Music Write program for Guitar

[Sandan]

Recently coming back to play guitar and a novice at computer.

Do we have a music write progam just for guitar arrangment with all the bells and whistles, harmony, slur, arpeggio, hand position , finger and string nhumbering etc. ?

I could always write it up and put into a pdf file (THANKS to Azalais), but my hand-writing is not exactly great?

San

[Paul]

Do we have a music write progam just for guitar arrangment with all the bells and whistles, harmony, slur, arpeggio, hand position , finger and string nhumbering etc. ?

Finale has all the bells and whistles. It is quite expensive to buy, but there are other versions of it. I think there is one just for guitar music, but I am not familiar with that version. Some people find Finale difficult to learn, but once you are used to it it is fantastic.

Paul

[pogmoor]

There are other threads on this topic. Why don't you try searching for 'Notation Program' and you should see a good range of opinions on the topic?

[giofre]

Sibelius is a good notation program, but is not really specific for guitar arrangements. Otherwise Sibelius has a lot of options that can be useful for writin guitar music (slurs, fingering ecc.)

[pmiklitz]

Hi All,

I have been using Finale 98 for years and it's excellent, but quite difficult to learn. The documentation is very good though, so it's easy to find solutions for any problem. I have done lots of Jazz Standard arrangements with it and especially like the multiple layers for different voices.

It's quite difficult to do fingerings in version 98 and I don't know whether that improved in later versions, but other than that, I can recommend it.

Best regards,

Peter

[Sandan]

Thanks everyone, it looks like the more the program can do... means the harder to master the program commands.
I will try some of your recommendation.

[khayes]

I use PrintMusic - it's a 'skinny' version of Finale and much more affordable. Yes, it can be a little quirky but I've found it suitable for my needs.

[arby]

Tabledit.
Easy to use, inexpensive,new versions free, and designed for guitar.

[Franklin]

I know this program tabledit, its easy and works very well.

[OldPotter]

Hi
I have also tried a version of Finale, Notepad I think, but found I couldn't do what I wanted. After having tried a few different free downloads I tried Tabledit and found it came closest to what I needed. I am also not great with a computer. Still had to learn the basics of Tabledit to get any where but as it suits the guitar I managed to get a few scores done.
Good Luck

Regards Tim

[juerg]

LilyPond (http://lilypond.org/web/) is a freely available music notation program that produces high-quality PDF output.
It also supports guitar specific notation (see http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.9/Documentat ... ond/Guitar).

Yes, it does not have a fancy visual frontend like for example Finale. Give it a try anyway, you will get used to the text input format rather quickly.

[Guitar Slim]

Another vote for Tabledit -- you can download a demo from the Tabledit site if you want to try it. It is free and fully-functional. I think the registered version costs about the same as a new video game -- $50.

Tabledit is not perfect, but it can get the job done in most cases. You can create either staff notation or tab, or both. You can show slurs, ornaments, fingerings, etc. etc. etc.

Just to get an idea of what it looks like and what some of the features are, here is a short score for classical guitar that I created with Tabledit:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18281

Finale and Sibeleus are much better programs. But they are pro-software costing hundreds of dollars -- you could run a music publishing buisness with those! And for guitarists, I think Tabledit might actually be easier to use...

Lilypond looks fantanstic, but it's all code-based (ugh!). Tabledit is point and click, what you see is what you get.

[Sandan]

Guys, thank you very much for all the suggestions,

I look at guitar slim's Canopy lane, wow that is exactly what I want. Some cheap program won't let us have full note for the bass/ melody since it will counted as part of the total note for the whole bar.

I will definitely try this program and, of course, his "Canopy Lane" piece...I still can't get over how friendly and generous all of you.

Thanks again

[Olarte]

Check out Musedit, it's about $59 us but it is a very good program. Comes with a Disc and a 294 page manual. It's very comprehensive and is made specifically for guitar although you can do bass, drums, piano, and can also convert between notation and tabs.

[Paul]

MuseScore is a free notation program written under a GPL licence. It's worth trying since it's free. http://www.musescore.org

Braeburn Software also does a program called Music Publisher. $199 to $349 depending on the edition you want. Not cheap.

Paul