Notation Freeware

[bronko]

We all know that these software programs will play a tune from the notes you put in. But.....is there a program that will copy notes from a tune on a CD or other sources of music e.g. digital recorders?

[Luuk]

Do you know if the inexpensive version has the rapid keyboard note entry features that you were talking about?

MuseScore has a limited rapid keyboard note entry (I mean the keyboard of your computer): c-d-e-f-g-a-b. There is no keyboard notation for flats & sharps (cis, bes etc.), but a button to click on. The length of the notes and rests can be determined with your keyboard too: 7= whole note, 6= half, 5= quarter etc.

Luc

[La Folia]

MuseScore has a limited rapid keyboard note entry (I mean the keyboard....

Thanks. I was actually referring to Sibelius First. By the way, MuseScore is not just inexpensive, it's free.

[Alma]

I have Finale Songwriter, which does have keyboard note entry. It was like $50 when I got it. I find it is easy to use and puts out a good looking sheet of music. There are some strange things that happen once in a while but nothing has ever been ruined-- I manage to escape and keep going. I think it is a great bargain.

[C.B.Fiddler]

The inexpensive versions have keyboard entry. The Finale web site has a four page detailed comparison in pdf format of what you get with each of their packages. List price for Finale is $600. PrintMusic lists at $99.95. Nobody pays list price with plenty of discounts on the web and academic discounts if you qualify. I paid less than $50 a few years ago for my version of PrintMusic. Street price today is around $60.

As a university administrator, I have access to academic discounts. You may have family or friends that have access as well. The discounts are quite deep through JourneyEd. I have attached a screenshot of the software and prices offered to students and staff.

Chris

Finale.doc

[La Folia]

There is no keyboard notation for flats & sharps (cis, bes etc.), but a button to click on.

Enter the note, then press the up or down arrow to change the pitch.

[DR. S]

As a university administrator, I have access to academic discounts. You may have family or friends that have access as well. The discounts are quite deep through JourneyEd. I have attached a screenshot of the software and prices offered to students and staff.

Chris

Small world. My string Quartet just played the Graduation Ceremony for the Argosy University Dallas Campus two weeks ago. That is a good discount by the way.

[gwie]

I use Sibelius for most of my big scoring (orchestra, band, string quartet), but teach high school students the basics of Lilypond and MuseScore. They are for the most part superior to the stripped-down versions of the major commercial software. Especially where Lilypond is concerned, if you take the time the learn the scripting language it is incredibly powerful and can do practically everything you'll ever need.

With notation programs, Finale and Sibelius tend to pretty much dominate in the consumer market (and have a strong following among professionals as well) since they are relatively easy to obtain and their file formats are accepted everywhere and have free viewers for most platforms. I was a longtime Finale user who made the switch to Sibelius because of it's excellent note entry (I don't play piano, so that has never been an option for me, and the left hand ABCDEFG and right hand values of Sibelius are fast and efficient) and Mac support.

Like any open source project, MuseScore will get there eventually...OpenOffice was extremely rough in versions 1.0 and even 2.0, but the current 3.0 release is stable enough that I use it for everything and don't even have MS-Office installed on my machine anymore.

[sweetmusicstudio]

I haven't tried that. Thanks for the recommendation! I will try it now.

My favorite has been Finale Notepad 2009 - it's easy to use (intuitive) and share the results