music notation program recommendation

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.

Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com

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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