Free music software is easy to come by. Every day thousands of people rummage through hundreds of different free music software titles looking for one that will do what they need while not costing anything but the time it takes to download and install the software.
While there are a few gems out there floating around there are no doubt many bad eggs as well. The articles in this series will point out which titles, in the author's opinion, are the best free music software programs currently available to download. In this first installment, the best free music notation software programs that are currently available will be examined.
Free Music Notation Software Programs: MuseScore
Music notation software is a very big business. The major players such as Finale and Sibelius charge several hundred dollars for the full version of their notation software packages. While they also provide stripped down versions for a lower cost the only free version of Finale (known as Finale Notepad) is no longer free as of late 2008.
With Finale Notepad gone the only useful free music notation software package that is currently available is a fairly new open source project known as MuseScore. While a less polished product than the big names in this category it still provides the user with most of the functions and capabilities of the Finale and Sibelius software packages.
MuseScore also provides the user with other capabilities that have not yet been fully implemented by all of the commercial products such as support for the open source Lilypond music format and both import/export support for MusicXML files (an open notation standard that can allow files to be moved between different notation applications).
Perhaps the most positive thing that MuseScore has going for it is the open source nature of the project. With the proper support from users, in the future MuseScore could grow to be just as good if not better than any commercial product on the market.
Free Online Music Notation Software: NoteFlight
Another notation centered piece of free music software that deserves to be mentioned is the online application known as NoteFlight. While much more basic than MuseScore, the free Noteflight software requires no download or install of dedicated software to a computer. The interface loads and runs through the browser window and provides the most often used functions that any music notation program needs.
All note lengths as well as many articulations are available and documents are downloaded as PDF's to be printed. Noteflight makes an excellent alternative for those that do not need the sophistication of MuseScore.
While free music notation software users must often choose to give up some degree of usability in return for the low cost of ownership, both MuseScore and NoteFlight provide very high quality results that will do nicely for most users whether working within a budget or just looking for something simple and free to use to write music with.
