Scorewriter

A music notation program (also Notation Software or short note program ) is a music software for inputting and editing of notes ( music notation ) with the help of the computer. It is the musical equivalent of a text processing program. Compared to a sequencer is not the main focus in music processing per se. The focus is primarily on the graphical notation; the functionality is thus primarily focused on the design and printing of the notes down.

• 7.1 Commercial WYSIWYG music notation programs
• 7.2 Free WYSIWYG music notation programs
• 7.3 Web-based music notation programs
• 7.4 markup notation programs
• 7.5 sequencer with notation function
• 7.6 Obsolete music notation programs

• 8.1 See also
• 8.2 Literature
• 8.3 External links
• 8.4 Notes and references

Generally

Besides the possibility of entering all the usual musical symbols different editing functions are available in a music notation program. These include the collection of song lyrics or to transpose music and the use of the clipboard. Some programs have layout automatisms that align approximately horizontal note spacing according to aesthetic criteria, or sign position and articulation details are correct, without the user having to manually intervene. In addition, the note text can usually be played and listened to.

Usable software tools for music notation were developed late - much later than those for word processing. Firstly, the structure of the notation is more complex since the various characters often do not form a simple sequence, but must be read at the same part. On the other hand, there are not always binding rules for the exact arrangement of the central characters. In artisanal music notation the positioning of the characters was often after orally given experience and aesthetic sensitivity. Since the latter is subjective, vary the requirements for the visual appearance, which is also reflected in the large number of existing computer programs.

There are two different basic concepts of music notation programs: those that operate according to the so-called WYSIWYG principle, so a graphical user interface, the final result of the creation is to be seen and can be directly edited there; and those that do not have graphical user interface, the user notes in the form of a special markup language (English Markup Language ) enters into a text file and it is later interpreted by the computer and translated in the form of notes.

Application find music notation programs, especially in music publishers and composers or arrangers, but due to growing user -friendliness also increasingly with amateur musicians.

History

Beginning of 1960 began with the first attempts to realize notation using the computer. The early history of music notation program is closely linked with the development of computer hardware. So in the early years was the use of computers a few companies and research institutions are subject; used for typesetting devices such as the PDP-10 filled entire rooms. Some of the earliest programs on the market MusE (AR Edition) and Amadeus ( Kurt Maas sold ). The latter was based on a PDP - 11, and in later years in addition an Atari as a graphics terminal and cost as a total system initially approximately 100,000 DM from the mid- 80s, the Atari ST and the Acorn RISC common environments for programming touch software.

First, pen plotters were used as output devices. During this time he published the 1971 Six Bagatelles for Piano by Leland Smith, generally regarded as the first published as a computer set piece of music in the world. But it was only from 1984, when the PostScript page description language is designed and laser printers have become increasingly favorable to music notation programs prevailed in publishing. With about the same time made ​​publication of MIDI ( 1982) always better acoustic playback of the notes was possible, but initially for up to eight channels simultaneously. First industry standard for music notation score was; development began in 1967, but only after the official release of the software in 1989 score was introduced gradually in German publishers. The first usable for music notation software with graphical user interface on the WYSIWYG principle represent the 1988/1989 published programs Finale and Notator SL, the latter is considered the first sequencer with notation functions.

Initially, all programs were subject to functional narrow limits, the preview on the screen was quite rough rasterized and elements such as arches had to be partially restored manually. At the beginning of the 1990s, computers were affordable, what the competition is busy and numerous other music notation programs brought forth. They include capella (1992) and Sibelius (1993 ), but also many more, which have in common that they first became popular in the country of manufacture; however, could not keep all the products on the market permanently located.

Although displace music notation programs for economic reasons, increasingly the traditional music engraving, but still applies the craft manually engraved music notation using metal plate, steel dies and stylus as a quality measure. As in the IT industry as a whole to gradually indicated in musical notation, a trend towards mobile Touch Apps and cloud computing to.

Programs and Applications

The range of programs for the notation is extensive. There are today world-wide about 90 programs for the notation. The commercial market is dominated by the programs Finale and Sibelius; it applies the former as flexible in musical notation, while the latter has the reputation of being intuitive to use.

Slightly less extensive, but often cheaper notation software is available in large numbers. In German-speaking capella has a wide range of users. Some programs specialize in narrower target groups such as arrangers or guitarist. Many sequencers and digital audio workstations offer in addition to their possibilities of audio and MIDI processing and integrated music notation functions. But editing capabilities and the achievable quality of the score are left behind specialized notation software. New coming to market music notation programs attempt specifically to serve those niches. Thus Notion focused on the gap between notes and audio software and focuses on high sonic fidelity using large sample library. PriMus other hand, focuses on the layouts of displaying notation and song sheets to bridge the functional gap to word processing and DTP software. Among the free programs MuseScore is the most extensive representative.

Notation programs that do not offer interactive input via a WYSIWYG user interfaces, but use an input language, initially require a higher learning curve, as the user, the software can not be discovered through simple controls to try out. Older set of programs from the publishing industry such as Amadeus, MusE and score are examples of such software. The most sophisticated modern software that works with an input language, is Lilypond. In conjunction with the also free editor Frescobaldi it forms a common working environment for music printing. One advantage of software that can be fully controlled by input languages ​​is that they can be well integrated into automated processes without user interaction.

• The Prelude in C sharp minor by Rachmaninov, set in various music notation programs

Sibelius

Capella

MuseScore

Amadeus

Lilypond

Note input

In addition to the file import, there are five basic input modes for notes and lecture characters. These include the touch input via

• Mouse,
• Keyboard,
• MIDI instrument
• Text and
• Note scan of a printed document (Optical Music Recognition ).

Not every program supports all input variants. In addition, the practical implementation is uneven, depending on the program and manufacturer varies the type of operation. The various methods can be partly combined with each other, such as through simultaneous use of keyboard and mouse or keyboard and MIDI instrument.

Mouse

Keyboard

The keyboard entry is made, using a standard keyboard. The challenge is that the normal keyboard layout for text, is not designed for musical notation. The key assignment and shortcuts are correspondingly different from program to program and the need to learn what a certain amount of time requires.

MIDI instrument

If the program has supported this type of entry, in principle, any instrument with MIDI interface can be used as an input medium of a music notation program. Most MIDI pianos are used. It is important to distinguish between unanimous and more coherent input. Also can be selected in most cases between the modes step and real-time input. The user manually selects in step input after each note played the note value new. The real-time input, however, is similar to any recording process. The user must play accurately as possible on a PC generated by the metronome click, the entire passage to be ingested, after completion of the import process, the input MIDI signals are quantized and appear as notes.

Text

Another alternative is the detection of text using a music markup language, the English frequently taken as a markup language called. Each musical symbol corresponds to a specific string. With the elements of the language, a text document can be created that is translated by the computer in musical notation; the process is similar to the translation of program source code by the compiler. As with the programming also can - depending on the complexity of the musical text - a text editor with corresponding syntax highlighting be helpful.

GUI programs can partly also import text files with certain markup languages ​​. In general, however, the focus of a program lies on either a graphical interface or using a markup language. Very few programs have their own markup language, even though they have a graphical interface.

Whether you prefer a graphical interface or plain text for entering notes strongly depends on personal taste and the application. For both types of touch input can find advantages and disadvantages. Central issues are here, whether you want to get removed from the computer specific formatting tasks or whether one is willing to work at a slightly higher level of abstraction. In practice, find music notation programs, which require learning a markup language, primarily in technophile circles as well as ambitious note engravers Einsatz.Der author of the PMW program remarks in its technical autobiography:

"Somebody once said that people are doers Either or describers. The former prefer WYSIWSG interfaces, Which you can make do things as you watch, Whereas The Latter (a smaller fraction of the population, I think) prefer to createfiles did describe Their requirements, did is, They like markup languages ​​. "

" Someone once said that people are either actors or descriptive. The former prefer WYSIWYG surfaces, so you can do things while they are considered, whereas the latter ( the smaller proportion of the population, I think ) prefer to generate files that describe their requirements, ie they like markup languages ​​. "

On the other hand, prefer musicians with little computer experience mostly graphical interfaces. For most works of musical practice, their goal is not suitable for publishing perfection the layout, WYSIWYG user interfaces are better suited, such as:

• Substantive work on the score (drafts of compositions and arrangements, transcriptions of audio recordings in musical notation );
• Creative tasks with the goal of best possible clarity ( task sheets for the music theory classes );
• Production of materials performance ( voices or piano scores ) that are only for certain performances and must be made ​​often under great time pressure.

Short entry examples of popular music markup languages ​​ABC, LilyPond score and Amadeus are shown in the following table.

As starting material for the note input by means of optical music recognition (English Optical Music Recognition, short OMR) has a finished score be present. These may be analog or digital printing as an image file (usually PDF, BMP or TIFF). If this template passed to the appropriate recognition module (ideally monochromatic, ie 1 -bit color depth ), by being scanned depending on the initial form or read directly, as a human-readable music notation program file is generated therefrom. That file can be similar to the Optical Character Recognition ( OCR) freely edited and reformatted. This is known as data extraction; the subsymbolic graphic format is converted into a symbolic note format. Method used in this case are subject to errors and deliver depending on the quality of the presentation of different quality results that must be subsequently corrected by hand if necessary.

Functions

The basic functions of music notation programs include input, processing and printing of notes. For current programs, the user has in general a variety of other functions. The distribution of the notes on pages and lines and the horizontal distribution of the notation elements within a bar can now be calculated automatically by nearly all programs; as the measure numbering. The vertically correct positioning of note heads, arches and special characters within a measure, however, are considerably more complex tasks, some require manually editing even in professional programs. Just when many characters have to be accommodated, it may generate local overlays or masking effects, eg because a slur cuts a dynamic character or a note. Similarly, identifying the music notation and style technically correct inclination and length of the bracing eighths or sixteenths of a non-trivial task, the basis of which the complexity of the algorithms and thus the quality of the respective music notation program can be established. For the creation of a perfect score image a wealth of Engraving Rules and the presence of a complex collision detection are required. When the music notation program does not automatically find the right solution, the user must compensate for this by their own knowledge and manual editing.

Most all functions Western music notation ( circa 18th to 20th century ) support, often even guitar tablature, chord symbols, or less frequently used special characters. At their boundaries notation programs encounter, however, when it comes to more specific tablature (eg for organ or Styrian harmonica ), very modern or very old notation (for example, measured notation ) goes. Here one must often rely on specialized software or vector graphics programs.

Standard part of a music notation program is beyond the MIDI playback of notes. Features to create individual voices extracts (English parts) allow the automatic extraction of the notes of an instrument from the total score. Part, these remain virtually linked so that changes are automatically synchronized even after exporting with the total score. The traditional work of the copyists this significantly and certainly also displaced partially. Functions for transposition exist (switching between sounding and transposed representation ) for both the entire piece of music as well as for the consideration of transposing instruments. As with word processing programs, different fonts exist, have some music notation programs also have a selection of different music fonts, you can choose between them. These are in the operating system stored as TrueType and can usually - with some effort - be used by other typesetting or desktop publishing programs. Larger publishers create sometimes even their own music fonts, which gives the laid scores a characteristic appearance.

A few programs offer not only the support of music notation functionalities and full multimedia connectivity. These include exporting the notes as a wave or MP3, the integration of sound libraries via VST interface ( as a software sampler or synthesizer ), the binding to audio programs via ReWire standard and import and synchronization of video material for composing film music.

File exchange between notation software

A particular challenge is the file exchange between music notation programs. Since many commercial programs use your own undocumented binary format, a file sharing long time only indirectly via the MIDI file format was possible. It all graphical information is lost because only pitch can be stored and duration in this way.

The first attempt to establish an exchange format for notes, was the notation Interchange File Format ( NIFF ). Although designed with the format of representatives of the major music notation programs were involved, the format found little support. Developed by Michael Good MusicXML now allows the exchange of files between a wide range of common music notation programs, which are needed to part converter programs or plug- ins from third -party. In practice, however, it is not possible to transfer a precise notation of a music notation program to another. The main reason is that the implementations of the software manufacturers are partly incomplete or inconsistent and not all the functions needed for a precise transfer are supported, but also at smaller shortcomings in the specification of XML schemas.

Lists of music notation programs

Commercial WYSIWYG music notation programs

Below paid music notation programs are listed with WYSIWYG interface. Special, unique features or areas of application can be found in the penultimate column. In the last column are publishers who use that program for the publication of scores or have used.

Free WYSIWYG music notation programs

The following table lists open source projects and freeware in the field of music notation, which have a WYSIWYG interface.

Web-based music notation programs

The following notation programs require no installation. They can be called directly from a Web browser and work by cloud computing. The basic functions are usually free to use, with advanced touch features and a larger online stores are subject to a subscription. Therefore, we call this type of licensing as a Software as a Service (SaaS, German: " software as a service ").

Markup music notation programs

The following notation programs require the learning of a music markup language.

Sequencer with notation function

The following sequencer include in addition to their main application field of audio and MIDI editing and typesetting functions.

Obsolete music notation programs

The following software is no longer developed and is technically outdated, but it has historical significance.

Appendix