(If you’re interested, you can check out a few of my compositions available for purchase here. Or, once you’ve gotten your feet wet with Noteflight and have bumped into the limitations of the software and/or the free plan, you might find yourself ready for something more advanced and powerful. You might might it fulfills all your needs perfectly. More advanced programs tend to offer super efficient quick-entry methods as well, where you can memorize shortcuts on the keyboard in order to enter notes much more quickly.Īt with most music notation softwares, NoteFlight allows you to hit the “play” button to hear the piece, print, and export in a variety of file formats (such as PDF, MusicXML, WAV, and MP3).īottom line: is a great place to start when it comes to music notation software. Over time, you may decide it’s worthwhile to memorize NoteFlight’s keyboard shortcuts (see the guide here). Part I: Recommendations for Getting StartedĪt first, you’ll probably find yourself selecting every note and rhythm from the toolbar and clicking them one-by-one into the staff. Then, I’ll get into what I recommend for serious or experienced composers who wish to invest in professional-grade software. I’ll start by recommending what I consider to be good starting points for students or teachers who are newly interested in composition and/or music notation software. If you have additional recommendations, I hope you’ll share them with us in the comment section of this blog post! While I can’t claim to be familiar with ALL of the options available today (especially the variety of apps out there), I am happy to share my experience and personal recommendations below. Nowadays, we also have online-based software as well as apps for phones/tablets to consider. Once upon a time, the two main options for music notation software were Finale and Sibelius - plus a free open-source software called Musescore.

Thinking there might be others of you out there wondering about the same thing, I thought I would publish my answer in today’s blog post! Introduction I’ve recently had two questions from fellow piano teachers come through my “Ask Me Anything” form asking for advice regarding music notation software.

Music notepad for mac