Notation software

[PJ]

Any recommendations for a free musical notation software? I used to use Finale but I can no longer find the free version of that software.

I don't need anything very elaborate or advanced.

[Ed Harrison]

I use ABC Notion and am happy with it.

http://abcnotation.com/


........Ed

[Bill Reeder]

I'm using ABCexplorer these days.

[Cathy Wilde]

I like this one pretty well, especially for free! It takes a little getting used to but overall it's got all the functions I need. It works on Mac and Windows and is small and noninvasive:

http://celticmusic.ca/skink.html

P.S. Hi, Bill! Nice avatar photo!

[Chris Bayley]

Although I have and use Sibelius 6 due to my eldest being at university and doing a music degree I have started using a notation program called MuseScore which has a lot of features of this high end and expensive program (almost feels like a clone of Sibelius). It is free and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux

There is also a facility for importing and converting ABC scores but the input method for MuseScore is Notes onto a stave

http://musescore.org/

The freebee program 'Notepad' based on Finale now costs the princely sum of $9.95 http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/default.aspx

Chris

[hpinson]

MuseScore works pretty well:

http://musescore.org/

I wish it were a little more stable. On Win7 64 it crashes for no reason from time to time. But I still like it a lot.

Melody Assistant is shareware and is excellent. The price is low, and it imports abc and prints out a nice MIDI score. US $25 and EU 20 I think.

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/melody.htm

[PJ]

Some great suggestions so far. However, I'm looking for something that uses staff notation. I'm not a fan of ABC notation.

[hpinson]

Both MuseScore and Melody Assistant are primarily staff composition and layout tools.

[Elmek]

There is also a facility for importing and converting ABC scores but the input method for MuseScore is Notes onto a stave

http://musescore.org/

Don't think it could be put much clearer MuseSore is NOTATION SOFTWARE

Thanks Chris and Harlow, have it downloaded onto a windows 7 64 machine and let you know how it runs

John

[MTGuru]

Don't think it could be put much clearer MuseSore is NOTATION SOFTWARE

Well ... Lilypond, MusicTeX, MUP, abcm2ps are also NOTATION SOFTWARE. But the input method of all these is text-based, not graphical and staff-oriented. Which is, I'm sure, what Chris and Harlow were getting at.