Notation Software

[Robin Harrison]

Back-story...I've been using Noteworthy for years and like it but am currently transitioning from PC to Mac ( ie nothing seems to work now. )

I didn't realize NWC do not do Mac version so I had a tec guy "partition" my mac so it can run windows.

However, running Noteworthy this way is sketchy and saving work done is unreliable so far.

I am looking to find another program ......

It needs to be reasonably easy to learn (obvious really) and my needs are not great.

Simply to be able to produce pdf's + midi and to be able to put more than one tune on a page would be ideal (NWC won't let you do this so I have to do it with Photoshop)

I don't need a comprehensive package and am not looking for free software either.

I wonder if any of you are using anything you particularly like and could share your thoughts.

Many thanks

Robin

[Don Taylor]

I use and like Musescore, although I have not tried any of the paid alternatives. I think that it can meet all of the requirements that you have listed, including more than one tune per page.

It can import abc, midi and musicXML files. I think there is a converter for Noteworthy files, but I have no experience with this.

Musescore has a good quality built-in sound font player for playback and I use Phil Taylor's (no relation to me) concertina sound font in the player. Phil originally posted it as a .sit file and I have simply unpacked it so that any system can access it. I also include a slightly tuned version of his sound font - see the readme file: my dropbox.

I use Musescore on a PC, but it is available on Mac and, because it uses its own sound font player, playback should still work. I believe that midi playback on Macs has been broken for some time now, and MS are doing their best to replicate Mac midi mis-behaviour on Windows.

It is FOSS so an experiment will only cost you some time. There are lots of tutorial videos on YouTube, look out for tutorials for the current version (version 2).

Edited February 2, 2017 by Don Taylor

[Lyle]

I am sooo.. happy with MuseScore.

 

I struggled for years trying to get going on Finale, but never could. A little reading, a few tutorials, asking a couple of questions, and I was on my way with MuseScore.

I use it for band leadsheets (melody line, chords, lyrics).

 

If I ever have a question that the Handbook, "Mastering MuseScore" (Marc Sabatella), or Google can't answer, posing a question at the forum usually gets answered accurately and quickly.

 

I was so thankful for MuseScore I made a monetary donation to the project.

 

....Lyle

[Steve Mansfield]

I'm a big abc user but appreciate that isn't what you're after.

 

However if the package you settle on doesn't directly import Noteworthy files (and most don't), its worth bearing in mind that EasyAbc can read NWC files and export them in a variety of formats that your new package should be able to read. That way all the time you've spent building up material and an archive in NWC isn't totally unreadable in your new package.

 

Which is precisely #why# abc has been my default format for years now, but YMMV.

[Jack Campin]

Is there any particular reason not to use ABC?

 

If you're doing keyboard music or complex band scores it won't really work, but it's fine for anything a solo concertina can do, and you can generate sound files or PDFs with several tunes on a page. You don't need to learn the more outré features (and for the sake of futureproofing, you shouldn't use them anyway).

[Paul_Hardy]

I create Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook (and many other music outputs) using the ABC music format. I use the applications ABCexplorer and EasyABC as music editors, and to print or listen to individual tunes. Both are free software. ABCexplorer is Windows-only, but EasyABC is available on Mac and Linux I believe. See my Playing ABC page, and my Tunebook Process page for description.

 

Don't underestimate ABC - it's easy to create, and perfectly capable of handling music with two or four part harmony, guitar chords, etc. I'm continually amazed also by the capabilities of the free software.

[Jack Campin]

As an example of what ABC can do - here is a PDF file (704K) of Finnish tunes I posted to melodeon.net, generated from an ABC file (44K) which this forum won't let me upload (you can find it via this article on melnet: http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,17067.msg209876.html).

 

I have several thousand ABC tunes on my site, some of them much more complicated than this.

 

 

FinnishTunes.pdf

[Steve Mansfield]

My comments were based mainly on the OP looking for something akin to Noteworthy e.g. draggy-droopy pointy-clicky rather than keyboard based.

 

Of course abc is capable of excellent publication-quality sheet music, and I would encourage any/everyone to use it rather than encoded file formats tied to a particular piece of software.

[Paul_Hardy]

My comments were based mainly on the OP looking for something akin to Noteworthy e.g. draggy-droopy pointy-clicky rather than keyboard based.

ABCexplorer and EasyABC are both fairly draggy-droppy-pointy-clicky, and let you create a new tune without touching the (qwerty) keyboard.

[David Barnert]

I'm a big abc user but appreciate that isn't what you're after.

 

However if the package you settle on doesn't directly import Noteworthy files (and most don't), its worth bearing in mind that EasyAbc can read NWC files and export them in a variety of formats that your new package should be able to read. That way all the time you've spent building up material and an archive in NWC isn't totally unreadable in your new package.

 

Which is precisely #why# abc has been my default format for years now, but YMMV.

 

I was about to say the same thing, and agree with everything that follows. Try EasyABC. It’s not called “Easy” for nothing.