2011 Notation Software

[Ron Stern]

Seeking recommendations.

Been using Tux Guitar, which is good but:

1. lowest note is low E on guitar, can't write real bass parts.
2. needs better-sounding instruments
3. Hard to do fancy repeats like dal segno, coda etc.

The main contenders seem to be the low-budget versions of Sibelius and Finale. I can't figure out if Sibelius includes a guitar neck for note entry or not. That's a must for me.

Thanks in advance.

[JohnW400]

I have Sibelius 5. (They just released 7) It does more than I will ever need. I think Sibelius first is reasonable. I would send them an e-mail about your question regarding note entry.

I have seen this program, which is free. It looks good but I haven't downloaded it yet.

http://musescore.org/

People here that have used it have said good things

[paynow]

I have Print Music 2011, which is Finale's mid-level product:

Demo Trial - Finale PrintMusic

They have 30 day demos if you want to try them out. It's an excellent program; some quirks like everything, but for the most part great.

The only thing I don't like with this version is that I can't make my own fretboard diagrams. You can only do that in Finale I believe. Then again, for jazz, I don't ever put them on a chart.

[Jake Hanlon]

I've been using Finale since the 2002 version and have 2011 on my personal and work computers... it's fantastic I think.

That being said, it's so overpriced imo that I don't know if I would recommend it unless you can get some sort of student/educator discount which might be possible.

[Ron Stern]

Boy I'm glad there was a free demo. Let's say you have a blank score, and the first thing you want to put in is a Dm7 chord.

I. The Sibelius Way

1. Input the notes individually using the on-screen fretboard. Why? Because as a guitarist would know but an engineer would not, a critical part of the project is to write things in such a way as to be physically possible, and hopefully easy, to actually play, not just the notes once, in isolation, but as part of a sequence, i.e music, from chord to chord, i.e. to be able to play the music as written because it was written a certain way to make it playable. This was the point, duh, you extremely dumb ass marketers, engineers, and general purpose computer industry incompetent slave dweebs.

If you want tab, you have to copy and paste from the staff to the tab. Can you dig it? To get tab, you have to copy and paste the notes from the staff to the tab. And vice versa. This alone is hugely tedious. Why, oh why, couldn't they make it so that entering a note in either automatically creates its equivalent on the other?

2. Select all notes of the chord by control-clicking on each one.

3. Run the menus to get to where you get to type in manually the name for the chord.

4. Run more menus to get to where you get to put in a chord diagram.

5. Sibelius chooses from a fixed set of stock voicing chord diagrams which probably do not correspond to the voicing which you have so laboriously created.

6. At this point, the only other option is to cycle through the fixed set of voicings, which is completely bassackwards, seeing as how you just got done specifying the voicing, and pointless, seeing as how this procedure will not yield the voicing you just got done specifying.

For example: for a basic voicing to use as a basis for further development, I like this: Dm7 as x5x56x. In Sibelius First you can call it Dm7 but you cannot make a chord diagram that shows x5x56x. Print out your score and the chord diagram is worse than useless, it's WRONG. The chord diagram does not correspond to the notes in the score. Can you effing believe this ****?

II. Compare this to the Tux Guitar procedure:

1. Enter the notes of the chord on the screen fretboard. The corresponding tab is entered automatically.

2. Hit "A" (default shortcut key) and a menu box appears which portrays exactly the chord you just created, suggests a name and a voicing diagram (i.e. a chord diagram) but leaves the portrayal of your voicing untouched. Typically twenty to thirty voicings are suggested. Some are goofy but often worth considering.

You can pick one by clicking on its chord diagram, in which case the score and the tab and the chord name and the chord diagram, everything, is changed simultaneously. You can change the voicing diagram by clicking any note on the fretboard, and/or change the name to anything your keyboard can type. BTW, if at this point you want to substitute an entirely different chord, you can do so by changing the chord diagram, or by choosing from menus of root note and chord type, all within the dialog box. Make all the changes at once, in one box, which immediately displays the new name and chord diagram for review. When satisfied, hit enter,

In terms of the above example, I input x5x56x from the screen fretboard and hit "a". The chord dialog box appears with all the stuff. If you like everything the way it is, hit enter and zambo, the dialog box closes and the name and chord diagram appear on the score.

Or change anything you like. Major, minor, extensions, whatever. Put in any combination of notes under any name and that's what you get on the score. For example, you can input the notes of Dm7 -- x5x56x -- and call it something like "Dm version 1", which is sometimes helpful if you're keeping track of various variations. Call it "Fred Fahrquahr", if you like, or "Dm patootie". You're the boss, not some slave dweeb who was commanded to hurry up and finish the programming.

[JohnW400]

Originally Posted by Ron Stern

Boy I'm glad there was a free demo. Let's say you have a blank score, and the first thing you want to put in is a Dm7 chord.

I. The Sibelius Way

1. Input the notes individually using the on-screen fretboard. Why? Because as a guitarist would know but an engineer would not, a critical part of the project is to write things in such a way as to be physically possible, and hopefully easy, to actually play, not just the notes once, in isolation, but as part of a sequence, i.e music, from chord to chord, i.e. to be able to play the music as written because it was written a certain way to make it playable. This was the point, duh, you extremely dumb ass marketers, engineers, and general purpose computer industry incompetent slave dweebs.

If you want tab, you have to copy and paste from the staff to the tab. Can you dig it? To get tab, you have to copy and paste the notes from the staff to the tab. And vice versa. This alone is hugely tedious. Why, oh why, couldn't they make it so that entering a note in either automatically creates its equivalent on the other?

2. Select all notes of the chord by control-clicking on each one.

3. Run the menus to get to where you get to type in manually the name for the chord.

4. Run more menus to get to where you get to put in a chord diagram.

5. Sibelius chooses from a fixed set of stock voicing chord diagrams which probably do not correspond to the voicing which you have so laboriously created.

6. At this point, the only other option is to cycle through the fixed set of voicings, which is completely bassackwards, seeing as how you just got done specifying the voicing, and pointless, seeing as how this procedure will not yield the voicing you just got done specifying.

For example: for a basic voicing to use as a basis for further development, I like this: Dm7 as x5x56x. In Sibelius First you can call it Dm7 but you cannot make a chord diagram that shows x5x56x. Print out your score and the chord diagram is worse than useless, it's WRONG. The chord diagram does not correspond to the notes in the score. Can you effing believe this ****?

II. Compare this to the Tux Guitar procedure:

1. Enter the notes of the chord on the screen fretboard. The corresponding tab is entered automatically.

2. Hit "A" (default shortcut key) and a menu box appears which portrays exactly the chord you just created, suggests a name and a voicing diagram (i.e. a chord diagram) but leaves the portrayal of your voicing untouched. Typically twenty to thirty voicings are suggested. Some are goofy but often worth considering.

You can pick one by clicking on its chord diagram, in which case the score and the tab and the chord name and the chord diagram, everything, is changed simultaneously. You can change the voicing diagram by clicking any note on the fretboard, and/or change the name to anything your keyboard can type. BTW, if at this point you want to substitute an entirely different chord, you can do so by changing the chord diagram, or by choosing from menus of root note and chord type, all within the dialog box. Make all the changes at once, in one box, which immediately displays the new name and chord diagram for review. When satisfied, hit enter,

In terms of the above example, I input x5x56x from the screen fretboard and hit "a". The chord dialog box appears with all the stuff. If you like everything the way it is, hit enter and zambo, the dialog box closes and the name and chord diagram appear on the score.

Or change anything you like. Major, minor, extensions, whatever. Put in any combination of notes under any name and that's what you get on the score. For example, you can input the notes of Dm7 -- x5x56x -- and call it something like "Dm version 1", which is sometimes helpful if you're keeping track of various variations. Call it "Fred Fahrquahr", if you like, or "Dm patootie". You're the boss, not some slave dweeb who was commanded to hurry up and finish the programming.

TUX takes the notes you just input on the neck and gives you the diagram, the TAB and the written out notes ?

If you know where to put your fingers why don't you just use TAB rather than a cumbersome guitar neck?

First you select a note value from the keypad . The cursor should be blinking on the staff. Using up/down arrow keys , move to the string you want and input the fret number you want for that string and using the numbers on the QWERTY keyboard. When your done with that chord use the right arrow to move to the nest note.

When you're finished entering TAB, Double click on the TAB staff to select all and then ctrl click into the notation staff. All the Tab will appear as notes

As far as inputting chord diagrams it's alt-k or cntrl k. Find the name of the chord and then the chord library should open up. Click on your voicing or make up your own.

As with any new software you have to spend a little time getting to know it. I'm pretty sure Sibelius does way more than the Tux Guitar program

If you don't like it then Finale also has a free download. You can look at that one as well.

It took me a while to get used to it. For practice I took scores and tried to input them exactly as they appeared on paper down to font, copyright etc.

There certainly are things that they (Sib) could have done better but they do have a lot of features that are great for writing out music in general. One I like is reducing a piano part to one stave. This comes in handy when arranging a piano solo for guitar or trying to figure out a way to play both parts of a Bach 2 part invention on guitar.

[Ron Stern]

Originally Posted by JohnW400

TUX takes the notes you just input on the neck and gives you the diagram, the TAB and the written out notes ?

Yes.

Originally Posted by JohnW400

If you know where to put your fingers why don't you just use TAB rather than a cumbersome guitar neck?

You can do it that way if you want; and/or input notes on the staff. The reason you do it on the neck is because the neck is indeed cumbersome. You map out a voicing that is well-suited to the guitar-playing context, or at least possible to play, before it gets a name, a diagram, and goes into the score. This is the point at which most voicing decisions are made, including the alternative of substituting a new chord primarily because it makes the music easy to play. Critical in writing solo chord melody arrangements and highly useful otherwise. Any and all inversions, extensions, or alterations, in any order, show up in the chord diagram precisely as plotted, and the chord is named whatever you want to name it. In Sibelius you put in one of their diagrams or none. If their diagram doesn't match your voicing, as I said, the diagram is worse than useless.

Originally Posted by JohnW400

When you're finished entering TAB, Double click on the TAB staff to select all and then ctrl click into the notation staff. All the Tab will appear as notes

A very cumbersome extra step. What purpose does it serve?

Originally Posted by JohnW400

As far as inputting chord diagrams it's alt-k or cntrl k. Find the name of the chord and then the chord library should open up. Click on your voicing or make up your own.

I have an idea what you mean by a chord library. There's isn't one in Sibelius First. In order to get any alternative chord diagram at all, you have to press the same combination of keystrokes to get another alternative. Don't like that, do it again, and again, in series, until you get to the end of THEIR list of alternatives, which you will know only if you recognize that it has started over again. With Tux, as I said, you get twenty or thirty suggestions side by side (the chord library) one of which you can select just by clicking on it. After you click on it, you have the chance to modify it any way that it can be modified. Either way, it goes into the score the way you have specified. In these respects Tux Guitar does far more and is gigantically more powerful than Sibelius. It prints the chord names and diagrams the user wants, period. What a concept.

[JohnW400]

I must have gotten used to it. I've written out over 40 Chord melodies, most of which I posted here at one time or other. There are still some floating around here somewhere.

Anyway good luck with your search

[Ron Stern]

Originally Posted by paynow

I have Print Music 2011 . . . The only thing I don't like with this version is that I can't make my own fretboard diagrams. You can only do that in Finale I believe. Then again, for jazz, I don't ever put them on a chart.

When do you use chord diagrams?

[Ron Stern]

Originally Posted by JohnW400

I must have gotten used to it. I've written out over 40 Chord melodies, most of which I posted here at one time or other.

No chord diagrams, I take it?

[paynow]

Originally Posted by Ron Stern

When do you use chord diagrams?

I have some charts where I'll add them for students and I want to suggest specific voicings.

[JohnW400]

Originally Posted by Ron Stern

No chord diagrams, I take it?

Yes actually.


Send me an e-mail address and I 'll send you examples

[fep]

We use to post chord melodies on this site, but because of copyright issues we can't unless it's our own material.

So I just made something up in Sibelius 6 to show how I like to see chord melodies. Imo, this is the cleanest and the easiest for a competent reader to read:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

If you wanted too, you could just do tab with the rhythm stems attached (I don't care for tab but I do it for others, I'm a bit on the fence whether I should even do it for others... give them fish feed them for a day, teach them to fish feed them forever, blah blah blah):



Or you could do it like this:



Or like this:



Or any combination of the above. Sibelius is extremely flexible.

I have tuxguitar, and I can't seem to get it to spell the chords correctly in standard notation (for instance it might spell the Bb in the C9 chord as an A#). That's a deal breaker for me even if it is for free. Try what I just did in tuxguitar and see if you can get all those sharps and flats correct.

[Ron Stern]

Tux insists on sharps which is a nuisance, for sure.

As for chord diagrams, Sibelius First, in the first place, will not
produce them as you have pictured them. There can only be a chord
symbol if you input the notes first. For example, the very first of
your chords is returned with the name "C7(no 5)" which is
inalterable. The chord diagram shows x3234x, which is wrong --
it's not the notes on the staff. Neither the name nor the diagram
can be changed.

Indeed most of the diagrams in your example cannot be produced by
Sibelius First, period. It's theirs, or none. The only way you can
get a chord diagram at all is to enter the notes on the staff, and
then overlook, if you can, the fact that their depiction of those
notes in the diagram is incorrect.. It's like a spell checker that
mis-spells and can't be customized. Worse than useless.

The whole business is so simply stupid and larded with cuteness that
it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that it's a trick to get you
buy their "more powerful" products.

Tux does staff-and-chord-names only, tab-and-chord-names only, tab-
and-staff-and chord names only, and score and chord names and/or
with diagrams, i.e. all four of your examples. To do chord names
without the notes of the chord on the staff, you would have to put
them in as text -- just as you must do in Sibelius First. The
weakness in Tux, if you consider it one, is that like SF the program
will only produce a diagram and a suggested name if you actually
input some notes. If all you want is a chord name, you can put it in
as text and tweak the font.

I like to have a separate staff for the chords, below the melody
track. That's easier to work with, for me. Kind of a scratch pad for
chords, which may end up getting hidden, muted or even deleted, or
it may become part of the score, again, my choice, to be made with a
few keystrokes, nothing in the melody part is even touched. If I
want to do a chord substitute, rather than change the name over the
melody score and imagine what it would sound like, I put the notes
of the chord onto the chord staff, hit A, get the name and the
diagram, tweak the name til I like it, hit enter, hit space bar for
play, and hear the result. If I like the change, I'm done. The
chord name and the chord diagram and the score have all been changed
in a few seconds. Later on I can hide the chord track, or what I
do more often, hide the melody and mute it, because I am playing
along with the chord track.

If I want a no-tab no-diagram melody with chord names above the measures, as in your examples, it's true I have to put them in as text over the measures of melody.

Sibelius First requires the same thing, but takes about eight times
as many keystrokes, and of course, the chord diagram is almost
always wrong.

Further, if you set up a second track as a chord track, that track can have a score or tab but not both. However many guitar parts you add, only one can have both score and tab. The rest must be one or the other. WTF. I suppose you could add two tracks ("instruments" in sibelius' bogus lingo) which are in fact one instrument notated in two methods) but don't forget to mute one of them when you go to play back, because now one "instrument" is playing the score, and the other "instrument" is playing the tab,
i.e. the part is doubled. Stupid. Also, if you make a change to either the tab or the score, you have to manually copy and paste the change to the counterpart "instrument". Stupid.

I often don't like the choice of chord name that Tux comes up with -- by the way, you can tell the chord construction dialog box to suggest "most used", "close voiced" or "open voiced" and switch back and forth -- but the over-riding point is that it's a choice, and it's my choice. Sometimes I change a character or two (e.g. G#m7 to Abm7), sometimes I write the chord name from scratch, using any characters on the keyboard (e.g. "#5 no root"). What I type becomes the chord name on the score. And the diagram shows exactly the notes on the staff. The chord label says exactly what I want it to say.

[fep]

Originally Posted by Ron Stern

The whole business is so simply stupid and larded with cuteness that
it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that it's a trick to get you
buy their "more powerful" products.

+1

I've worked my way up the product line 30 day trials of both Sibelius and Finale. Anything less than the full blown most expensive version was not working for me.

There always seemed to be an important feature missing. For example I write for ensembles where I want to print individual parts from a large 6 instrument score. And I want to do it with no more than a mouse click, (and not by saving with another name and deleting the parts I don't want as was suggested by support ). I also want to see all the instruments notated in concert pitches and then with just one mouse click have the whole score switch to transposing score, i.e. the alto sax will switch to be correctly shown as an Eb instrument for the sax player (you are probably starting to see why I don't use Tuxguitar or Guitar Pro).

These are extremely important feature for my purposes. When I was looking thru the product line I remember having to go all the way to the most expensive product to get these kind of features.

It seemed at least for me, the lower level products where just trying to get me in the door shopping around.

[Kojo27]

I confess, I don't know sh*t about music-writing software, but I'm going to have to break over and learn. I won't be writing for percussion or horns, but anything with strings is a sure bet.

What does Cubase do? A girl I know actually gave me her copy, and it's the works, I'm pretty sure. Is it worth learning? How big's the curve?

kj

[JohnW400]

Well, we've discovered that neither the Sibelius First nor Finale intro version will give you the features your looking for and that you would need to go the full blown expensive version.

This isn't unusual. Look at most software programs (MS Office, adobe, etc) They have the "home" version and the full version plus all kinds of extras. None of them are cheap.

Have you looked at musecore?

MuseScore | Free music composition & notation software

It looks to have a lot of features and it's free. I haven't downloaded it since I have Sibelius 5.2.

Try that one and see if it will do what your looking to do.

[Kojo27]

Originally Posted by JohnW400

Well, we've discovered that neither the Sibelius First nor Finale intro version will give you the features your looking for and that you would need to go the full blown expensive version.

This isn't unusual. Look at most software programs (MS Office, adobe, etc) They have the "home" version and the full version plus all kinds of extras. None of them are cheap.

Have you looked at musecore?

MuseScore | Free music composition & notation software

It looks to have a lot of features and it's free. I haven't downloaded it since I have Sibelius 5.2.

Try that one and see if it will do what your looking to do.

Hey, thanks, John. I'll check out the freeware program. I have a book project in mind - a fairly long-term goal - and chord diagrams are essential. So we'll see. (Cubase isn't something you'd recommend? I might install it anyway and play around with it. My friend took a semester-long course in it at Rutgers and said she never wanted to see it again. )

[JohnW400]

If you have a book project in mind I would use Sibelius or Finale. They allow you to export a variety of ways. They are both powerful programs

When I was learning Sibelius I took regular sheet music and tried to reproduce it exactly as written. One of the scores I did was Hope by Mahavishnu Orchestra

It was Guitar , Violin, Bass, Keyborads and Drums. The playback sounded almost exactly like the CD.

One of the draw backs in Sib is the way you make chord diagrams. It is a bit tedious and you need to attach it to a note in staff but there are ways to work around this.

BTW, If your a student you get a great price on Sibelius.

As far as learning programs at Rutgers, I went to school so long ago that I had to do all the assignments in arranging class with manuscript paper, Number 2 pencils and rulers. (Imagine scoring for full jazz ensemble. Full score plus parts!) You all got it EASY now.

[mattymel]

Musescore is pretty good. there are a few things that are lacking in the jazz articulation department, but for free im far from complaining. ive got a few transcriptions on site if you are interested...

[fep]

Originally Posted by mattymel

Musescore is pretty good. there are a few things that are lacking in the jazz articulation department, but for free im far from complaining. ive got a few transcriptions on site if you are interested...

Have you tried:

After entering the note type the letter z, then double click the symbol you want and it will attach to the note.

You can also drag those symbols onto notes.

It's a pretty long list of symbols and I think it looks like you could add your own symbols to the list (there's blank boxes in that symbol list).

[mattymel]

hey. yes, im not really happy with the lack of good "slide" notation in Musescore. as in sliding into a note (without the overly cluttered looking grace note option). also, the gliss functions dont really work well if your gliss starts at the end of one system. then it just doesnt show up, or does something random. at least for me....

anybody got any of these "jazz articultion" plugins i could download from somebody?