I'm looking for a simple WYSWYG music notation software that works with Mac. Any recommendations.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
The two major software suites both work on Mac. They are Sibelius and Finale. Sibelius typically gets better reviews across the board, especially for beginning users. Finale is slightly more powerful, but not in any way you will ever use it. Neither are going to enjoyable to use. You will simply not find a user friendly program that doesn't take months to learn how to use effectively. Honestly the only way to be even remotely productive in these kinds of software is to either completely master the shortcutting system, and or buy a custom music editing keyboard for a lot of money... and even then- these programs are hard to use.
I still write everything by hand and then struggle through an electronic draft if necessary- which it usually is. Many professional composers still draft by hand until the last draft, and many also farm out that work to others due to the headache and frustration involved.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Do you know of any (Windows) software out there that easily lets you put notes and measure bars on a the staff, and put that on a page? Something that isn't smart smart and doesn't care whether the music I'm putting down makes any sense. It seems to me that a relatively simple program could be quite useful.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I don't know any specific programs myself.
The thing is, you are conceptualizing something simple, however even the most basic program for notating music requires dozens if not hundreds of functions, making any UI for that purpose difficult to endure using. Everybody is familiar with word processing, but you can basically take the bog standard basic elements you need from a word processor, things you think are the absolute minimum, and multiply that by a factor of at least 10. More like 100.
The thing is, until you actually try to sit down and notate something of even middling complexity- a piano part and a voice line, for instance, you have no idea of the variety of functions necessary to accomplish that. Your experience with word processing doesn't map onto this well.
Posted by Ryoko (Member # 4947) on :
I'm a Finale user, so I've never downloaded the following myself and can't give a thumbs up or thumbs down on it, but...
I did a little searching and found what appears to be a freeware notation program for Mac.
If it functions as it promises, you can't beat the price.
More info here: MuseScore site Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I used it a long time ago. It was awful then.
Posted by Ryoko (Member # 4947) on :
This version seems to have been first posted to Apple on June 8, 2010, so perhaps it has improved...or not.
Still, if it is just vanilla notes on the staff the OP is looking for, it might serve.
From my perspective, I remember the bad old days when Finale didn't have smart slurs and you had to place them on the staff without being connected to the notes themselves. It meant every time you added a measure or changed the layout, the slurs would not change accordingly. It meant you had no choice but to add those types of expressions only when the score was almost finalized.
...yikes...gotta stop thinking about it or I'll have nightmares tonight.
Anyway, it used to be even worse.
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
I downloaded MuseScore and it seems to be adequate for what I want to do. Thanks Ryoko.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ryoko: From my perspective, I remember the bad old days when Finale didn't have smart slurs and you had to place them on the staff without being connected to the notes themselves. It meant every time you added a measure or changed the layout, the slurs would not change accordingly. It meant you had no choice but to add those types of expressions only when the score was almost finalized.
Yeah... I remember the days when the mac version of Finale would *redraw* the whole score every time an alteration was made in the score. This on a 300Mz or lower machine. Just picture that for a moment, if you will.
For some reason too, the finale developers *still* refuse to allow leaf notes (I think that's the name), where essentially you indicate a smooth acceleration of individual notes from one value to another using one tie. I have had to draw them in by hand, and then use photocopies or scans. Talk about a hastle.
Posted by Ryoko (Member # 4947) on :
Rabbit: You are very welcome and I hope it works for you. If you have the time, I'd be interested in a review of your experience with the software once you've played with it (which will be helpful in deciding whether to recommend this to others. I occasionally get requests like this to recommend a freeware notation solution).
Orincoro: My first composition teacher forbade us from using Finale (or any other notation software). He felt strongly that everyone must first develop a legible (if not beautiful) musical handwriting. At the time, it was frustrating because I had (of course) just bought Finale (which was very expensive, even with Academic pricing). However, at the end of the day, I think it was a very good experience, especially when it came to writing out parts. For example, with Finale's part extraction tools, it is fairly easy to crank out corrected parts (relatively speaking) if you make last minute changes. However, when you are writing it out by hand and you, for example, miscount when numbering measures, the pain of rewriting things provided a very memorable lesson. Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
Ryoko, My uses are very simple. The most complicated things I'm doing include two instruments or voices, lyrics and guitar chords. I've also experimented with the transpose function a bit and it seems quite useful when I trying to write parts for soprano (C) and Alto (F) recorder.
I would however recommend some caution using it. I'm not sure if its a little buggy or I'm just no using it properly but I've got some strange inconsistent results.
I will admit that my standards on this are pretty low. I've written a couple of songs in the past (simple melody line and guitar accompaniment) where I have used a drawing program to make nicer looking staffs and notes than I can do by hand. I can guarantee you that any notation program out there is easier to use than that.
Posted by Week-Dead Possum (Member # 11917) on :
Ryoko: very right your prof was. Despite my being not much of a visual artist, my prof´s guidance led me to develop a distinctive and beautifully simple, according to compliments, style of notation that made me much more confident in my work than I would be without it. Even today when I jot down a melody for a friend or demonstrate some theory aspect for someone interested in the field, I get compliments like: ´wow, I can see you´ve done that before!´ Being professional in presentation is important in a way that doesn´t translate even to hand writing. For the record, my handwriting is quite bad.
Posted by Ryoko (Member # 4947) on :
One thing my Comp teacher was particularly attentive to was proportional spacing.
His biggest pet peeve was when a student had something like the following: a "whole note" measure that was only a half-inch wide, followed by a measure filled with 16th notes that was four inches wide.
Oh...and my favorite:
He believed that each composer should only be given 5 fermatas total to be used in their lifetime. Otherwise, notate it.
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