A scorewriter, or music notation program is

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

for creating, editing and printing

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...

. A scorewriter is to

music notation Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

what a

word processor A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...

is to text, in that they typically provide flexible editing and automatic layout, and produce high-quality printed results. Most scorewriters, especially those from the 2000s, can record notes played on a

MIDI keyboard A MIDI keyboard or controller keyboard is typically a piano-style electronic musical keyboard, often with other buttons, wheels and sliders, used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devi ...

(or other

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

instruments), and play music back via MIDI or virtual instruments. Playback is especially useful for novice

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

s and music students, and when

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

s are not available or affordable. Several free programs are widely used, such as MuseScore. The three main professional-level programs are

Finale Finale may refer to: Pieces of music * Finale (music), the last movement of a piece * ''Finale'' (album), a 1977 album by Loggins and Messina * "Finale B", a 1996 song from the rock opera ''Rent'' * "Finale", a song by Anthrax from ''State of Eu ...

Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

and

Dorico Dorico () is a scorewriter software; along with Finale (software), Finale and Sibelius (scorewriter), Sibelius, it is one of the three leading professional-level music notation programs. Dorico's development team consists of most of the former ...

Comparison with multitrack sequencer software

Multitrack sequencer software and scorewriters typically employ different methods for notation input and display. Scorewriters are based on traditional music notation, using staff lines and round note heads, which originates from European

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

. They use symbols representing durations in sound and silence, dynamics, articulations and tempo. Some also allow users to import and/or create their own symbols. Multitrack sequencer software typically uses a multitrack recorder metaphor as the main interface, with multiple tracks and track segments. Individual tracks can be edited using graphic notation in the form of a " piano roll"-guided input for the control of

-based hardware and software instruments. A third approach has also emerged that combines the first two input methods into a

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pro ...

, allowing users to score parts using traditional notation, the graphic notation of the piano roll, and recording acoustic or electronic instruments in real time alongside the existing scores. With all three methods, the computer keyboard, mouse, and a

musical keyboard can be used to enter music that can then be edited with traditional or piano-roll-based notation.

History

The rapid growth of desktop computers in the 1980s saw the creation of dozens of early scorewriters (see list of scorewriters). They were a boon to young composers, music educators and composition students, providing a much less expensive way to create scores and parts for orchestral music and other works. However, they were hard to use; and while scores were readable, they did not look like professionally engraved scores or parts. An exception was

SCORE Score or scorer may refer to: *Test score, the result of an exam or test Business * Score Digital, now part of Bauer Radio * Score Entertainment, a former American trading card design and manufacturing company * Score Media, a former Canadian m ...

notation software. Developed in the late '80s, it was used mostly by commercial publishers, as its price put it out of the reach of most non-professional composers/copyists. During the 1990s, many of these early programs fell into disuse, as newer programs surpassed them in ease of use and output quality.

and

were released, with high-quality output and a wide range of sophisticated features that made them suitable for almost all kinds of music applications. By 2000, the market was dominated by Finale (particularly in the US) and Sibelius (which had dominated the UK since 1993, and expanded worldwide after its Windows release in 1998). Inexpensive programs such as capella gained a significant share of the market in some countries. Sibelius and Finale still dominated the market as of 2012. In 2006, Sibelius was purchased by Avid. In a 2012 restructuring, Sibelius's London office was closed and the development team dismissed. In February 2013, Steinberg announced it had hired the former Sibelius team to create a new scorewriter,

, which was released in October 2016. The trio of

and

are today's leading professional-level programs.

Functionality

All scorewriters allow the user to input, edit and print

to varying degrees of sophistication. They range from programs which can write a simple song, piano piece or

guitar tab Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fre ...

, to those that can handle the complexities of orchestral music, specialist notations (from early music to avant-garde), and high-quality music engraving. Music can usually be input using the mouse, computer keyboard, or a

keyboard. A few allow input by scanning scores using musical OCR; by playing or singing into a microphone; or by using a touch screen. Most scorewriters also allow users to play the music back, using MIDI or virtual instruments such as VST instruments. The screen can show at one time both the score and, by changing the colour of keys on a virtual piano's keyboard, the notes being played. Although sequencers can also write some musical notation, they are primarily for recording and playing music. Scorewriters can typically write more complex and sophisticated notation than sequencers can. Some scorewriters allow users to customize and fine-tune the printed output to a considerable degree, as is required by publishers to produce high-quality music engraving and to suit their individual house style. A few scorewriters allow users to publish scores on the Internet, where they can be (for example) played back, transposed, and printed out, perhaps for a fee. Most scorewriters provide other musical functions such as transposing; producing separate instrumental parts from a full score; or applying musical transformations such as retrograde. Some can automatically create instrumental exercises and student worksheets. Some support plug-ins, often developed by users or other companies. Other features may include version control, change tracking, graphics import and export, Post-It-like sticky notes, etc.

File formats

Almost all scorewriters use their own file formats for saving files. Hence, in order to move notation between different scorewriters (or to/from other kinds of music software such as sequencers), most scorewriters can also import or export one or more standard interchange file formats, such as: * Standard MIDI File is supported by almost all scorewriters. However, as this format was designed for playback (e.g. by sequencers) rather than notation, it only produces approximate results and much notational information is lost in the process. If the score is to be presented, a WAV file (rather than MIDI) may be made from the score to give a more natural and accurate rendition of the written score. * MusicXML has in recent years (as of 2012) become the standard interchange format for accurate notation. * NIFF is a now-obsolete file format that was supported by a few scorewriters. This Comparison of scorewriters details which score writers can import and export to

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

, text ( ASCII), picture ( PNG, SVG, EMF) and sound ( Vorbis OGG) file formats. There are also human-readable text-based formats such as ABC notation, LilyPond, ASCII tab and NoteWorthy Composer text files. These are easily rendered as speech by screen reading software. The to MediaWiki can render, and generate an audio preview of, the first two formats.

References

External links