Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Arabic, or other languages – the medium of sheet music typically is paper. However, access to musical notation since the 1980s has included the presentation of musical notation on computer screens and the development of scorewriter computer programs that can notate a song or piece electronically, and, in some cases, "play back" the notated music using a synthesizer or virtual instruments.
Finale is a discontinued proprietary music notation software developed and released by MakeMusic for Microsoft Windows and macOS from 1988 until 2024, when it was discontinued.
GarageBand is a software application by Apple for macOS, iPadOS, and iOS devices that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is a lighter, amateur-oriented offshoot of Logic Pro. GarageBand was originally released for macOS in 2004 and brought to iOS in 2011. The app's music and podcast creation system enables users to create multiple tracks with software synthesizer presets, pre-made and user-created loops, an array of various effects, and voice recordings.
A scorewriter, or music notation program is software for creating, editing and printing sheet music. A scorewriter is to music notation what a word processor is to text, in that they typically provide flexible editing and automatic layout, and produce high-quality printed results.
capella is a musical notation program or scorewriter developed by the German company capella-software AG, running on Microsoft Windows or corresponding emulators in other operating systems, like Wine on Linux and others on Apple Macintosh. Capella requires to be activated after a trial period of 30 days. The publisher writes the name in lower case letters only. The program was initially created by Hartmut Ring, and is now maintained and developed by Bernd Jungmann.
Guitar Pro is a proprietary multitrack editor of guitar and bass tablature and musical scores, possessing a built-in MIDI-editor, a plotter of chords, a player, a metronome and other tools for musicians. It has versions for Windows and macOS and is written by the French company Arobas Music.
Power Tab Editor is a freeware tablature authoring tool created by Brad Larsen for Windows. It is used to create guitar, bass and ukulele tablature scores, among many others. The current version uses the *.ptb file format.
Mozart the music processor is a proprietary WYSIWYG scorewriter program for Microsoft Windows. It is used to create and edit Western musical notation to create and print sheet music, and to play it via MIDI.
ABC notation is a shorthand form of musical notation for computers. In basic form it uses the letter notation with a–g, A–G, and z, to represent the corresponding notes and rests, along with other elements used to place added value on these – sharp, flat, raised or lowered octave, the note length, key, and ornamentation. This form of notation began from a combination of Helmholtz pitch notation and using ASCII characters to imitate standard musical notation that could facilitate the sharing of music online, and also added a new and simple language for software developers, not unlike other notations designed for ease, such as tablature and solfège.
Logic Studio is a discontinued professional music production suite by Apple Inc. The first version of Logic Studio was unveiled on September 12, 2007. It claims to be the largest collection of modeled instruments, sampler instruments, effect plug-ins, and audio loops ever put in a single application.
Progression, previously stylized as PROGRESSION, was a music creation and performance computer program created by NOTION Music. Created for use on Microsoft Windows and macOS laptops or desktops, Progression focused on composition for guitar, but could also be used to compose for keyboards, bass, and drums. As of April 2019, Progression is no longer available for sale in the PreSonus online store, nor via dealers worldwide.
Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering or the location of the played notes rather than musical pitches.
Overture is a music notation (scorewriter) program for Windows and Macintosh platforms, published and developed by Sonic Scores. While Overture is primarily a scorewriter program, it also allows editing the score's MIDI audio playback data in the manner of sequencer and digital audio workstation (DAW) software.
Master Tracks Pro (MTP) is music-sequencer software for Windows, to author and/or edit MIDI data. David Kusek and Don Williams et al. at Passport Designs originally created it, continuation of marketing and development by GVOX, and, as of Aug. 8, 2013, by Passport Music Software, LLC.
This is a comparison of music notation programs.
MusicEase is a WYSIWYG scorewriter created by Gary Rader and produced by MusicEase Software. It enables computers using Microsoft Windows and macOS to produce musical notation and listen to them in MIDI.
