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.
LilyPond is a computer program and file format for music engraving. One of LilyPond's major goals is to produce scores that are engraved with traditional layout rules, reflecting the era when scores were engraved by hand.
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.
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.
Music engraving is the art of drawing music notation at high quality for the purpose of mechanical reproduction. The term music copying is almost equivalent—though music engraving implies a higher degree of skill and quality, usually for publication. The name of the process originates in plate engraving, a widely used technique dating from the late sixteenth century. The term engraving is now used to refer to any high-quality method of drawing music notation, particularly on a computer or by hand.
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.
In music, transcription is the practice of notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated and/or unpopular as a written music, for example, a jazz improvisation or a video game soundtrack. When a musician is tasked with creating sheet music from a recording and they write down the notes that make up the piece in music notation, it is said that they created a musical transcription of that recording. Transcription may also mean rewriting a piece of music, either solo or ensemble, for another instrument or other instruments than which it was originally intended. The Beethoven Symphonies transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt are an example. Transcription in this sense is sometimes called arrangement, although strictly speaking transcriptions are faithful adaptations, whereas arrangements change significant aspects of the original piece.
NoteEdit is a defunct music scorewriter for Linux and other Unix-like computer operating systems. Its official successor is Canorus.
NoteWorthy Composer (NWC) is a proprietary scorewriter application made by NoteWorthy Software. It is a graphical score editor for Microsoft Windows computers. Version 1 of NWC was released in October 1994, and Version 2 in September 2008.
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.
Impro-Visor is an educational tool for creating and playing a lead sheet, with a particular orientation toward representing jazz solos.
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.
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.
Musink is a scorewriting computer program for Windows and macOS. It is a WYSIWYM editor, with automated music- and page-layout functionality. Two versions of Musink exist: Musink Lite, which is freeware; and Musink Pro, which is not free but contains additional features.
Forte is a music notation program developed by the German company Lugert Verlag, located in Handorf. Its name is derived from the dynamic marking of forte. The program is available in both German and English.
Dorico is a scorewriter developed by Steinberg for macOS, Windows and iPadOS. Along with Finale and Sibelius, it is one of the three leading professional-level music notation programs. Dorico's development team consists of most of the former core developers of a rival software, Sibelius.
Standard Music Font Layout, or SMuFL, is an open standard for music font mapping. The standard was originally developed by Daniel Spreadbury of Steinberg for its scorewriter software Dorico, but is now developed and maintained by the W3C Music Notation Community Group, along with the standard for MusicXML.
