Need a good sheet music software

I'm looking into making sheets for the songs I compose and improvise; I only have Noteworthy composer free trial. But it dosen't have glissandos at all or other useful features. Does anyone know of a notation software that is free and useful? I'd be happy with just a program that works like notepad or wordpad on windows. In other words: Where you just type the notes like text.

Well I think Finale is decent. Its free and is very easy to use!

You can also try 'Melody Assistant', which is pretty cool too.
But in my opinion, Finale Printmsic is great. The free version has everything you need!
There is also Finale Notepad. Though it has less functionalities.

Finale Print music isn't free it's $600 !! I can't find the free version. It says the trial won't allow you to save files.

kentaku_sama wrote:Finale Print music isn't free it's $600 !! I can't find the free version. It says the trial won't allow you to save files.

I use Finale Notepad and its good enough for basic use. You got most things!! And it can easly be converted into .pdf

It's nice, although there's no grace notes. Does anyone know if finale song-writer has grace notes?

I use Finale Notepad and its good enough for basic use. You got most things!! And it can easly be converted into .pdf

I can't figure out how to do this. Help.

http://www.commentcamarche.net/telecharger/telecharger-34056080-finale-notepad

I think this is french, but I found it there. Click on Telecharger (the little hard drive0 and there you go.

Finale Print Music is Very nice

Hey guys! I found a Notation software that automatically produces a PDF file you can print called LilyPond. It's a text editor that works like a programming language for musical scores!!! It seems difficult to use and a waist of time but hey I learned to write the programming language pretty well within 6 hours.
The language is soooooooooooooo simple it's awesome and FREE for ever!!
It also generates a Midi if you want as well. And since it's a language ,you it has every single type of musical notation that exists in modern notation for any instrument. They have an entire tutorial online after you download it. You should try it.

kentaku_sama wrote:Hey guys! I found a Notation software that automatically produces a PDF file you can print called LilyPond. It's a text editor that works like a programming language for musical scores!!! It seems difficult to use and a waist of time but hey I learned to write the programming language pretty well within 6 hours.
The language is soooooooooooooo simple it's awesome and FREE for ever!!
It also generates a Midi if you want as well. And since it's a language ,you it has every single type of musical notation that exists in modern notation for any instrument. They have an entire tutorial online after you download it. You should try it.

I'll give it a Try

kentaku_sama wrote:Hey guys! I found a Notation software that automatically produces a PDF file you can print called LilyPond. It's a text editor that works like a programming language for musical scores!!! It seems difficult to use and a waist of time but hey I learned to write the programming language pretty well within 6 hours.
The language is soooooooooooooo simple it's awesome and FREE for ever!!
It also generates a Midi if you want as well. And since it's a language ,you it has every single type of musical notation that exists in modern notation for any instrument. They have an entire tutorial online after you download it. You should try it.

Oh yeah Lilypond Cool program, but not everyone like it because of the text you have to write to produce the sheet. But its quality is really good!

In my personal opinion, a really good scorewriter is MuseScore. It has its own graphical interface (unlike LilyPond) and files can be saved as a variety of other files including PDF, midi, wav, and other common files. It's easy to use and it creates good-looking sheet music. Its also FREE. Search for it and you can find a free download for it.

Finale Print music is about USD99.00. Finale will probably be having some huge discounts on their full 2010 version. Normally, the full version costs about 600.00, but, any student can get a discount upon proof, at many stores like Academic Superstore. I paid about 200.00 for the full version. It is the best investment you'll ever make, and can do ANYTHING! I would not nickle-and-dime myself to death by wasting money on anything less. I have used the other programs mentioned in this thread and have found them to be lacking in many areas. Notepad is a great place to start though, as is Lilypond and the others.
I guess, the main thing is just to get started composing any way you can.
I wonder how many pieces were concieved on the back of a napkin in a local pub?

Now I'm ONLY using MUSE SCORE - Its Great, and got everything you'll need to make a Professional Score Its free, and very easy to use! A lot better than Finale

Then use a program called CutePDF to convert into .pdf

If you got the Prog. installed with its ad on, you just have to choose Print in Muse Score, instead of choosing the Printer you choose that Program(CutePDF) in the list, and the .pdf is a fact


New Info from Frank: The Program, Muse Score can produce .pdf on its own!

You are right, MuseScore is nice, I'm using it, too. Sometimes it still crashes, but it is getting better and better with every new version

Why do you need a PDF printer driver? You can save as PDF from within MuseScore, it produces nice PDFs.

frank wrote:You are right, MuseScore is nice, I'm using it, too. Sometimes it still crashes, but it is getting better and better with every new version

Why do you need a PDF printer driver? You can save as PDF from within MuseScore, it produces nice PDFs.

I didn't know it did! Thanks!