it, the main high-level design problem
is that the source language needs partial evaluation annotations
for abstractions applications: sometimes they should be expanded
(for MIDI rendering, always) and sometimes not (in typesetting,
to create repetition marks instead of actually repeating notes).


PS: I agree that some of lilypond's context dependencies
(relative pitch, implicit note length) do really save
large amounts of tedious typing: "c4 e g a c1" is much more economical
than "[c 1 qn, e 1 qn, g 1 qn , a 1 qn, c 2 fn]"
which I guess is the Haskore equivalent.




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