• Copy the file ekmel.ily into an appropriate folder, e.g. "LILYPOND/usr/share/lilypond/current/ly", with LILYPOND meaning the installation folder of LilyPond.
• Copy one or both of the language files into the same folder as above:
  ekmel-en.ily for English note names,
  ekmel-de.ily for German note names;
  see Note names.
• Install the Ekmelos Font if it shall be used for the accidental symbols in Ekmelily; see Fonts.

Add the following line near the top of your LilyPond input file (after \language and ekmelicFont, if any):

\include "ekmel.ily"

and then optionally one of the \ekmelic*Style commands (or even both) for a predefined or user-defined notation style.

Predefined Notation Style

\ekmelicStyle STYLENAME

This sets the notation style STYLENAME. The default setting is arrow or the style specified with the command line option 1

-dekmelic-style=STYLENAME

The following styles are predefined (see Alterations for details of the accidental symbols):

• arrowArrow notation
• rhmRichter Herf / Maedel notation
• simsSims notation 
• sagSagittal notation. . .
• msagMixed Sagittal notation
• wysWyschnegradsky notation. . .. . .
• goGould notation for quarter-tones
• gosGould notation for sixth-tones
• gostGould + Stein / Zimmermann notation
• stzStein / Zimmermann notation
• stcStein / Couper notation
• stvtStein / Van Blankenburg / Tartini notation
• bosBosanquet commatic notation
• fourDigit 4 notation
• fernFerneyhough notation

User-defined Notation Style

\ekmelicUserStyle MYNAME #'((ALTERATION CHARACTER …) …)

This creates a user-defined notation style with the name MYNAME, derived from the current style (usually a predefined notation style).

For each specified ALTERATION, a new accidental is defined which is a concatenation of one or more CHARACTERs. For all other alterations where the previous accidental of ALTERATION is found in combination with further symbols, this accidental is also replaced by the new one.

ALTERATION must be a rational number or one of the predefined Scheme symbols.
CHARACTER must be either a Unicode code point as an integer number (e.g. #xE262), or a character literal (e.g. #\b), or a string (e.g. "bb"). Note: The code points supported by the Ekmelos Font are listed in Ekmelos.pdf.
If MYNAME is an empty string (""), the name of the current style extended with -user is taken.

\ekmelicOutputSuffix

Set the name of the current notation style as the output filename suffix for the current \book section.

\ekmelic-style-name

Draw the name of the current notation style as markup.

\ekmelic-char #ALTERATION

Draw an accidental symbol according to the current notation style as markup. ALTERATION must be a rational number or one of the predefined Scheme symbols.

\ekmelic-fraction #ALTERATION

Draw ALTERATION as a fraction (arranged vertically, not just a string n/d), or as an integer if its denominator is 1, with a separate minus sign for a negative value. ALTERATION must be a rational number or one of the predefined Scheme symbols.

Ekmelily defines note names (pitch names) for all twelfth-tone degrees based on the German and English names for semi- and quarter-tones that are already given in LilyPond; see the table of all note names. The used language version depends on which language file exists:
ekmel-en.ily for English note names,
ekmel-de.ily for German note names;
or, if both exist, which language is selected with the \language command (this must be specified before including ekmel.ily): "english" selects the English note names, any other language the German note names. 2

Enharmonically equivalent Note names

The one-quarter-tone and three-quarters-tones degrees have two distinct, enharmonically equivalent accidentals in some notation styles like arrow, rhm, and sims. Therefore, Ekmelily defines two note names each, e.g. cqs and csaqf (English) or cih and ciseh (German). However, LilyPond does not support different accidentals for the same alteration. As a provisional solution, the combined note names (e.g. csaqf or ciseh) have slightly differing alterations and are therefore not suitable for transposition and MIDI output.

Ekmelily requires a font for the accidental symbols (as an extension to LilyPond's Feta font.) When using a predefined notation style, this font must be compliant with SMuFL3.

By default, the Ekmelos Font is used. Another font (e.g. Bravura) can be selected, either in the LilyPond input file before including ekmel.ily with the variable

ekmelicFont = FONTNAME

or with the command line option 1

-dekmelic-font=FONTNAME

This sets the predefined Gould notation for sixth-tones (gos) and modifies it into a user-defined notation with the Tavener (Byzantine-style) sharp and flat (code points U+E476, U+E477) for the quarter-tone degrees:

\include "ekmel.ily"
\ekmelicStyle gos
\ekmelicUserStyle gouldTavener #'(
  (1/4 #xE476)
  (-1/4 #xE477))

The same example making use of the corresponding Scheme symbols:

\include "ekmel.ily"
\ekmelicStyle gos
\ekmelicUserStyle gouldTavener #`(
  (,SEMI-SHARP #xE476)
  (,SEMI-FLAT #xE477))

This selects the English note names and prints the Sims accidentals defined in the Bravura font:

\language "english"
ekmelicFont = "Bravura"
\include "ekmel.ily"
\ekmelicStyle sims

Please find further examples of user-defined styles in the file user-styles.ly.

Other extensions for LilyPond for the notation of microtonal music:
microlily (Sagittal notation) and HE-Lily (Helmholtz-Ellis notation).