Music composing software

[Jeff Howe]

Does anyone have any recommendations for music composing software, preferrably freeware, or maybe a trial version, that is very intuitive?

[Cindi Hammons]

Finale Notepad 2006

I have used this to arrange songs for worship. It is free to download. There are other versions with other bells and whistles, but this is good for basic. Your music is printed out looking quite professional.

Just do a Google search on Finale Notepad and you'll find it.

I hope this helps.
Cindi H.

[Gina Stevenson]

WOW! Going to check this out. You arrange music with this, Cindi!? Someone years ago gave me something that I learned would not do anymore than one [melody] line. I was crushed ... but gracious, of course! They didn't know what it would/wouldn't do ... just found it somewhere, and got it for me.

Thanks, too, Jeff, for asking ... so I could learn about this; I've so much music ... and sometimes have taken hours & hours to painstakingly write out music by hand so that it could be decently read/played. Might just scan some of that into the computer yet ... someday; too much music written over a lot of years has been sitting unused way too long [while some has been used, via copy machine, not much has].

Again, thanks you two! Will definitely check this out!!

Finale Notepad 2006

I have used this to arrange songs for worship. It is free to download. There are other versions with other bells and whistles, but this is good for basic. Your music is printed out looking quite professional.

Just do a Google search on Finale Notepad and you'll find it.

I hope this helps.
Cindi H.

[Jeff Howe]

Finale Notepad 2006

I have used this to arrange songs for worship. It is free to download. There are other versions with other bells and whistles, but this is good for basic. Your music is printed out looking quite professional.

Just do a Google search on Finale Notepad and you'll find it.

I hope this helps.
Cindi H.

Thanks so much Cindi... a quick look at it and it appears to fill the bill. Any songs I've written over the years can only be found in my head right now, and I was looking for a way to transcribe it all. Gotta head out, but I'll get more indepth later and really play with it. :)

[Marsha Lynn]

I've used Noteworthy Composer for years. The free download is crippleware with limited print capabilities. I paid the modest fee for the full version years ago and have ported it from system to system as we've upgraded. It's not bad for low-cost software but I may need to check out Finale.

Marsha


Does anyone have any recommendations for music composing software, preferrably freeware, or maybe a trial version, that is very intuitive?

[Gina Stevenson]

Went there ... went to their "new account" or whatever they call it.

Entered my email addy, & it says they'll send a password for you to enter on the next page "right away!"

So, a couple of hours later, still no password in my yahoo mailbox. I went to the music place again, tried "new account" again, and it told me my email addy was taken. So, apparently that part registered.

So, I then went to "old account sign-in," making up whatever password I normally would use there. Didn't like it. So, I clicked the "forgot password" deal, figuring that tho' they hadn't gotten it to me earlier, it might finally make it to my mailbox telling them it was a "forgotten password."

Just refreshed my yahoo mailbox again, so any new mail would show up; still nothing there. Not sure why a password that they assign [so you can later change it to your own] just isn't making it through to my mailbox, tho' they say check "right away!"

Is it yahoo that holds things up -- tho' I wouldn't think so, as I've gotten those auto-responses from some support places immediately after sending a question. So, something's wrong at the music software site. :(

We'll keep trying .....................

Thanks again for the heads up ... sure hope it's as cool as it sounds! ;)

[Danny Rester]

I have used Finale Notepad, too. It is very good. I seem to recall that it took a while for me to get my password, too.

[Danny Rester]

By the way, Gina, I love the quote at the bottom of your posts. I couldn't agree more!

[Jeff Howe]

Went there ... went to their "new account" or whatever they call it.

Entered my email addy, & it says they'll send a password for you to enter on the next page "right away!"

So, a couple of hours later, still no password in my yahoo mailbox. I went to the music place again, tried "new account" again, and it told me my email addy was taken. So, apparently that part registered.

So, I then went to "old account sign-in," making up whatever password I normally would use there. Didn't like it. So, I clicked the "forgot password" deal, figuring that tho' they hadn't gotten it to me earlier, it might finally make it to my mailbox telling them it was a "forgotten password.";)

Gina,

It's Yahoo. I did the same thing and then just re-entered with a different email address and password. If you have spam blocking activated in your Yahoo account, it's probably blocking the email from coming in.

[Dana Grant]

I've used Noteworthy Composer for years. The free download is crippleware with limited print capabilities. I paid the modest fee for the full version years ago and have ported it from system to system as we've upgraded. It's not bad for low-cost software but I may need to check out Finale.

Marsha

Yes, I have used Noteworthy Composer for years, as well. It is really not bad for a very low cost software.

[Gina Stevenson]

Oh, I forgot to look there ... in the "Bulk" folder, where Yahoo usually gets it right in what it puts there. Every so often, I check to see if there's anything I'm supposed to get that went to "Bulk" ... maybe have found a couple in months & months of thousands of emails directed straight to "Bulk"/junk mail. ;) "Bet I find it there.

In the meantime, there's an 800# you can call. So, I called it, told her my email addy, she gave me the password over the phone, so I've got it DL'd now, and just installed it. Can hardly wait to open it to see what it looks like!! Yippee!! :fav18

EDITED to add: Checked "bulk" ... know what? It didn't accidentally go there, either ... an email with my password
to get in. Saw a strange phenomenon, tho' ... not only did I have gobs of mail dated
"Saturday, 25 March" [perhaps in Europe it's 25th] ... but also have a lot of mail that was
supposed sent/received(?) Sunday, 26 March. HEY! Even 24 hours from now, international
dateline, whatever ... nowhere I know of where it's Sunday, rather than late Saturday,
since it's just late Friday here [well, 9pm]. Weird ...............




Gina,

It's Yahoo. I did the same thing and then just re-entered with a different email address and password. If you have spam blocking activated in your Yahoo account, it's probably blocking the email from coming in.

[Jeff Howe]

Gina... I finally got my password in the Yahoo account, so apparently it wasn't treating the email as spam (which Finale Notepad's website said is possible).

I really like this program - only one problem:

It has shown me how much I really DON'T know about music. lol

[Gina Stevenson]

Found out, too, that it can be rather time-consuming even on the computer [tho' it can draw the notes neater when trying it half-fast than I can by hand -- which also gets tedious, I learned "eons" ago].

Right now I've some other things to do, so have to discipline myself to not open it ... for now ...................... tho' I can hardly wait to see a few completed pages of manuscript. ;)

Gina... I finally got my password in the Yahoo account, so apparently it wasn't treating the email as spam (which Finale Notepad's website said is possible).

I really like this program - only one problem:

It has shown me how much I really DON'T know about music. lol

[Shawn Flynn]

I bought the full version of Finale a couple of years ago and man its great. I used it in different ways too, from arranging, scanning in parts of the hymnal, to actually using Finale's playback feature to "record" an accompaniment for our church congregationals when our pianist was ill.

If your handy on a keyboard, you "play" your songs on the keyboard and let finale "record" and print out the music you play via a midi cable. Be careful though, what you play is what's written, meaning if you hold out a dotted eighth note too long, it might be trancribe into something else. Play your music straight and in time, unless you swing, then Finale has a setting for that.

Finale is, by far, an industry standard.

On a side note, if your into linux (or not...hold on guys) you can try a program called LillyPond and or Rosegarden.

Now if you have windows and want to use this software try this http://www.studio-to-go.com/
Basically, it has a bunch of really good studio software for linux that is run from a disk. The best thing is, you can be on a windows machine or a linux box. Its ~$150. A lot of the software is for those that produce dance music aka techno.

On a further side note, if your looking for christian dance music, check this out. Tastyfresh.com.

[Gina Stevenson]

Thanks for the tip, Shawn. Don't really feel like I could/should go $150 on software at the moment [when?] ... but I'll put this note in my music folder for, hopefully, some later day; have too much written that's only been written out by hand, tho' I tried to do it neatly.

[Charlene Clevenger]

My son's band teacher told us about Finale Note Pad years ago. I told a guy at church about it and he and another lady use it to transpose songs that are not in the hymnal into the correct key for their instruments in the church orchestra.