I’ve been thinking about saving up to buy Sibelius First composition software for some time now, and was looking at the different types of musical notation software out there. I’m only doing this for my own enjoyment, but at the same time I require a fairly high level of technical oomph in the software because I play at a fairly high level of mostly untrained skill (I ditched formal lessons when they tried to nudge/prod/propel me into formally doing Royal Conservatory of Music exercises – borrrrring!!!!), so something middle-range, like Sibelius First would be ideal.
I have a rather annoying tendency to hear music in my head (and it keeps coming back!) that I’d love to be able to play, either from movie scores or musicals, but often, that music isn’t always available in published scores. If I could work stuff out on the piano and the software could transcribe it for me, then that could be printed out, that’d be awesome.
I’ve never been taught composition myself, so it seems to me to be the most expedient way to indulge my hobby (albeit, having played the piano since I was five, you could say it’s more of an obsessional hobby – I have no desire to play professionally, but nor am I am a “Chopsticks” kind of gal, either. My piano is an Essex, which, in case you didn’t know, is about the most economical form of Steinway on the planet – quality of sound and feel without breaking your wallet.).
For instance: The Phantom of the Opera overture is not in the same key as the titular song. After searching youtube and wrangling some links around, I found sheet music that a guy had arranged of it. Now, given enough time and the right software, I could have done that myself! I spent a lot of my teenage years searching fruitlessly for the piano score (composed by Paul Williams) for Phantom of the Paradise. I even tried to write to Paul Williams himself, through the publisher of the film CD soundtrack (which, of course, I owned) to ask if there was any chance of getting my hands on a copy of the piano score. I finally located a used copy on ebay in 2005, after many years of trying to hone my natural ability of playing by ear and slowly driving myself more nuts by having the perfection just beyond my reach. RAAAAAARGH!
Having perfect pitch and hyperacussis is a bitch. For me, hearing people sing off-key is torture.
How about the Main Title (not to be confused with “Lara’s Theme”) of the 1965 David Lean film Doctor Zhivago, starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie?
The music I’m talking about starts at 0:42 http://www.youtube.com/wat
There’s the Main Title theme again at 7:25.
Then there’s a really neat bit I can’t figure out…see what I mean? That’s what I live with – this torture.
(Granted, I can already play most of it, but I’m stuck on all these annoying bits!
In the Special Features that accompany the 30th Anniversary edition DVD, the camera pans tantalizingly over the *actual* score, which is laid out on a table, and shows the “Main Title”. *drools* GIMME!!!!!)
Sooooo…it’s RESEARCH TIME!!! <geekgasm>
This collection of notes is bits from various Wikipedia articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoteWorthy_Composer
(Noteworthy Composer is the least expensive and simplest version of Sibelius First.)
NoteWorthy Composer (NWC) is a scorewriter application made by NoteWorthy SoftwareA scorewriter, or music notation program, is software used for creating sheet music.A scorewriter is to music notation what a word processor is to text.The Noteworthy Composer program lacks the more advanced engraving, graphic sophistication, playback and publishing capabilities of more expensive scriptwriting software such as Sibelius or Finale. It does, however, allow the rendering of custom key signatures which do not follow the usual circle of fifths order of sharps and flats. It is also much less expensive (US $49) than Sibelius (US $599) and Finale (US $600). A free viewer is available. The otherwise fully functional demo version imposes a limit of 10 saves per file name, adds a small footer to each printed page, and prints a registration form with each printed score. Besides the demo program, a downloadable plug-in for Winamp allows Winamp to play files from NWC.
Sibelius is a scorewriter program, created by Sibelius Software (now part of Avid Technology) for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and RISC OS. It is used by composers, arrangers, performers, music publishers, teachers and students, particularly for writing classical, jazz, band, vocal, film and television music. In addition to editing and printing scores, Sibelius can also play music back using high-quality sounds, scan and import printed scores for editing, and publish scores for others to access via the Internet and iPads.
Finale is the flagship program of a series of proprietary scorewriters created by MakeMusic for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Finale is regarded as one of the industry standards for notation software.
MakeMusic also offers several less expensive versions of Finale, with subsets of the main program’s features. These include Finale NotePad, SongWriter, Printmusic, and Allegro, as well as a freeware reader program, Finale Reader, which will play and print Finale files, but does not allow editing or saving.
Since I’m not doing this professionally, I don’t want Finale at all, but I’m putting it in this document only for the purposes of comparison since it’s mentioned in the other documents.
