Music Software Review #1: Noteworthy Composer

I’m often asked what software I use for composing music and such, so I figured I would finally post some articles about it to share some of my personal software preferences, as well as brief thoughts on some alternative software.

I will be doing a series of 5 posts, one for each day this week. So check by each day for more!

Noteworthy Composer

http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/

Noteworthy Composer is the first music notation software I began using back in middle school years ago, which I still use frequently to this day. Although it’s a rather old program, it makes music notation on the computer as simple as typing a text document. There aren’t many restrictions in how you insert notes, which makes it very easy for those who don’t have a significant musical background to use the program. It also lets you export MIDI files so that you have some way of transferring your music to other programs. Being a piano player I found this software especially appealing since I could write music so quickly and not necessarily have to follow all of the “rules”.

Pros:

• Extremely light-weight program
• Simple interface with lots of freedom for those unfamiliar with music notation
• Great for drafting MIDI work that you plan to import into other programs
• Very affordable pricing (under $50)

Cons:

• Not very good for printing professional quality sheet music
• Unable to use anything other than standard MIDI output for audio (this means no plug-ins, VSTs, etc.)
• The only viewing mode is each staff stacked in rows (no way view print layout while editing, so you will find yourself constantly scrolling)
• Limited placement for expressions, articulations, etc. and lacks any real advanced features
• Limited export formats (.mid and .nwc only)

Anyone who’s interested in composing music who want something cheap, and especially those who have experience in reading sheet music should definitely look into Noteworthy.