Looking for Software (music that is)

Subject: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Mick Lowe
Date: 31 May 99 - 07:10 PM

I'm looking for a piece of software that will allow me to scribe musical notation.. I don't want it to play back to me (i.e. Noteworthy.. MusicEase etc).. or do anything clever.. I just want it to act like a wordprocessor but give me a stave instead of a blank page.. Ideally it will save to jpeg format or similar.. any suggestions are gratefully accepted..
Cheers
Mick
p.s. if this is available free off the net so much the better...

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Musicman
Date: 31 May 99 - 07:51 PM

Mick,

I have used a publisher program called Envision Publisher that has music notation built in as a font type. You also have staff lines. It is tedious because you have to place each note individually. I don't know if it will suit your needs, but here is a site you can download the program from....

(hope this works!)

Click here

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 May 99 - 10:01 PM

If you are somewhat (well... very) familiar with computers and computing, you could use a music typesetting package called musicTeX (pronounced music-tech). It is a set of macros for use with TeX, Donald Knuth's typesetting system. You use a standard text editor to enter the input and the musicTeX macros together with Tex itself will produce a professional, typeset score. Here is the text input needed to typeset the first two bars of Mozart's K545 Sonata in C-major.

\begin{music}
\parindent 1cm
\def\nbinstruments{1}\relax
\def\instrumenti{Piano}%
\nbporteesi=2\relax
\generalmeter{\meterfrac{4}{4}}\relax
\debutextrait
\normal
\temps\Notes\ibu0f0\qh0\{cge}\tbu0\qh0g|\hl j\enotes
\temps\Notes\ibu0f0\qh0\{cge}\tbu0\qh0g|\ql l\sk\ql n\enotes
\barre
\Notes\ibuf0f0\qh0{dgf}|\qlp i\enotes
\notes\tbu0\qh0g|\ibbl1j3\qb1j\tbl1\qb1k\enotes
\temps\Notes\ibuf0f0\qh0{cge}\tbu0\qh0g|\hl j\enotes
\finextrait
\end{music}

It isn't pretty but it only does charts. No sound-related stuff that you'r trying to avoid and what's more, it's all available free. Your best bet for a good TeX distribution is emTeX; search for CTAN, TeX, LaTeX, and of course muTeX. It's some trouble to get up and running but the side benefit is that you'll be all set to go into the commercial publshing business.

Personally, I prefer a commercial program called Finale. It's expensive but you can play two-handed music on a MIDI keyboard and have it show up as a score.

Good luck,

- Mark

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Mark Clark
Date: 31 May 99 - 10:29 PM

Oops, I forgot the attribution. The musicTeX example in my previous post is taken from Norman Walsh's excellent book Making TeX Work, 1994, O'Reilly & Associates.

- Mark

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 31 May 99 - 11:46 PM

The ABC notation concept requires nothing more than a word processor to notate music. I have recently submiited a user guide ti this forum to attempt to de-mystify it. IMHO it is a snap to learn.

You will need a printing package to print it out, but I am not aware of a totally free one. At the ABC Homepage (there is a link in the thread I referred to) you will find a refernce to a package that does just this. Maybe it's ABCWin? I haven't used it but other Mudcatters certainly have.

Hope that this helps.

Regards
John

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Mick Lowe
Date: 01 Jun 99 - 06:31 PM

Thanks for all your advice and guidance..
What I forgot to mention is that it must also allow the addition of lyrics and guitar chords..
I've just spent a few frustrating hours playing with MOZART (no pun intended), only to find it won't do any of the stuff I want it to..
Back to the search engines I guess.
Thanks again
Mick

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: okscout
Date: 01 Jun 99 - 11:29 PM

A few years ago, I cam across a nifty "Music Typewriter Utility for the Appple Macintosh ComPuter" It required Macpaint and/or MacWrite. Its name is Music Type and was produced by Shaherazam. The problem with it is that it is now obsolete and Shaherazam appears to be out of business. It made a score, allowed room for lyrics and you used the keyboard to type in the music. That's all it did, type in the music.

I wish it would work on my G3.

Nancy

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jun 99 - 12:32 AM

Mick,

I did a little bit of searching for you. Here are several sites, some of which link to other sites. Maybe one of them will have what you are looking for:

SCORE software

Graphire

MusicEase,looks promising and extensive

Good luck!

kat, up way past bedtime!

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From:
Date: 02 Jun 99 - 08:26 AM

Further to what John said about abc. There is a free program called "lillypond" that will typeset music. You write it in a language called "mudela" which is very much like abc; but a lot more powerful. The results are quite good, although it can't do guitar tab yet.

As a matter of fact it uses the TeX program that Mark mentioned to do the actual typesetting; but the mudela language is a lot more natural for musicians than the example Mark shows.

You can find out more about it at: http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen/lilypond/. It has actually been developed for UNIX; but there is a Windows32 version.

Murray

Subject: RE: Looking for Software (music that is)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jun 99 - 12:26 PM

I see from the link that Kat provided that MusicEase now has a $29.95 program that's tailored for the Digital Tradition. I thought Dick said MusicEase would be coming out with a freebie for us. Dick, can you tell us more?
-Joe Offer-