LDP language. Reference manual

Target audience: People interested in learning the LDP language for writing music scores. This document provides details about the structure, organization and syntax of an LDP document; the LDP elements and their attributes; and how to write music scores using the LDP language.

Legal notice: Copyright © 2002-2020 Cecilio Salmeron The text of and illustrations in the LDP language. Reference manual are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (“CC-BY-SA”). An explanation of CC-BY-SA is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. In accordance with CC-BY-SA, if you distribute this document or an adaptation of it, you must provide the URL for the original version.

Important

This document is a finished, complete and definitive document. It should be accurate and totally uptated. If you find errors, things that need clarification or have any suggestion, please go to the LDP issues page and create a new issue. Thank you!

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
  • 1.1. The LDP language
  • 1.2. Rendering LDP files
  • 1.3. Why a new language?
  • 1.4. A very simple introductory score
  • 1.5. Comments
  • 1.6. Notation used
  • 1.7. License
• 2. The score and its structure
  • 2.1. The Score element
    • 2.1.1. Score options
    • 2.1.2. Units for measurements
    • 2.1.3. Page layout
    • 2.1.4. System layout
    • 2.1.5. Score titles
  • 2.2. The Instrument element
    • 2.2.1. Number of staves
    • 2.2.2. MIDI information
• 3. Music description
  • 3.1. The musicData element
  • 3.2. Clefs
  • 3.3. Key signatures
  • 3.4. Time signatures
  • 3.5. Barlines
  • 3.6. Notes and rests
    • 3.6.1. Duration
    • 3.6.2. Pitch
    • 3.6.3. Stem
  • 3.7. Selecting the staff
  • 3.8. Metronome marks
• 4. Polyophony: chords and voices
  • 4.1. Voices
  • 4.2. Gaps in a voice
  • 4.3. Chords
• 5. Note relationships
  • 5.1. Ties
  • 5.2. Slurs
  • 5.3. Beams
    • 5.3.1. Abbreviated notation (deprecated)
  • 5.4. Tuplets
• 6. Pauses and breath marks
  • 6.1. Fermata
  • 6.2. Caesura
  • 6.3. Breath mark
• 7. Notations attached to one object
  • 7.1. introduction
  • 7.2. Dynamics marks
  • 7.3. Lines
  • 7.4. Accents and articulations
    • 7.4.1. Accents
    • 7.4.2. Stress marks
  • 7.5. Texts
• 8. Lyrics
• 9. Format control
  • 9.1. Forcing a new system
  • 9.2. The Location element
  • 9.3. Spacers
  • 9.4. Defining styles
  • 9.5. Fonts
• 10. Common elements widely used
  • 10.1. Color
  • 10.2. Width and height
  • 10.3. Hide /show objects
  • 10.4. Style