Music Notation Software Suggestions

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:34 pm

I am interested in writing sheet music. Although I currently have Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 that has rather limited functionality in this regard, I would like to upgrade to easy-to-use software that is more-specifically designed to notate, play, and print standard music notation. Does anyone have experience and recommendation for a particular software package?

missy · Post by **missy** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:46 pm

Tom uses Music Ease. If you look at the tabs on our website, they were created in this program. If you'd like his experience, feel free to email him at:
tom "at" strothers "dot" com

(replace the "words" with the appropriate symbol).

I used an early version of TablEdit, and it was not a great program for things such as pick up notes, measure length, etc. But that was over 6 years ago, and the newer version may be better at that.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 8:21 pm

Finale is the industry standard. It is very expensive, but there are some pared-down versions that are cheaper, I think. Anyway, it's something to look at. www.codamusic.com

TheSpoonMan · Post by **TheSpoonMan** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 9:30 pm

Noteworthy Composer's waht i use. Like the free version of Finale but better. Only drawback is t has a few shareware limitations but they're all really easy to get around.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 3:54 am

Congratulations wrote:Finale is the industry standard. It is very expensive, but there are some pared-down versions that are cheaper, I think. Anyway, it's something to look at. www.codamusic.com

That's what I use..good software. I tried about a half-dozen packages before I got Finale. Haven't looked back since.

It's not as expensive as it used to be

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:19 am

Lilypond comes to mind. Not easy-to-use and doesn't play. but you can make pretty sheet music.

http://lilypond.org/web/

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 6:28 am

I don't know about 'industry' but Sibelius gets used a lot in all sorts of academic, publishing etc environments.

carrie · Post by **carrie** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 9:14 am

Out of curiosity, I checked the Finale website. They have a free program called NotePad, which I just downloaded and have been experimenting with. It is very easy and seems to do what you want it to do.

Carol

WhistlingArmadillo · Post by **WhistlingArmadillo** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:02 pm

I use Harmony Assistant by Myriad Software and have been very pleased with it. Although I don't have a wide experience with the alternatives (I have Cakewalk Home Studio 8.0 and I used to have a version of Finale a long time ago), I did try everything I could download and try for free before I bought HA. HA seems to have a good balance between notation and actually playing the song accurately. You can download a trial version and get a good feeling for how it works. [No, I don't get a referral fee

]

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/index.htm

Chiffed · Post by **Chiffed** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:21 pm

I've used NoteWriter, Finale, Sibelius, and a couple others over the years. Now, I'm using Noteworthy Composer 2.0 and 1.75b (for older source files). It does everything I need, is dead stable on my machine (better than Sibelius in that respect), and cost $39 usd for both. There are loads and loads of free sourcefiles out there in the trad and free/non-copywrite realm, it's good at translating MIDI (up to a point) and the interface and documentation are good.

I wanted something powerful enough for full band scores and parts, but middle-school students could learn the basics in one session. Noteworthy works.

I haven't tried chord shapes, lyrics, or extended-technique notation, but I'll check on those functions if you like.

If I were looking to publish, I'd use Sibelius or the latest Finale.

fyffer · Post by **fyffer** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:35 pm

I do all my music notation stuff using abc. I generate sheet music using abcm2ps, and I use abcmidi to generate -- wait for it -- MIDI files.

It's not for everyone, but if you're comfortable using command-line type programs, and you can touch-type (it helps when you're transcribing hand written notation, so you don't have to look at the keyboard at all), and you are comfortable with the ABC notation, I recommend it highly.

For a sample of the power of this system, check out the tunebook I put together for my fife and drum corps, done completely using abcm2ps (and MS Word for the title and TOC pages):
Dialup warning: 1Mb file: http://members.cox.net/chrismyers/KG/KG_tunebook.pdf

All the abc stuff you need can be found here: http://abcplus.sourceforge.net/

I give a pretty decent tutorial on its use as well (or I have in the past via email).

Happy hunting.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:59 am

I use Finale too. Easy to use and if you master the keyboard shortcuts you can work very quickly.

Chiffed · Post by **Chiffed** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:15 pm

Flyingcursor wrote:I use Finale too. Easy to use and if you master the keyboard shortcuts you can work very quickly.

Finale's keyboard shortcuts are very quick, but the quickest method for any of the programs is to use a small midi/usb keyboard (cheap and quite fun) with one hand and the regular keyboard with the other hand. Using the mouse slows work to a crawl. Sibelius and NoteWorthy are both good this way, too.

Little cheesy keyboards can often be had for free (doesn't matter what they sound like, as long as they have midi-out) an little Edirol midi-usb boxes aren't expensive.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:17 pm

Finale's keyboard shortcuts let me enter a standard 2-part reel in about 5 minutes. Not what I'd call a "crawl"

fyffer · Post by **fyffer** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:35 pm

Wanderer wrote:Finale's keyboard shortcuts let me enter a standard 2-part reel in about 5 minutes. Not what I'd call a "crawl"

Hmmm...
Not to make this into a contest, but I wanted to see how long it would take me to do the same using ABC, so I tried.

I rendered Cooley's in 2 minutes flat using ABC.