openbook

version: 171

OpenBook is an open source Jazz real book

What is OpenBook?

OpenBook is a Jazz real book constructed with free software. A real book simply means a big book with lots ofJazz tunes or standards as they are more widely known.

Where is the projects website?

https://veltzer.github.io/openbook

Why did you start this?

Because of many reasons:

• I wanted to learn Jazz and a good way to do that is to write down the tunes (amongst many many other things).
• I wanted beautiful sheet music that I could fiddle with.
• I did not want to pay for the overly expensive real or fake books out there.
• I believe in free software and wanted free (in the sense of freedom) sheet music.
• Jazz is a prime example of a free type of art so it's conjunction with free software seems a match made in heaven.
• Jazz musicians may need beautiful electronic Real books because electronic books are starting to be used by Jazz musicians both for practice and for performance.

What tools are used?

lilypond, make, python, virtualenv, qpdf, ghostscript, mako, lame, timidity and more.

What is produced?

Beautiful and lightweight postscript and PDF real books with Jazz tunes. The idea is that the end user can control the final output and decide if he/she wants lyrics, size of paper, transposition for trumpet, selection of tunes and more. In addition you can produce midi, mp3 and ogg outputs. Possibly other output formats will be supported in the future (epub?).

What is the copyright?

All the stuff in this project is GPL version 3. The tunes themselves have their own copyright holders.

Who can contribute?

Anyone.

What system do I need to participate?

A Linux system that you can install software on. Mac OSX is reported to work too if you know how to install the right stuff on it. Windows is not currently supported although well formed patches will be accepted. (disclaimer: the author hates Windows with a vengence so patches have to be ultra clean to be accepted)

What do I need to know to participate?

• Some rudimentary Linux system administration (in order to install the software needed for this project to build).
• Some basic git software content tracking (in order to fetch the project, modify and submit patches).
• The lilypond language (in order to edit or add tunes).
• Some music knowledge would also help...:)

Who currently contributes?

Look at the CREDITS file

Your name could be here if you contribute...

Where can I see some results?

Check out the PDFs and other outputs in https://veltzer.github.io/openbook.

Why is there so little documentation?

I just started this project (4 years all in all). Feel free to add stuff and request a pull.\ If you contribute a lot I will make you an admin...

How do you write the standards?

Using lilypond. Check it out at: http://www.lilypond.org/.

Will you co-operate with the lilypond, mutopia and wikifonia communities?

YES! Any bugs or feature suggestion are submitted to the lilypond community. Any requests for pieces from the mutopia community will be respected. Wikifonia uses musicXML for typesetting while I use an essentially lilypond format as input format - so there could not be much co-operation there.

Do you only allow Jazz tunes?

No. Rock and Pop will be welcome and so would classical. If you are really into classical lilypond production you may alternativly wish to contribute to the mutopia project at http://www.mutopiaproject.org/.

How do I build the pdfs?

• you need tools installed. on Ubuntu $ sudo apt install python3 virtualenv lilypond qpdf ghostscript
• make sure you install lilypond version 2.18.2. This project is based on this version.
• clone the repository $ git clone git://github.com/veltzer/openbook.git
• cd into the newly created folder $ cd openbook
• create a python virtual environment $ virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3 .venv
• activate the virutal env $ source .venv/bin/activate
• install the python prerequisites $ pip install -r requirements.txt
• run the build process $ make
• the pdfs should now be built and you will find them in the 'docs' folder.
• if you want to build all the tunes individually then run $ make all_tunes

How do I contribute?

• create an account on git hub.
• hack on the .ly.mako files (git add the files that you hack on).
• commit to your own hard drive repository (git commit).
• push to git hub (git push).
• send me a pull request (button in the github ui).

Can I just add a single tune?

Yes. To add a tune named "yourtune" just add single file named

    src/openbook/yourtune.ly.mako

Yes, the extension should be .mako since I use mako for templating. In that file there are sections. Just copy them from some other tune. One section for chords, another for lyrics, another for the melody etc. After working on the tune build just a single tune by issueing:

    make out/src/openbook/yourtune.pdf

or

    make out/src/openbook/yourtune.midi

or make out/src/openbook/yourtune.stamp to get both pdf and midi.

Can I just build a single tune?

Yes. make out/src/openbook/[tune_name].pdf make out/src/openbook/[tune_name].midi make out/src/openbook/[tune_name].stamp

What about MusicXML?

Sorry, this project is lilypond based. Patches for MusicXML will be welcome but I don't see how they will fit into this project.

Can I send corrections to the tunes without learning lilypond and all the rest of the stuff?

Yes. Just send them as regular text via my email below.

Where can I get more documentation about this project?

Look in the "doc" subfolder of the source code...

Mark Veltzer <[email protected]>, 2009-2018