No it's not a lead up to April Fools. Unlike many ITM musicians, I don't tend to come in too early . . .
I was wondering what your experiences are with different music notation software packages. I use Finale Print Music 2007. Before then I wrote everything by hand.
I paid about £70 for Finale a few years ago and I think it's fantastic. I use it for writing and arranging, and for preparing materials for my students. Finale also has a free light version called Notepad, which you can use to read and play other Finale files. Some students also use this.
Finale has a facility for (I think) up to 5 inner voices per stave. This is essential for writing out music for fingerstyle guitar.
The only drawback is the tab function, which doesn't accommodate alternative tunings or instruments other than the guitar, so for mandolin and altered tunings I have to enter tab manually, but this doesn't take long and is easy to use.
Do any of you use other programmes? I'd be interested to hear about your experiences.
Pompous and argumentative replies to this post are most welcome, but originality would be appreciated. I suppose some predicatble responses would be 'The best music notation software is my brain, my ears, my beard etc.' or 'Throw it away and play some feckin' tunes' etc. etc.
I have Finale Songwriter, which is a cheaper version than Print Music, and I'm having terrible trouble using it!
I probably just haven't spent enough time playing around with it yet.
You might actually be able to answer one of my questions... Do you know if there's a way to insert a 'line break' in the notation?
I'm using it for transcribing melody lines and would like the A part to appear on one/two lines, the B part starting on the next line and so on. Instead. if my A part ends midway through a line, the B part follows straight away on the same line.
It's not a big deal, but I wanted my transcriptions to look nice and organised. Any ideas?
I also have Finale, and find it very good, although I wish it had an option to convert files to ABC.
To answer Low whistler's question, if songwriter has the mass mover tool which you get in the full version,you can click on a bar of music to highlight it, then move it up or down a stave to adjust the layout by using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
Joel, I use PowerTab for most of my tab and sheet music when I'm on a pc machine. It's freeware and provides a nice enough print out for students, etc.
For just sheet music, I simply use the abc convert-o-matic at www.concertina.net. Save to my computer as pdfs, and the print outs are excellent quality. Again, it's free.
On my Mac, I'm using TablEdit to do tabs for my students. Print quality leaves a little to be desired, but at least it's easy to read. My students like having tab and the dots all on one page.
The other thing I do is provide recordings of every piece of music I teach so students can listen and play along. I do slow versions, and then more up tempo, record in Audacity onto my lap top. I then post these recordings on my invite-only web site. Invariably, students say this is the most important service I provide for their between-lessons progress.
I use MusicTime, a fairly old version. For a while it was orphaned, but is now being actively sold again. Seems to be around as shareware. Simple to use, does what I need, but that's not a lot anyway.
Most of what I do would be covered by the concertina.net abc converter, but MusicTime's functions to transpose, and put things into viola clef etc are handy.
Not sure about Finale Songwriter. In Print Music I think you would do this with the Page Layout tool. Select the tool and drag the handles to create the line breaks. Another way to do it would be with the 'Fit music' function in the Page Layout tool. You can set a defined number of measures per line. In a typical 16 bar tune you could set it to 4 measures per line. This would break the tune into 4 lines (two for the A part and two for the B). If a part has more than one ending, you can also select the 'fit music' function for individual lines, so you could have 5 measures on one line and four on the next for example. Hope this helps. These functions may not be available on Songwriter.
Well, my good friend Reverend built the web site for me (for a reasonable fee), and the domain name and hosting cost me $95 USD a year. Well worth it to save me having to email stuff to each student individually or copy stuff onto cds. The web site has become a real feature of my business--students love it, and it's a great selling point to prospective students. (That said, I teach 5 days a week, so it's a worthwhile expense.)
Lovely idea WIll, brilliant... This deserves a discussion on its own, though maybe that has already happened and I missed it. I could use my own personal Reverend...
I second that - a harp player I know runs a session and puts up a couple of tunes on her site so people can learn those at least before coming along. I also second Colachan's remark that this topic of "using the web well" does deserve its own thread.
It only costs 20 Euros, allows me to write secondary voicings within a staff, as many staves as I like (I even wrote a full orchestral score based on Inisheer), deals with whatever tablature you want to write, and in whatever tuning you want to write it in (including harmonica-?), I can record audio, import or export audio, convert abc in or out, etc...etc... etc...
This software is the cat's meow so far as I'm concerned.
I'm sure there's probably other programs that might be more performing, but for my uses it's all I need.
Fanning: Melody Assistant looks really interesting. When I was shopping around I couldn't find anything cheaper or better than Finale for multiple voices in staves. Oh well . . .
Fanning, I was interested in your comments on Melody Assistant. I've been looking at the trial version. This seems to do 99.9% of what I need.
The only thing I don't get is that you seem to be stuck with viewing a tune as one big long continuous staff, instead of how it woud look on a page. This means you have to be scrolling left and right all the time to view it. Is there a way round this?
(The only way I can see is to buy Harmony Assistant, with all its extra features, just to get this one thing.)
I use Sibelius 5 and have been able to find all the functions I need. If I get stuck, I search on a forum or google and there always seems to be someone who knows how to help. It is an expensive program but it can do so much! Not that I really want to encourage this... but I believe there are copies on torrent sites if you use that sort of thing... like on mininova. These sites are especially good if you want to try before you buy.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can configure melody assistant to present the tunes as a full page, but the scrolling of the tune suits me fine, it's easier to manage multiple staves.
Page setup for printing is perhaps the greatest drawback in this piece of software. It's very difficult to get it to print out a score so's it's easy to read.
Music Notation Software
Music Notation Software
No it's not a lead up to April Fools. Unlike many ITM musicians, I don't tend to come in too early . . .
I was wondering what your experiences are with different music notation software packages. I use Finale Print Music 2007. Before then I wrote everything by hand.
I paid about £70 for Finale a few years ago and I think it's fantastic. I use it for writing and arranging, and for preparing materials for my students. Finale also has a free light version called Notepad, which you can use to read and play other Finale files. Some students also use this.
Finale has a facility for (I think) up to 5 inner voices per stave. This is essential for writing out music for fingerstyle guitar.
The only drawback is the tab function, which doesn't accommodate alternative tunings or instruments other than the guitar, so for mandolin and altered tunings I have to enter tab manually, but this doesn't take long and is easy to use.
Do any of you use other programmes? I'd be interested to hear about your experiences.
Pompous and argumentative replies to this post are most welcome, but originality would be appreciated. I suppose some predicatble responses would be 'The best music notation software is my brain, my ears, my beard etc.' or 'Throw it away and play some feckin' tunes' etc. etc.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Music Notation Software
I have Finale Songwriter, which is a cheaper version than Print Music, and I'm having terrible trouble using it!
I probably just haven't spent enough time playing around with it yet.
You might actually be able to answer one of my questions... Do you know if there's a way to insert a 'line break' in the notation?
I'm using it for transcribing melody lines and would like the A part to appear on one/two lines, the B part starting on the next line and so on. Instead. if my A part ends midway through a line, the B part follows straight away on the same line.
It's not a big deal, but I wanted my transcriptions to look nice and organised. Any ideas?
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Craic Addict
Re: Music Notation Software
I also have Finale, and find it very good, although I wish it had an option to convert files to ABC.
To answer Low whistler's question, if songwriter has the mass mover tool which you get in the full version,you can click on a bar of music to highlight it, then move it up or down a stave to adjust the layout by using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by cathycook
Re: Music Notation Software
Joel, I use PowerTab for most of my tab and sheet music when I'm on a pc machine. It's freeware and provides a nice enough print out for students, etc.
For just sheet music, I simply use the abc convert-o-matic at www.concertina.net. Save to my computer as pdfs, and the print outs are excellent quality. Again, it's free.
On my Mac, I'm using TablEdit to do tabs for my students. Print quality leaves a little to be desired, but at least it's easy to read. My students like having tab and the dots all on one page.
The other thing I do is provide recordings of every piece of music I teach so students can listen and play along. I do slow versions, and then more up tempo, record in Audacity onto my lap top. I then post these recordings on my invite-only web site. Invariably, students say this is the most important service I provide for their between-lessons progress.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Music Notation Software
I use MusicTime, a fairly old version. For a while it was orphaned, but is now being actively sold again. Seems to be around as shareware. Simple to use, does what I need, but that's not a lot anyway.
Most of what I do would be covered by the concertina.net abc converter, but MusicTime's functions to transpose, and put things into viola clef etc are handy.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: Music Notation Software
Not sure about Finale Songwriter. In Print Music I think you would do this with the Page Layout tool. Select the tool and drag the handles to create the line breaks. Another way to do it would be with the 'Fit music' function in the Page Layout tool. You can set a defined number of measures per line. In a typical 16 bar tune you could set it to 4 measures per line. This would break the tune into 4 lines (two for the A part and two for the B). If a part has more than one ending, you can also select the 'fit music' function for individual lines, so you could have 5 measures on one line and four on the next for example. Hope this helps. These functions may not be available on Songwriter.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Music Notation Software
Will I do the same with recordings but I don't have a website! I get through a lot of CDs!
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Music Notation Software
Well, my good friend Reverend built the web site for me (for a reasonable fee), and the domain name and hosting cost me $95 USD a year. Well worth it to save me having to email stuff to each student individually or copy stuff onto cds. The web site has become a real feature of my business--students love it, and it's a great selling point to prospective students. (That said, I teach 5 days a week, so it's a worthwhile expense.)
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Music Notation Software
Lovely idea WIll, brilliant... This deserves a discussion on its own, though maybe that has already happened and I missed it. I could use my own personal Reverend...
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by ceolachan
Re: Music Notation Software
I second that - a harp player I know runs a session and puts up a couple of tunes on her site so people can learn those at least before coming along. I also second Colachan's remark that this topic of "using the web well" does deserve its own thread.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Mark Harmer
Re: Music Notation Software
Cheers for the advice... I will have to try playing around with Finale after work and see if I can get it to do what I want...
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Craic Addict
Re: Music Notation Software
I once tried Finale Notepad's demo version and found it too cumbersome and expensive, so simply kept seeking after better software.
Eventually I found this:
http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/melody.htm
It only costs 20 Euros, allows me to write secondary voicings within a staff, as many staves as I like (I even wrote a full orchestral score based on Inisheer), deals with whatever tablature you want to write, and in whatever tuning you want to write it in (including harmonica-?), I can record audio, import or export audio, convert abc in or out, etc...etc... etc...
This software is the cat's meow so far as I'm concerned.
I'm sure there's probably other programs that might be more performing, but for my uses it's all I need.
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Music Notation Software
Oh, and the updates are free for Melody Assistant
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Music Notation Software
Fanning: Melody Assistant looks really interesting. When I was shopping around I couldn't find anything cheaper or better than Finale for multiple voices in staves. Oh well . . .
# Posted on March 27th 2009 by Joel McDermott
Re: Music Notation Software
Fanning, I was interested in your comments on Melody Assistant. I've been looking at the trial version. This seems to do 99.9% of what I need.
The only thing I don't get is that you seem to be stuck with viewing a tune as one big long continuous staff, instead of how it woud look on a page. This means you have to be scrolling left and right all the time to view it. Is there a way round this?
(The only way I can see is to buy Harmony Assistant, with all its extra features, just to get this one thing.)
# Posted on March 28th 2009 by DaveL35
Re: Music Notation Software
I use Sibelius 5 and have been able to find all the functions I need. If I get stuck, I search on a forum or google and there always seems to be someone who knows how to help. It is an expensive program but it can do so much! Not that I really want to encourage this... but I believe there are copies on torrent sites if you use that sort of thing... like on mininova. These sites are especially good if you want to try before you buy.
# Posted on March 28th 2009 by anastasiadesroches
Re: Music Notation Software
I use Finale (Print Music) as well. I've had it for years, and I've just found out that you can save your notation as an MP3 file.
# Posted on March 28th 2009 by gam
Re: Music Notation Software
Joel - regarding Finale, can it convert guitar tab into abc code?
I believe you said that you have experienced some difficulties in doing that ...
If Finale can't do it , I can recommend a piece of software to you called tab2abc
# Posted on March 28th 2009 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Music Notation Software
DaveL35,
Unfortunately, I don't think you can configure melody assistant to present the tunes as a full page, but the scrolling of the tune suits me fine, it's easier to manage multiple staves.
Page setup for printing is perhaps the greatest drawback in this piece of software. It's very difficult to get it to print out a score so's it's easy to read.
# Posted on March 29th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Music Notation Software
PS: In the global configuration (play menu) of M-A you can get the staff to automatically scroll as it plays.
# Posted on March 29th 2009 by Fanning
Re: Music Notation Software
I write it all out by hand - but I press software I need to.
# Posted on March 30th 2009 by Toppish
Re: Music Notation Software
Fanning, many thanks for the reply.
I'll probably pay the extra for Harmony Assistant, in that case.
# Posted on March 30th 2009 by DaveL35