Dear Lilypond Composers, Questions are regularly posed on this list that suggest that many Lilyponders are composers who use Lilypond to generate music based on creative conceptions, rather than the traditional way.
I'm writing a faux-philosophical novel in which characters occasionally speak speculatively about Hermann Hesse's "glass bead game". It is kind of an updated Search for the Holy Grail (actual Glasperlenspiel). How to decode Hesse's many hints. What are the rules? What if Lilypond is used to play the game? One of the characters says: The Glass Bead Game, while being set far in the future, is nothing other than sets of Leibniz's characteristica universalis identified by competing future large language model artificial intelligence, wherein the coding teams who have developed each LLM compete by generating serial music using dadaist algorithms for their own LLM AI, in which, not the notes, but the large language model universal characteristics (post-Platonic forms) can only appear once. (the character's nickname is "Nothing Other Than"; he's an academic philosopher) 1. Can this general idea (scenario) be tweaked to be more specific? (more interesting to the coding community) 2. Is there way to mention Lilypond specifically in this paragraph? (e.g. replace everything that follows "wherein") 3. Is there any objection to mentioning Lilypond specifically in the novel? 4. Are there any other novels that mention Lilypond? 5. How might Lilypond be mentioned in some earlier chapter, to better prepare the reader? Honestly, No. 5 is entirely my responsibility, but having grown up in a Daoist country, I like Sets Of Five. On the other hand, if someone has had an humorous personal experience that could be imported into a narrative, I'm all ears. Maybe that would be a personal response. Hesse and dada. Hesse and dharma. I also welcome personal correspondence about thoughts Lilyponders might have about Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game). Because the protagonist is a member of a Freemason-like fraternity that has a karaoke room in every lodge, often used to sing a cappella rather than karaoke, and the protagonist travels frequently, it's easy to introduce a variety of characters with different views about music. Historically, Freemasons liked to sing together and had their own songbooks. Until 1991, The Sacred Harp contained a 4-page anthem titled "Masonic Ode." I'm not a mason, but I'm fascinated with Masonic music. For the record, I don't use Lilypond to compose music. I use it to write poetry. I feel that my first draft of Nothing Other Than's description is unsatisfying to people who actually write code. Suggestions welcome. Pond-fraternally yours, David Olson Los Angeles
