In another post, I wrote about how I was a Sibelius user, and then I found noteflight. Here’s the primary problem: Sibelius can get rather expensive if I’m not scoring music continually. However, noteflight is so inexpensive that paid access is almost impossible to refuse. For example, in Canada, at the time of this article, Sibelius costs about $40(CAN) a month, and the year-long subscription to noteflight is about $60(US). So why do I even consider using two programs? The answer is simple. Not all notation programs are created equal.
For example, if I’m writing an orchestral score, noteflight doesn’t use braces and brackets to group orchestral sections together like Sibelius does (at this time). Sibelius can create a video and convert my score into images for inserting into a word-processing document. But what if I need to do something other than orchestral scoring? What if I’m a singer-songwriter, and video and image creation is not my thing? What if I’m interested in sharing my music with others or selling it? Then I’d find noteflight or Muscore to be more helpful.
Muscore is a free music notation program that runs on Mac, PC, and various other operating systems, and while it can run on a Chromebook, things are slightly more complicated than a straight install (at this time). Let’s say you have a laptop or desktop computer that can run Muscore; Muscore has a large community of active users creating and sharing their original music and arrangements. However, if you’re looking to sell your music online or arrange popular music, noteflight may be a better choice. Noteflight makes the publishing experience easy. Noteflight works with other companies like ArrangMe, Noteflight Marketplace, Sheet Music Direct, and Sheet Music Plus, and it has ties to Hal Leonard.
All three music notation programs are great, but each has feature sets for specific tasks. There are plenty more music notation programs, most of which I’ve yet to try. Do some digging, and you can find your perfect notation software. I mention Muscore, noteflight, and Sibelius because of their features and price. Sometimes one program can’t do it all. So why do I use multiple music notation programs? Because I have to. Thank you for reading; I’m just a music teacher having fun; catch ya on the next one.
