This is probably as good a thread as any other to provide some updates on useful music software.

The folks at Noteworthy Composer have released Version 1.7 which is a free upgrade for registered users, and of course you can still get exceptionally good use from the free shareware download. Notable among the new features is the ability to alter the number of measures printed across the page to match the lyric line length. Anyone working with vocal harmonies will appreciate the new stuff which allows you to paste staves together for display/printing AND then pull 'em apart again at any time in the future.

Sharpeye has also gone through a number of mods to make it more accurate but the feature I like is the ability to set it to work in batch mode. Just point it towards 20 pages of scanned music images, watch The Bill on TV and come back to see that it's done a lot of the hard work - registered version only. The unregistered version requires you to click on an icon at the end of each page, even so this works very well. In my opinion this program just gets better and better. If you haven't got a scanner I can always mail you some sample images.

I have to admit about changing my views somewhat about the concept of using guitar TAB programs as the foundation or complement for notating tunes. I've been playing with a number of them including MusEdit, Muse, Tabledit and Encore and a couple of others. The jury is still out from my perspective, but if you're one of those who thinks of frets when you're visualising music I can now see that they have a lot going for them.

End of quick update. Regards, John