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8.1.2 Internal music representation

When a music expression is parsed, it is converted into a set of Scheme music objects. The defining property of a music object is that it takes up time. Time is a rational number that measures the length of a piece of music, in whole notes.

A music object has three kinds of types:

The actual information of a music expression is stored in properties. For example, a NoteEvent (lilypond-internals) has pitch and duration properties that store the pitch and duration of that note. A list of all properties available is in the internals manual, under Music properties (lilypond-internals) .

A compound music expression is a music object that contains other music objects in its properties. A list of objects can be stored in the elements property of a music object, or a single `child' music object in the element object. For example, SequentialMusic (lilypond-internals) has its children in elements, and GraceMusic (lilypond-internals) has its single argument in element. The body of a repeat is stored in the element property of RepeatedMusic (lilypond-internals) , and the alternatives in elements.

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