Free music writing software

[Steve Harrison]

If anyone is interested in some free music software, have a look at MuseScore.com. It was recommended to me by someone from one of the Yahoo Accordion groups (yes, I will admit to playing the old iron lung!). I've had a brief look at it and it seems to do most of what my Finale software does. It doesn't have a specific banjo category but for zero cost, not bad.

[Steve Harrison]

Correction..it does have a banjo category, you have to select guitar from the instrument menu and banjo appears on the resulting drop down menu.

[Jody Stecher]

Thanks Steve. I'm looking at the homepage of musescore.com and it seems to be a site for people to upload and download music scores. I don't see any software. Please advise! Thanks.

[Jody Stecher]

solved the problem. the site has a suffix of dot net.

[Steve Harrison]

I entered musescore into google and one of the options displayed was musescore down load. I selected this and on the top right side of the opening page was the green download button for musescore version 1. I duly downloaded and installed it with no problem. You may have to google around a bit to find the appropriate download site.

Jody Stecher said:

Thanks Steve. I'm looking at the homepage of musescore.com and it seems to be a site for people to upload and download music scores. I don't see any software. Please advise! Thanks.

[Jody Stecher]

Thanks for the tip, Steve. This looks pretty good to me. I think I'll have to read the instructions though. So far every thing I enter comes out as crotchets. In my second post my hands were moving faster than my brain and now you and I have each posted a different wrong website. To the left of the the dot it's musescore. To the right of the dot it's not "net' as I wrote or "com" as you wrote . It's "org".   Musescore.org. There. Got it right this time. The home page is where the download option appears in the right hand corner.

[Jody Stecher]

MuseScore has proved to be pretty efficient and intuitive. Naturally the help manual is not written in plain English but I've managed decipher what I need by trial and error. I'm stumped on one point and MuseScore has responded to my email by saying (in effect) Nyaa Nyaa We Won't Tell You, Hah Hah Hah. Has Steve or anyone else worked out how to add a "pickup" measure to a score that is in progress? At the beginning the setup wizard allows you to specify if there is a pickup and how long it is. But after that MuseScore won't allow a measure to be shorter than the time signature indicates and it won't allow the first measure to not have a time signature or to be incomplete. My best guess is that one must find a way to access the setup wizard once more and enter the pickup there. But how does one do that?

[Jody Stecher]

Problem solved.  There *are* humans at MuseScore after all. Someone did respond and directed me to the solution which is as easy to do as it is difficult to discover on one's own unless you are able to think in German in English translation. Which I can't do.

[Sylvia]

Hi Jody,  interested in the problem you had with pick ups... was the answer to use rests to make up the value of the bar ? Thinking of Downloading that software when I have a minute.

[Jody Stecher]

Sylvia, rests were part of the problem as the software kept volunteering them, always *after* the pickup, never before. The solution: you right click on an empty part of the measure and select Measure Properties. That opens a "dialog box" that offers choices including the option to give the selected measure less duration than indicated by the time signature. The user is able to specify exactly how long the measure should last. Then you close the dialog box and enter your pickups. Notes can be entered in a variety of ways. To enter a note or notes one must first click the N key. To not enter notes one also clicks the N key. This is a very handy way of getting in and out and very necessary because if the user is in note writing mode and then wants to do another operation involving dragging the mouse such as selecting a sharp or flat sign which is found on a menu at the top of the page, the software thinks you are entering a note that is eleven octaves above the rest of the score and if you move the mouse to allow the cursor to select some other options that are on the left side and lower than the line you are working with, the software thinks you are entering basso profundo profundo notes in earlier measures. Just click N and you can move freely.

[Sylvia]

Jody ,Thank you for the info.  I will keep it in mind.  I do have the  "Noteworthy" software but was interested in the MuseScore when Steve mentioned it.

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Can it do tabs?

[Steve Harrison]

I've only dabbled with it a few times but as far as I can see, it only does standard music notation. Maybe some of the other users can enlighten with more detail.