♩ ScoreRender ♫

Upon a time I have had compared the results of various notations side by side in my own blog, split into several posts. But comparing them within one single post is cooler, and easier for comparison purpose. So here presents the beginning 2 bars of Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 8, second movement:

ABC:

Guido:

Mup

Lilypond

PMW:

Among all notations, Lilypond takes me the most time to get positions of various dynamics and texts right. Much time is spent on Guido one too, but documentation on Guido is considerably easier to read than Lilypond’s, and much manual layout simply can’t be done by Guido .

I have been saying that ABC notation shows promise; now I want to take back to word. It doesn’t even allow specifying text marks in arbitrary position! This is 2008, not 1988, but still. Though ABC standard version 2.0 has it, but (1) it’s a draft, and (2) which software is implementing 2.0 standard?

2008-09-28 Edit: Add Philip’s Music Writer counterpart since it is recently supported.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under ABC, GUIDO, Lilypond, Mup, PMW, Showcase. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.