lilypond
LilyPond supports many forms of music notation constructs, including chord names, drum notation, figured bass, grace notes, guitar tablature, modern notation (cluster notation and rhythmic grouping), tremolos, (nested) tuplets in arbitrary ratios, and more.
LilyPond's text-based music input language support can integrate into LaTeX, HTML and Texinfo seamlessly, allowing single sheet music or musicological treatises to be written from a single source. Form and content are separate, and with LilyPond's expert automated formatting, users don't need typographical expertise to produce good notation.
LilyPond produces PDF, PostScript, SVG, or TeX printed output, as well as MIDI for listening pleasures. LilyPond is exported from the RoseGarden and NoteEdit GUIs, and can import ABC, ETF and MIDI.
LilyPond is part of the GNU Project.
Latest reviews
5
As others have noted, it has a high learning curve; but if you're willing to put in the effort, lilypond produces some of the best looking sheet music out there.
5
Produces beautiful scores. Powerful and comprehensive. Unlike the commercial WYSIWYG packages, software updates won't suddenly move glyphs around. Because you've always got your source code, the program can't irretrievably crash your score. It does take some determination to learn its complexities.
5
Profesional, elegante, poderoso. Si sos músico y amante de la consola, es para vos.
3
Very powerful, but its very concept (WYSIWYM music typesetting) implies a steep learning curve that would be eased a lot through more comprehensive templates
