music notation program recommendation

Dan Neely

My sister's a voice major, and my brother intends to major in sax performance. She endorses Finale, he prefers Sibelius.

-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.

Josh Smith

dan neely wrote:

She endorses Finale, he prefers Sibelius.

They both give good advice. :)

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Pete OHanlon

I use Sibelius[^] a lot. It's absolutely invaluable, and has some fantastic features such as checking rhythms and time signatures, and checking to ensure that you haven't noted impossible pitches. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also like Sonar[^] from Cakewalk. I first used it at version 2, and each version just gets better and better. It's particularly useful for me because I can mix in live instruments with MIDI with little to no fuss.

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toxcct

My voice for Cakewalk too. but it is a huge product, which is maybe too much for your need. maybe GuitarPro is ok then (no, it doesn't focus only on guitar :rolleyes: )

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El Corazon

jason_lakewhitney wrote:

I hear someone in trouble...Here comes Google yepe

I don't like trying to predict his thoughts, but I expect, since the subject of music has come up many times, that he was hoping someone at CP had experience and favorites. Google produces many options, but always unclear what is best. User experience can cut down that evaluation time significantly. :-D

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Jim Crafton

Sibelius is really nice! Finale is for posers.

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Mike Dimmick

I remember using it to assist a friend in composing his Music A-level final composition piece, in 1996. Trouble is, he was scoring it for virtually full orchestration, and you had to have a pretty expensive sound card to get one which supported enough simultaneous voices and notes to actually get a decent idea of what it would sound like. I think he now uses Sibelius.

Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder

hairy_hats

Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

I use Sibelius[^] a lot.

I remember the happy days when Sibelius was first developed under RiscOS, and people were buying Acorns just to run it on... *sigh* :sigh: It was a knockout app then, sounds like it's only improved.

lost in transition

Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:

User experience can cut down that evaluation time significantly.

Yes, I know. I was just joking around:-D, if you recall I did give my user experience. Unfortunatly, I was unable to remember the names of the software I used over 10 years ago.:confused: It is hard at times to understand what some people are meaning when they post a thought, mainly because you can not see their face or hear their voice. Not to worry, I took you comment as only making a point, me too. God Bless, Jason

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Developer: A person who develops working systems by writing and using software. [^]

Pete OHanlon

Steve_Harris wrote:

I remember the happy days when Sibelius was first developed under RiscOS,

RiscOS - that's a blast from the past.

Steve_Harris wrote:

It was a knockout app then, sounds like it's only improved.

I couldn't agree more. Yes, it costs a little bit more than some of the competition, but it is definitely worth the extra.

the last thing I want to see is some pasty-faced geek with skin so pale that it's almost translucent trying to bump parts with a partner - John Simmons / outlaw programmer
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.

J Dunlap

There's Sibelius and Finale, as others have mentioned, but they're expensive. MagicScore[^] is a cheap one ($50) that has a lot of nice features and is easy to work with.

Fernando A Gomez F

Here are some ideas. [^] :cool:

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Ed Poore

I vote as well for Sibelius, you can get an educational discount as well now. Can't remember the details but Google for them.

Sebastian Schneider

I am really curious (no pun or offense intended, I am asking in earnest), how hard is it to get a permanent, full-time job in the music business (not as in "Universal" and "Sony", but as in "orchestra" or "theatre")? I heard the competition is quite hard, and that it is very difficult to find something suitable.

Cheers, Sebastian -- Contra vim mortem non est medicamen in hortem.

hairy_hats

Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

RiscOS - that's a blast from the past.

From the present[^], actually. It had anti-aliased fonts and a taskbar of open applications when Windows was in short trousers. And you've always been able to skip copying a file that won't copy instead of stopping the whole action! :mad:

Christopher Duncan

Overture[^] is the only other one I can think of. Here's a couple of considerations. First, many of the major products are shipping with a bundled version of GPO (Garritan Personal Orchestra), making it very easy to play your scores. I ran an Internet radio station for the GPO folks for a while and can highly recommend that library, especially if it's bundled. Nice folks, too. The other thing to talk about is Cakewalk's Sonar. The notation and printing isn't as rich as products like Finale and Sibilius, but that's because it's a MIDI sequencer that has a staff view rather than a staff notation system that also speaks MIDI. That's not just a semantic difference. If you need to tweak the notation itself, get a notation program. However, if you want ultimate control over the MIDI playback of your score, in my opinion Sonar is the most powerful system out there for PCs. It's what I use in the studio for all my MIDI composition and editing. So, it's all good stuff. Just a matter of which directions your needs lie.

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J Dunlap

Christopher Duncan wrote:

First, many of the major products are shipping with a bundled version of GPO (Garritan Personal Orchestra), making it very easy to play your scores. I ran an Internet radio station for the GPO folks for a while and can highly recommend that library, especially if it's bundled. Nice folks, too.

I'll second that - very high quality, for a good price. Can't beat it if you're looking for affordable high-quality instrument samples. :)

joelgarabedian

Hi Marc, There's a relatively new product on the market, which I think might be called Notion. I haven't tried it myself, but it comes with a built in orchestral sample set and a soft synth, so it can play back scores with a decent level of realism. As someone else has mentioned, Sibelius is very popular for professional scoring, but most good sequencers (Cubase / Logic / Cakewalk) also offer very good scoring facilities, in addition to full audio recording and mixing capabilities if those might be of use to your son.

Bassam Abdul Baki

Try Sheet Music Software[^].

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