• Copy the include file(s) for the desired tuning(s) as well as the main include file ekmel-main.ily into an appropriate folder, e.g. "LILYPOND/usr/share/lilypond/current/ly", with LILYPOND meaning the installation folder of LilyPond.
• Install the Ekmelos Font if it shall be used for the accidental symbols in Ekmelily; see Fonts.

Add the following lines near the top of your LilyPond input file. They are all optional – except for the include file of the desired tuning – but should be specified in this order.

ekmelicFont = FONTNAME \include "ekmel*.ily" \language "LANGUAGE" \ekmelicStyle STYLENAME \ekmelicUserStyle MYNAME #'((ALTERATION CHARACTER …) …)

Ekmelily now supports different tunings (not only 72-EDO), available by separate include files. Each provides its own set of note name languages and notation styles (the first specified language/style is the default).

\language "LANGUAGE"

This selects note names (pitch names) for LANGUAGE, provided that it is available for the respective tuning. Else, the default language is selected (this is always "deutsch"). The \language command should be placed after the include file. For backward compatibility, it can be placed before the include file, but only to specify "english" or "deutsch".

Ekmelily defines its own sets of note names based on the names for semi- and quarter-tones given in LilyPond; see also the table of all German and English note names for 72-EDO.

Enharmonically equivalent Note names

Some notation styles support two distinct, enharmonically equivalent accidentals; e.g. the arrow, rhm, and sims notations for the one-quarter-tone and three-quarter-tones. 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.

Predefined Notation Styles

\ekmelicStyle STYLENAME

This sets the predefined notation style STYLENAME. The default notation depends on the tuning or it is specified with the command line option 1

-dekmelic-style=STYLENAME

The following table shows the predefined notation styles supported by a specific EDO tuning (d = default notation); see Alterations for details on the accidental symbols for 72-EDO.

User-defined Notation Styles

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

This creates a user-defined notation style derived from the current style (possibly set by a previous \ekmelicStyle command), with the name MYNAME.

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 a predefined Scheme symbol.
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 the suffix -user is taken.

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 SMuFL.7

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

ekmelicFont = FONTNAME

or with the command line option 1

-dekmelic-font=FONTNAME

\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 according to the current notation style as markup. ALTERATION must be a rational number or a predefined Scheme symbol.

\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 a predefined Scheme symbol.

This sets the predefined Stein / Zimmermann notation (stz) for quarter-tones (24-EDO) and modifies it into a user-defined notation with the three-quarters-tone flat symbol after Tartini (U+E487), and the sharp-sharp symbol (U+E269) instead of double-sharp:

\include "ekmel-24.ily"
\ekmelicStyle stz
\ekmelicUserStyle myNotation #'(
  (-3/4 #xE487)
  (1 #xE269))

This is the same example making use of the corresponding Scheme symbols:

\include "ekmel-24.ily"
\ekmelicStyle stz
\ekmelicUserStyle myNotation #`(
  (,THREE-Q-FLAT #xE487)
  (,DOUBLE-SHARP #xE269))

This selects the English note names and prints the Sims accidentals (72-EDO) defined in the Bravura font:

ekmelicFont = "Bravura"
\include "ekmel.ily"
\language "english"
\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 which also inspired Ekmelily:
microlily by Graham Breed (Sagittal notation) and HE-Lily by Torsten Anders (Helmholtz-Ellis notation).