I think Lilypond <https://lilypond.org/> is the TeX for music engraving.

For typesetting short snippets of music notation within TeX, you can use the MusixTeX package <https://ctan.org/pkg/musixtex>.

Thank you, those are exactly the kinds of music typesetting/engraving software (and notation syntax) I was curious about.

Following a few links, I found a great overview:

MusiXTEX - Using TEX to write polyphonic instrumental music

http://icking-music-archive.org/software/musixtex/musixdoc.p... (pdf)

For Lilypond, here's an introduction that demonstrates how to "write music by typing text":

Lilypond: "Compiling" Music

https://lilypond.org/text-input.html

Philip Hazel (author and maintainer of the Exim mailer) has written a memoir where is discusses writing a program for typesetting music.

It's well worth reading for that and other fascinating stuff: [pdf link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10TAOEgIL--CmzqOl0fkdP-cagjS...).

Oh wow, what a fun read!

I started with the section on Music Typesetting, good stuff: Oxford Music Processor, his Philip's Music Writer, the language syntax to encode notation information.. This is right up my alley, thank you for the link.

So much of it is relevant to our current time, it's still not a solved problem and there's room for innovation.

I'll enjoy reading the rest of his memoir.