A lilypond and musescore file generator

Short history

As I needed a lot of Images and mp3 files for my Anki deck I started searching for apps that could generate them.

Prerequisites:

• the images are cropped to what is to be displayed
• the images preferably have a transparent background (usefull in dark-mode)
• the mp3 files use a standard pitch of 443Hz

Result of my search

I ended up with lilypond for generating images like this:

.

Lilypond can also export midi-files, but those are not supported by Anki and lilypond uses the 440Hz standard pitch. Further research ended at MuseScore, which offers a graphical interface and is capable of generating mp3-files out of your score, using whatever standard pitch you want to use. The mp3 file corresponding to the image above can be found here.

As creating the sources for both programs would take me ages, I decided to build some small tool that does the basic work for me. And here it is. I used python, although I do not have a lot of experience with it.

Caveat

• As I started learning to play the violin, the generated files are restricted to the ambitus of the violin (1st position)
• I am living in Germany:
  • everything is generated according to the German notation (b becomes h, bes becomes b)
  • the default standard pitch is A4 = 443 Hz

The generator

Requirements

• Python (I currently use 3.8.5).
• No special libraries are required.

Run

• clone the repository
• rename config.template.json to config.json (this is the default used if you do not provide any parameter)
• run generate.py

usage: generate.py [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--generate-only] [--output OUTPUT] [--force] [--standard-pitch STANDARD_PITCH] [--regenerate | --purge] [--verbose] {all,musescore,lilypond}

Generate and process lilypond and musescore files.

positional arguments:
  {all,musescore,lilypond}
                        Type of files to generate

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --config CONFIG, -c CONFIG
                        The name of the configuration file. [Default = 'json.config']
  --generate-only, -g   Do not process generated files
  --output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT
                        The output directory. If not provided reading the value from the configuratiomn file. [Default = '.\out']
  --force, -f           Force creation of the output directory if it does not exist
  --standard-pitch STANDARD_PITCH, -s STANDARD_PITCH
                        The standard pitch (a.k.a. Kammerton) when generating mp3-files. [Default = 443]
  --regenerate, -r      Regenerate existing files
  --purge, -p           Purge targetted outputdirectories before generation
  --verbose, -v         Verbose

Todo's (in no particular order)

• ✅ output subdir's should go into config.json
• ✅ add a parameter for the standardpitch, default = 443
• ✅ delete .pdf and .cropped.pdf lilypond generates as intermediate steps
• ✅ get template file names from config
• ✅ translate variables, methods and comments to english
• ✅ add CLI parameter --standard-pitch, -s to config.json and merge CLI args at runtime
• ✅ add flag (--regenerate, -r) to regenerate files that already exist (mutually exclusive with purge parameter)
• ✅ add a flag (--purge, -p) purge targetted out-directories before generating
• ❌ add a flag (--keep-intermediate, -k) which prevents deleting the intermediate files (.pdf and .cropped.pdf)
• ❌ parameterized (--clean-up, -c, default: false) delete of ly and mscx files after processing them, mutually exclusive with --generate-only)
• ❌ add selection notes, scales, intervals
• ❌ Split helper into a musical helper and a text helper
• ❌ add a language parameter (--language, - l) defaulting to 'de', goes into the config file also