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LilyPond: exploring polyphonic notation

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Table of Contents 1. A Very Brief Introduction 2. What are note stems? 3. Stem Handling in Polyphonic Notation 4. Musical Examples 5. The quick construction 6. Example of a more detailed quick construct 1. A Very Brief Introduction I’ve finally understood the “logic” behind LilyPond’s syntax as it relates to the different ways of writing multiple voices. I’m writing down my “discovery” right away before I forget it—after all, that’s exactly what this “blog” is for! Polyphony is a compositional technique in which several independent melodic lines are layered and performed simultaneously, creating a sonic texture in which each voice retains its autonomy while harmonizing with the others. The evolution of polyphony marked the transition from a linear conception of music (e.g., Gregorian monody) to one based on architectural complexity (e.g., counterpoint). LilyPond handles polyphony excellently, even on the same staff, as is the case with the piano. Whe...
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LilyPond: Extracting musical fragments in PDF or PNG format

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Table of Contents 1. LilyPond, extracting score fragments: a detailed guide 2. Output format: PDF and PNG. 3. Extracting a fragment from the beginning of a score 4. Increasing Image Resolution 5. Quickly Exporting a Snippet 1. LilyPond, extracting score fragments: a detailed guide This article was written using LilyPond version 2.24.4 and refers to page 3.5.1 of the official manual . The page provides correct but incomplete instructions: the code is incomplete because the musical portion is missing. Starting from the example in the manual but simplifying the musical parameters, I have written a complete template that includes a musical fragment. The template extracts a fragment from the input file that begins after the first half note in the second measure (2 1 4) and ends after the first half note in the third measure (3 1 4). \version "2.24.4" \layout { clip-regions = #(list (cons (make-rhythmic-location 2 1 4) (make-rhy...
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Nano, the minimalist editor for quick and lightweight editing

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Table of Contents 1. Why Nano? 2. Pasting from the clipboard 3. Moving between lines 4. Plugins or no plugins? 5. Setting as the default editor 6. Why NOT Nano? 1. Why Nano? Nano is a command line text editor, known for being one of the simplest and most intuitive available in the GNU/Linux world. It is found in most Linux distributions and is a tool that anyone can use “at first glance.” At the bottom of the screen is a description of the most commonly used commands, where the symbol ^ represents the Ctrl key and the symbol “M” indicates the Alt key (which was once called Meta and is still called that in Emacs). For example: ^O means: press Ctrl + O to save the current document. Another example: M-U means: press Alt + U to undo the last command. The Ctrl + Enter key activates the links contained within the documents opened in Nano. Here is the “main menu” in English: The wider the terminal window, the more commands are displayed. ...
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Prolog: between logic and programming language

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Hands on the keyboard 3. Example 4. The appeal of Prolog 5. Let's play with logic 5.1. Prolog version 5.2. Python version 6. Observations on the two languages 1. Introduction Created in the 1970s for natural language processing and artificial intelligence, Prolog (short for "Programmation en Logique") is a somewhat unusual programming language. Prolog's “logic” focuses on defining relationships and facts rather than sequential instructions. The language is based on three fundamental pillars: Facts: Absolute truths about the world we are modeling. Rules: Conditional relationships that allow us to infer new information. Queries: Questions asked of the system to verify the truth of a statement or find solutions. In Prolog, there are no “for” loops or variables in the traditional sense. 2. Hands on the keyboard To test Prolog code on your computer it's possible to install SWI-Prolog, ...
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Vim... beyond Vim

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Table of Contents 1. Vim in five minutes 2. Not a tutorial about Vim 3. Vim in Emacs: Evil Mode, the emulator par excellence 4. Vim in Sublime Text 5. Vim in Visual Studio Code 6. Vim in Zed: the youngest 1. Vim in five minutes Vim is not just a text editor, it is an editing language that allows you to interact with text through logical key combinations. The basis of Vim's "language" is the "modal" system. The main modes are as follows: Normal Mode : The "command center." Each key is a movement or modification command. Insert Mode : Where you actually write the text. Visual Mode : For selecting blocks of text. This separation eliminates the need to use the Ctrl key or mouse for every operation, reducing hand fatigue. In Vim, your hands never leave the center position of the keyboard. Basic movements are performed with h, j, k, and l, but the real power lies in semantic jumps: Words : w (jump to the beginnin...
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Personal observations on Robocopy, Rsync, and Rclone

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Previous article: brief comparison between robocopy and rsync 3. Slow rsync with WebDAV 4. Installing Rclone on Linux: repository or official website? 5. Configuring Rclone 1. Introduction Robocopy: The "Robust File Copy" is a built-in powerhouse for Windows users. It’s the native way to handle massive local transfers or network shares (SMB) while perfectly preserving NTFS permissions. Rsync: The de facto standard for the Unix world (Linux and macOS). It’s famous for its efficiency—instead of re-copying everything, it only syncs the specific parts of a file that have changed. Rclone: Think of Rclone as "Rsync for the Cloud." While the tools above were born for physical disks and local servers, Rclone was built for the API era. It is a true multi-platform "Swiss Army knife" that runs seamlessly on Windows, Linux, macOS, and even FreeBSD. What sets it apart is its incredible versatility: it ...
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Comments on the APPLICATION BAR and KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS in WINDOWS and GNU/LINUX.

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. What is the "Super" Key? 3. What is the Taskbar? 4. The Core Concept: Super + Number 5. To Pin or Not to Pin? That is the Question. 6. More Than Just Windows: The "Super + Number" Shortcut on Linux 7. Beyond the OS: Browsers and Outlook 8. The Bottom Line 1. Introduction In modern desktop environments, from Windows to mainstream GNU/Linux distributions, Alt+Tab remains the go-to shortcut for window switching. While seamless for light multitasking, this method hits a wall as your workflow grows. Once you have dozens of active windows, what was once a quick "flip" becomes a tedious cycle of repetitive keystrokes. Even Alt+Esc fails to address the root of the problem, as it still forces you to manually scan through an endless stack of applications to find the one you need. There is, however, a faster and more surgical approach: the Super + Number combination. In this article, I will e...
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Two open source tools for editing PDF documents: GUI versus CLI.

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Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Managing operations with PDF Arranger 3. Managing the same operations with PDFtk. 4. In summary 1. Introduction The “PDF” is the essentially static document format par excellence. However, even PDF documents can be modified, especially with operations such as deleting, adding, reversing pages, inserting text, and more. There are various applications, including free ones, for performing these operations. In this article, I will report some parallel observations between two systems for page manipulation: one graphical, PDF Arranger, and one command line, PDFtk. PDF Arranger is a free and open source application (a fork of PDF-Shuffler) ideal for merging, splitting, rotating, and cropping PDF files in an intuitive way. PDFtk is one of the most powerful tools for manipulating PDFs in command line mode. I would like to point out that this article does not claim to be exhaustive on the two systems mentioned, but is onl...
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