Writing music

[BigT]

@C_K_Dexter_Haven

I’ve been trying MuseScore since it was free and I’m not really doing all that much. I gotta say, it’s a little frustrating, even simple things (rests in mid-measure, f’rinstance) but I assume that’s just because I’m new to it. Works reasonably well for my needs. Thanks all!

Do you have any trouble getting MuseScore to play back your music? Because I did.

That, and the fact that I used Finale way before MuseScore came out and can’t convert my old sheet music, were the reasons I never got on board with it. Well, that and the fact that I found the above free 2008 edition of Finale Notebook.

Oh, and if anyone is having trouble with Finale, don’t be afraid to ask. I find it pretty intuitive, especially the full versions that will just allow me to play everything into it using my trusty keyboard.

[jjimm]

I’ve tried using this stuff before, and I really wish someone would write one with usability in mind.

Here’s my idea for actually laying down music:

1. Place notes by clicking on the score.
2. Or place notes by hitting the “Return” key. This duplicates the note you just placed.
3. When the note is highlighted, the up and down arrows move the note up and down the stave through the given key, or a chromatic scale by holding down the “Shift” keys.
4. The left and right buttons change the length of the note.
5. Place rests by hitting the “Space” key, or by hitting the “Space” key when a note is highlighted, to turn that note into a rest.
6. While a note is highlighted, hit the “period” button to add a dot.
7. Use the mouse to highlight a series of notes, then hit “S” to slur them.

That would be so easy to use. I should patent it.

[Musicat]

@jjimm

I’ve tried using this stuff before, and I really wish someone would write one with usability in mind.

Here’s my idea for actually laying down music:

1. Place notes by clicking on the score.
2. Or place notes by hitting the “Return” key. This duplicates the note you just placed.
3. When the note is highlighted, the up and down arrows move the note up and down the stave through the given key, or a chromatic scale by holding down the “Shift” keys.
4. The left and right buttons change the length of the note.
5. Place rests by hitting the “Space” key, or by hitting the “Space” key when a note is highlighted, to turn that note into a rest.
6. While a note is highlighted, hit the “period” button to add a dot.
7. Use the mouse to highlight a series of notes, then hit “S” to slur them.

That would be so easy to use. I should patent it.

I wrote a software program to do that in 1976.

Pitches were input from a digital keyboard, but only pitches. The value of the symbol (note, rest, whatever) was picked out from a typewriter-kind of keyboard with the symbols painted on. Press a half note with one hand and a C with the other, simultaneously or sequentially, and the symbol instantly appeared on the screen with the correct stem orientation, line/space, and accidental if appropriate, and the cursor moved to the next position.

One symbol, one key. One step easier than your proposal.

Sound like a good idea? We were able to produce music much faster than it could be played sometimes, since we didn’t have to wait for the tempo, or we could take our time if it was complex. The fastest copy machine I’ve ever seen.

1976. We couldn’t afford to complete the project and market it. Want one? First you build a time machine…

[GorillaMan]

@jjimm

Here’s my idea for actually laying down music:

1. Place notes by clicking on the score.
2. Or place notes by hitting the “Return” key. This duplicates the note you just placed.
3. When the note is highlighted, the up and down arrows move the note up and down the stave through the given key, or a chromatic scale by holding down the “Shift” keys.
4. The left and right buttons change the length of the note.
5. Place rests by hitting the “Space” key, or by hitting the “Space” key when a note is highlighted, to turn that note into a rest.
6. While a note is highlighted, hit the “period” button to add a dot.
7. Use the mouse to highlight a series of notes, then hit “S” to slur them.

It’s not that different from keyboard entry in Finale, for example. The Simple Entry tool lets you move pitches up and down with cursor keys and enter new notes with enter, or by hitting A/B/C..G, and uses the number pad to select durations. Tab enters a rest of the selected duration, R converts the note just entered to a rest. Then there’s lot more keystrokes.

[jebradley]

Although not WYSIWYG, I don’t think that you can beat Lilypond using the Jedit editor with it’s Lilypond plugin (once you update it to the current beta).

With Jedit with the plugin, you write your score, push a button and it runs it in Lilypond, and then allows you to play the midi file and view the pdf of the score.

I find that I can enter the music faster with the keyboard than I can using the point and click. I was playing with Musescore, and if you happen to enter a half note rather that a quarter note and you’ve done a long string of notes, it will add a rest when you change it back, rather than shifting the remaining notes. And, the rest can be almost impossible to remove. If you change from a quarter note to a half note, it shifts things the other way.