Music composition software

[Chris]

Do you know of any good freeware for composing music?
I suppose it would be good if it could print out the score as well.
I'm not musically educated myself - so I don't know what I'm looking
for, really - but I'm looking for something for a friend who's a piano
teacher - who doesn't know anything about computers - and has just
bought her first one.

 

[foosland]

Do you know of any good freeware for composing music?

Finale notepad.

 

[Cre8]

Finale notepad.

www.codamusic.com

 

[HenryK]

Try here:
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/
It's mostly shareware, but includes some freeware.

HenryK
~~~~~~~

 

[Chris]

Thanks to both of you. Anvil Studio looks good.
http://www.anvilstudio.com/
Do you know if it's spyware-free etc.?

 

[Mike Ring]

I think I've tried them all, and Anvil only allows one system of two
staves, (I theeenk), so may or may not be ok.

I'm always forced back to noteworthy composer, which is a good note entry
tool, but does not handle midi properly, and an elderly cakewalk express,
which is diaboloical for editing, but does midi properly.

I know its not freeware, but notepad plus claims to import and export midi,
but appears to be limited to 5 staves, which is not enough for me.

(Before the flames arrive for straying off freeware - I'm only trying to be
helpful, and that's not against *my* rules, and if Chris finds anything I
don't know about, I hope he'll pass it on - I've spent a lot of time trying
free midi progs and not got what I need)

Mike R

 

[Chris]

I think I've tried them all, and Anvil only allows one system of two
staves, (I theeenk), so may or may not be ok.

I'm always forced back to noteworthy composer, which is a good note entry
tool, but does not handle midi properly, and an elderly cakewalk express,
which is diaboloical for editing, but does midi properly.

I know its not freeware, but notepad plus claims to import and export midi,
but appears to be limited to 5 staves, which is not enough for me.

(Before the flames arrive for straying off freeware - I'm only trying to be
helpful, and that's not against *my* rules, and if Chris finds anything I
don't know about, I hope he'll pass it on - I've spent a lot of time trying
free midi progs and not got what I need)

Mike R

Thanks for that Mike - much appreciated.
And I'm glad you applied *your* rules!

 

[Chris]

Finale notepad.

Thanks. I couldn't download it though.
You have to register - and every time I tried I got:
"Sorry, that email is already on file. Please select a different email
address."
I tried lots of different addresses, some of which pretty well must have
been new, but still I got no further. If anyone has a (dummy) emailname
and password that work you might be kind enough to post them here.

 

[John Corliss]

(clipped)

Thanks for that Mike - much appreciated.
And I'm glad you applied *your* rules!

There are no rules in this unmoderated newsgroup, only guidelines that
it is hoped that all will follow. Still, talking about non-freeware in
this group which is for the discussion of freeware only is like
littering along a highway, "What if everybody did it?"

EOD

 

[Dana Netherton]

I think I've tried them all, and Anvil only allows one system of two
staves, (I theeenk), so may or may not be ok.[/QUOTE]

If you want to print the music with the freeware version,
you have to pay $29 for an "accessory" bit of software.
(That feature is standard in the $99 "payware" version.)

I'm always forced back to noteworthy composer, which is a good note entry
tool, but does not handle midi properly, and an elderly cakewalk express,
which is diaboloical for editing, but does midi properly.

I broke down and purchased Noteworthy Composer recently, for
the princely sum of $29 ... I'm happy with it so far, but I
don't know much about MIDI (don't use it myself). So I'm
curious about NC's shortcomings there.

Does NC violate MIDI standards (I'm guessing that there are
some)? Or does it ignore "common practices" that aren't
explicitly stated in MIDI standards?

I know its not freeware, but notepad plus claims to import and export midi,
but appears to be limited to 5 staves, which is not enough for me.

Notepad is freeware; but Finale isn't. (BTW the
latest versions of Notepad and Finale require Win98 or
better. If you have Win95, like I do ... forget it.)

--
(Mr) Dana Netherton
Default address is a spam dump. Use it, and
I'll never see it. To reach me, e-mail:
dana 1 netherton 2 net,
where "1" = at, and "2" = dot

 

[Mike Ring]

I broke down and purchased Noteworthy Composer recently, for
the princely sum of $29 ... I'm happy with it so far, but I
don't know much about MIDI (don't use it myself). So I'm
curious about NC's shortcomings there.

It's an excellent note entry tool IMO, but appears to export pan and volume
information only in *.nwc format, and gave me many hours of grief trying to
work out why when I exported as midi that info was lost - a poster in
another group told me.

So now I export as midi, then load into a very old cakewalk express to put
in pan and volume settings

Does NC violate MIDI standards (I'm guessing that there are
some)? Or does it ignore "common practices" that aren't
explicitly stated in MIDI standards?

I'm not at all an expert, but it does (or did) someting wrong - I haven't
checked for yonks.

Notepad is freeware;

Notepad plus is 29 dollars.

The best printing prog, IMO, is Personal Composer, but it's very erratic as
it pays a lot of attention to graphics (sprites and such!) and isn't free
anyhow (JC will be on our case, but this is about freeware in that AFAIK
there isn't any, and if anyone knows different, they might join in!)

Mike R

 

[Dana Netherton]

It's an excellent note entry tool IMO, but appears to export pan and volume
information only in *.nwc format, and gave me many hours of grief trying to
work out why when I exported as midi that info was lost - a poster in
another group told me.

So now I export as midi, then load into a very old cakewalk express to put
in pan and volume settings

I'm not at all an expert, but it does (or did) someting wrong - I haven't
checked for yonks.

Thanks for the feedback.

--
(Mr) Dana Netherton
Default address is a spam dump. Use it, and
I'll never see it. To reach me, e-mail:
dana 1 netherton 2 net,
where "1" = at, and "2" = dot