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Best Notation Software?


.Em.

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@.Em. I've used Sibelius, Dorico and LilyPond. All have learning curves to overcome. Sibelius and Dorico also have price tags to overcome. LilyPond is free—it's great for engraving music but worthless for music notation. If I were you, I would start with a free software program, such as Musescore, and save up to invest in a heftier program like Sibelius, Dorico, or Finale. And if you haven't used any of those three before, I'd put my money in Dorico. It's more intuitive (in my opinion) than Sibelius or Finale.

Just my $0.02. Hope you find it useful!

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Software I know: Sibelius, Musescore, Finale, Dorico.

I think Musescore is as good as any other (and free). A handicap is that it is difficult to make it work with third part virtual instruments (at least I find it much easier with other software.

I used Finale for years, but I switched to Dorico and I am very happy with it. In fact, I've almost completely forgotten how to use Finale. Yes, it has a price, as the rest. But I took advantage of a crossgrade plus educational discount, and I paid less than the third amoung of its price.

Dorico 3 has been released this week. There are two other versions of Dorico to start with (cheaper, you can upgrade at any moment): Dorico Elements and Dorico LE3. One of the best things of Dorico is the support. You have the foro and the facebook group where you can ask to the developers (and they answer quickly!).

Anyway, I think these programs are all good. You have to spend time to learn at first. It's a matter of taste, most times.

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