5.3 Large projects

When working on a large project, having a clear structure to your lilypond input files becomes vital.

• Use a variable for each voice, with a minimum of structure inside the definition. The structure of the \score section is the most likely thing to change; the violin definition is extremely unlikely to change in a new version of LilyPond.

  violin = \relative {
  g'4 c'8. e16
  }
  …
  \score {
    \new GrandStaff {
      \new Staff {
        \violin
      }
    }
  }
  

• Separate tweaks from music definitions. This point was made previously, but for large projects it is absolutely vital. We might need to change the definition of fthenp, but then we only need to do this once, and we can still avoid touching anything inside violin.

  fthenp = _\markup{
    \dynamic f \italic \small { 2nd } \hspace #0.1 \dynamic p }
  violin = \relative {
  g'4\fthenp c'8. e16
  }