The subject of music representation formats and publishing programs is moving very quickly and needs to be followed fairly closely to keep up. A starting point might be an older thread called “Music + Computer Geeks... Listen Up.”

All digital representations of music are being subsumed as the world-wide adoption of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) begins to provide a universal interchange format for music. There are several proposed standards using XML in various stages of development and adoption. Perhaps the most widely adopted at this point is the MusicXML standard. Several software companies have already incorporated MusicXML interchange functionality into their products as referenced in this diagram.

One of the programs that includes MusicXML interchange as well as ABC is the TaBazar program designed especially for guitar and string players. (Here is an example of TaBazar output.)

For those comfortable (and experienced) with computing, there is also the GNU LilyPond project. LilyPond provides a manageable input notation for MusicTeX and is capable of typesetting both complex scores and simple melodies with lyrics. As a GNU (GUN's Not Unix) project, LilyPond is free but, used with Windows, requires Cygwin—free from RedHat— to provide the UNIX environment and the TeX/LaTeX implementation. This is definately not for the technophobe nor the neo-Luddite.

I have licensed the Finale product for many years now and wouldn't really recommend it for most users of this forum. As noted above it's very expensive and on top of that they want to sell you a $200 USD upgrade every year or more. It's a great program but is very difficult to learn and has capabilities most of us will never need. Still, with the advent of MusicXML as a standard interchange format, we can use low cost or free software and still exchange music files with users of the high-end programs. The thing to watch for when choosing music software is support for an XML exchange standard like MusicXML.

      - Mark