8:38 I've been using Musescore for like 15 years. I ocasionally have to delete an element that I can't in Musescore (4), which I do by exporting to svg a editing it in Inkscape. Ffor example, when I make an incipit (in early music) by insertinf a horizontal frame, I want a system bracket only at the beginning; or dealing with an accidental in an ambitus, I want to make it smaller, and that is actually a regression from v3.6...
I’m slowly transitioning into Dorico. There’s some good stuff in it that I believe will be really awesome once I get over the learning curve, being a Finale guy, which I’m still using for now. As I understand it, Finale can still last well into the middle of next year.
I hope he gets all his music in order and nothing gets lost to time. I will be uploading a little update soon about MuseScore potentially helping ex-Finale users out in upcoming updates! More to come on that soon!
4:26 I think I have a problem with that lol. When I write a piece, I will usually start by just coming up with something while messing around at the piano, but then when I go to write it down I end up only writing a tiny fraction of what I was playing, and to write a whole piece I just end up writing random notes until it sounds good.
Whatever works best for you! Like many composers before, I get stuck with some of my piano muscle memory and it actually limits my music. But when I sit back and think only of the melody or timbre I want, I come up with much more creative and fresh material. It is a tricky thing. I remember my composition teacher emphasizing the differences between improvisation and composition. All the best!
Man, I’ve used musescore since the beginning of my composing career simply because it was free and I wanted to write music. Now with MS4 the new play back engine, free good sounds and now adding the greater libraries, I can’t really see myself using anything else. My goal is to continue to grow and make it where I can just write with pen and paper, notate it in musescore, and use a professional DAW with an actual professional orchestral library for playback.
Playback is fine but it's not a necessity. The point of notation software is to give a more efficient way to input, format and print sheet music. Playback is a bonus. I wouldn't choose based on sound content. Dorico and Sibelius can use NotePerformer and I'd rather the low resource usage and accurate articulation and dynamics from it anyways. I moved from Finale to Dorico once they released the iPad app. Totally worth that. Sibelius didn't have any perpetual crossgrade pricing so I passed on it.
@@iTrensharo I half agree. MuseScore is meant to be a notation software but with the playback it basically becomes a composing tool. Whenever I have an idea and I write it out, the playback helps me make sure that I translated the idea correctly (accounting for the fact that the playback is very literal about everything). I’m not a level 100 Boss 😂 that can just write the ideas I have perfectly so having that tool is amazing. The resource part btw is 100% true, until about the last update MS4.4. What took my cpu (intel i7 11th gen) about 50% is down to around 10-20%. It’s still a lot don’t get me wrong but the improvement is stellar. I wished MuseScore had a tablet app for notation but I don’t think that will happen since they bought StaffPad. The other thing though is Dorico and NotePerformer cost money with MuseScore doing both and is free.
I went the other way, I come from 10+ years of FL Studio usage, and just now found out about musescore, so I could (with a lot of prep) import the midi I recorded (or just drew in the piano roll) to musescore and have it played back from sheetmusic.
I've been a Sibelius user since I started secondary school. Currently I have and use Sibelius 6. I'm not a professional musician by any means. I use it for creating music for our parish choir. I was disappointed to hear the news about Finale. I think there's more they could do to help users. They could release their file formats so that the likes of MuseScore, Dorico and Sibelius could even just open them natively, not save them, just open them and save them as a dorico or sibelius file etc.. Musescore unfairly gets a lot of hate from some people because it's open source, and tbh it's very much just as capable as any other notation program!!
Thanks for sharing! Finale’s end is certainly causing a headache for anyone who has stored lots of music digitally. I hope everyone out there takes time to at least get good physical copies of their music. Even if they might be re-engraving again later. Better than losing it!
I have always used Guitar Pro for making sheet music. It's very easy to use and works great. I write orchestrated compositions on it and export the instruments as midi into my DAW and add the instrument voices. It can also import midi and convert it to notation.
As long Finale time user I installed Dorico and Musescore. For me Dorico is VERY hard to learn. Muse is more logical if you come from Finale. Just in one day on Muse I could do what I was struggling for a week in Dorico.
@@mirokadoic I completely understand. Whatever works best-but also, the ultimate goal is for the notation software not to slow you down. I have another video going through upcoming updates to MuseScore SPECIFICALLY for options helping Finale users feel more at home with MuseScore. All the best. Happy writing!
I hit Three brick walls so far in MuseScore4 in a day. I do like it but It doesn't seem to do ties or slurs from a note at the end of a first ending, back to the beginning (If it does I can't find this feature). It also only allows 2 slurs per layer, between notes so If I have a have a three note chord that I want to put phrase marks on them individually to the next chord (where some of those notes are different pitches), It's a serious work around in MuseScore that Finale just handled Apparently this is an issue as of Version 4 as Version 3 reportedly allowed more slurs. Also, it doesn't have an option to have the root of a chord symbol (Liked C/D) show Under the Chord. It only allows you to put it beside the chord. Now there some things I've found that are easier to do in MuseScore than finale but in one day I've already found 3 things MuseScore doesn't see to be able to do which are basic things.
I won’t lie, not entirely sure the nature of these issues as you state them above. Seeing them in context might help me better understand. The slur & tie issues you mentioned on repeats rings a bell. I have certainly seen a number of REGRESSIONS from MuseScore 3 to MuseScore 4. The more features are added, the more trouble seems to arise. Naturally. I will take note of these issues and keep it in mind for future videos (if I go through the topic of what MuseScore should fix especially).
@@MrMayAllDay Not jazz charts but Contemporary (sometime gospel type) choral stuff, Worship music etc. So if you have syncopated notes that break the bar line from one measure to the next, and you're doing this on the last measure before a repeat to an earlier measure, trying to tie an Eight note to the next eight note of the next measure that's back at earlier measure doesn't work. Also, another big missing feature is that Muse score does not allow you play in and then quantize the music. I'm in the process of evaluating my upgrade options. Do I go for Dorico, or MuseScore? I tried notating a one page lead sheet MuseScore and I do like the simplicity of what it does do. I'm going to try to notate it in Dorico next to see which was easier/faster. I don't want to say this in a competitive sense, but Finale was able to do anything I threw at it. Musescore is more limited so far. It is easier to do what it can do though. Finale, once you learned it was not hard and it got much easier to use when Sibelius gave it a run for its money. MuseScore needs quantization features, better lyric management, better chord management, and more flexibility on the expressions globally. I like what I see in it but I'm beginning to understand why people say it's limited. The question for me is.. is it enough. right now I'm not notating much So I'll have to figure that out.
@michaeldodd9671 You’re definitely correct in these observations! My composition teacher would say that, “you have to bend these programs to your will.” 🤣 With some of the issue you are finding, you might not find them as frustrating in Dorico. Most of the problems you mention have workarounds (but those can be a pain to go menu-hunting for). Thank you for sharing! I hope you find the program that works best for you and doesn’t give you some of the trouble mentioned above. 👍
@@MrMayAllDay Firstly, thank you for taking time to respond. My comments were NOT meant to attack Musescore. The issue with Notation software is that Music Notation is so vast that the software has to be able to do so many types of notation, the software will eventually become more complex. Even as Musescore expands it will become more complex as it endeavors to do more. You're probably correct about Dorico. The issues I found do have work arounds, some I found in the online community. I do believe that Musescore has potential. I would like to see it grow also on its iPad app. Adding the ability to edit or compose, say with a stylus is huge and I would like to see this as well.
@@Dave1507 I’m considering making a video specifically about what MuseScore might improve. I have heard from many since this upload about unique bugs within the program. Also, the 4.4 update might be the buggiest one yet. 🤦♂️
I moved from Sibelius -> Finale -> Dorico and may move to something else that has better playback. Articulation changes in Dorico is a setup I have yet to master and am about to give up. All this being said, I still prefer to write on paper, input in Dorico and orchestrate in Cubase. At least my internal error is getting more exercise!
So two thoughts. 1.) Pencil and paper is still a good option and 2.) Back in my day - although I used Finale; Sib. was the big alternative to it, and I viewed it as a PC vs. Mac analogy. End of the day - use what works best for you. On my end - I already have Dorico up and running and I'm learning that. I was one of those old long term Finale users, but never snobbish about it. Free thought - for the love of music - cannot Musescore, Finale, Dorico, Sib etc - create a standardized file system that can be opened by all? That would be a Godsend - especially for collab.
Wonderful points! Some universal, standardized file type that could accurately move between these programs would be incredible. You might want to invest in such a technology. I certainly wouldn't know where to begin!
I bet that even if they don't do any updates anymore, they still sell licenses. So what's the deal? For the little things I need, I use Capella 2000, which has no updates since more than 20 years and it still runs. Or if you look somewhere else: a lot of CNC machines use Mach3 which is also not supported anymore for years and still licences are sold and that one is full of bugs. If Windows does something right, than it is backwards compatibility. I wish only that the copyright laws were altered worldwide for software, that any software which is abandoned by its developers automatically loses its protection and even force the ex-developers to publish the source code that anyone can pick up the development instead.
You make sense, but it's such a classical perspective. "pencil and paper" etc. If you make a bunch of small charts for pay, quality of life features matter in saving work. Saving 2 minutes on dozens of charts matters, and that time gets saved in ways that couldn't exist with pen and paper. Free software is a red flag when it comes to being able to churn out charts without wasting time. I would rather learn to program sibelius plugins than learn MuseScore.
The pencil and paper crowd are hard to find and usually just compose for their own delight. Commercially, it is not really an option beyond drafting some ideas. However, let’s not forget that most of John Williams scoring was done with pencil and paper. Others would engrave. Free software is the only option some have. MuseScore 4 is also incredible & creating larger waves in this field than any for-profit company.
@@MrMayAllDay Of course, I remember them from music school. What you're saying is absolutely true, just not for all situations. MuseScore feels trustworthy for these purposes you're describing. Hitting that subscribe button
Well.... playback is TOTALLY a crutch. How could you say otherwise? The "older people" of whom you speak, who are "not technically savvy" don't need it because they developed the skills to hear it in their heads.
8:38 I've been using Musescore for like 15 years. I ocasionally have to delete an element that I can't in Musescore (4), which I do by exporting to svg a editing it in Inkscape. Ffor example, when I make an incipit (in early music) by insertinf a horizontal frame, I want a system bracket only at the beginning; or dealing with an accidental in an ambitus, I want to make it smaller, and that is actually a regression from v3.6...
I’m slowly transitioning into Dorico. There’s some good stuff in it that I believe will be really awesome once I get over the learning curve, being a Finale guy, which I’m still using for now. As I understand it, Finale can still last well into the middle of next year.
The generational divide is 100% correct, imo. My dad is really not looking forward to learning an entirely new ecosystem.
I hope he gets all his music in order and nothing gets lost to time.
I will be uploading a little update soon about MuseScore potentially helping ex-Finale users out in upcoming updates! More to come on that soon!
4:26 I think I have a problem with that lol. When I write a piece, I will usually start by just coming up with something while messing around at the piano, but then when I go to write it down I end up only writing a tiny fraction of what I was playing, and to write a whole piece I just end up writing random notes until it sounds good.
Whatever works best for you!
Like many composers before, I get stuck with some of my piano muscle memory and it actually limits my music. But when I sit back and think only of the melody or timbre I want, I come up with much more creative and fresh material.
It is a tricky thing. I remember my composition teacher emphasizing the differences between improvisation and composition.
All the best!
@@MrMayAllDay Thank you! New sub
I appreciate that 🙏
Thank you kindly!
Man, I’ve used musescore since the beginning of my composing career simply because it was free and I wanted to write music. Now with MS4 the new play back engine, free good sounds and now adding the greater libraries, I can’t really see myself using anything else. My goal is to continue to grow and make it where I can just write with pen and paper, notate it in musescore, and use a professional DAW with an actual professional orchestral library for playback.
Playback is fine but it's not a necessity. The point of notation software is to give a more efficient way to input, format and print sheet music. Playback is a bonus. I wouldn't choose based on sound content. Dorico and Sibelius can use NotePerformer and I'd rather the low resource usage and accurate articulation and dynamics from it anyways.
I moved from Finale to Dorico once they released the iPad app. Totally worth that. Sibelius didn't have any perpetual crossgrade pricing so I passed on it.
@@iTrensharo I half agree. MuseScore is meant to be a notation software but with the playback it basically becomes a composing tool. Whenever I have an idea and I write it out, the playback helps me make sure that I translated the idea correctly (accounting for the fact that the playback is very literal about everything). I’m not a level 100 Boss 😂 that can just write the ideas I have perfectly so having that tool is amazing.
The resource part btw is 100% true, until about the last update MS4.4. What took my cpu (intel i7 11th gen) about 50% is down to around 10-20%. It’s still a lot don’t get me wrong but the improvement is stellar. I wished MuseScore had a tablet app for notation but I don’t think that will happen since they bought StaffPad. The other thing though is Dorico and NotePerformer cost money with MuseScore doing both and is free.
I went the other way, I come from 10+ years of FL Studio usage, and just now found out about musescore, so I could (with a lot of prep) import the midi I recorded (or just drew in the piano roll) to musescore and have it played back from sheetmusic.
@@iTrensharo The point of notation software is what ever you want the point to be.
I've been a Sibelius user since I started secondary school. Currently I have and use Sibelius 6. I'm not a professional musician by any means. I use it for creating music for our parish choir.
I was disappointed to hear the news about Finale. I think there's more they could do to help users. They could release their file formats so that the likes of MuseScore, Dorico and Sibelius could even just open them natively, not save them, just open them and save them as a dorico or sibelius file etc..
Musescore unfairly gets a lot of hate from some people because it's open source, and tbh it's very much just as capable as any other notation program!!
Thanks for sharing! Finale’s end is certainly causing a headache for anyone who has stored lots of music digitally. I hope everyone out there takes time to at least get good physical copies of their music. Even if they might be re-engraving again later. Better than losing it!
I have always used Guitar Pro for making sheet music. It's very easy to use and works great. I write orchestrated compositions on it and export the instruments as midi into my DAW and add the instrument voices. It can also import midi and convert it to notation.
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing. I will give it a closer look!
As long Finale time user I installed Dorico and Musescore. For me Dorico is VERY hard to learn. Muse is more logical if you come from Finale. Just in one day on Muse I could do what I was struggling for a week in Dorico.
@@mirokadoic I completely understand. Whatever works best-but also, the ultimate goal is for the notation software not to slow you down.
I have another video going through upcoming updates to MuseScore SPECIFICALLY for options helping Finale users feel more at home with MuseScore.
All the best.
Happy writing!
Musescore simplifies things.
I definitely agree!
I hit Three brick walls so far in MuseScore4 in a day. I do like it but It doesn't seem to do ties or slurs from a note at the end of a first ending, back to the beginning (If it does I can't find this feature). It also only allows 2 slurs per layer, between notes so If I have a have a three note chord that I want to put phrase marks on them individually to the next chord (where some of those notes are different pitches), It's a serious work around in MuseScore that Finale just handled Apparently this is an issue as of Version 4 as Version 3 reportedly allowed more slurs. Also, it doesn't have an option to have the root of a chord symbol (Liked C/D) show Under the Chord. It only allows you to put it beside the chord. Now there some things I've found that are easier to do in MuseScore than finale but in one day I've already found 3 things MuseScore doesn't see to be able to do which are basic things.
I won’t lie, not entirely sure the nature of these issues as you state them above. Seeing them in context might help me better understand.
The slur & tie issues you mentioned on repeats rings a bell. I have certainly seen a number of REGRESSIONS from MuseScore 3 to MuseScore 4.
The more features are added, the more trouble seems to arise. Naturally.
I will take note of these issues and keep it in mind for future videos (if I go through the topic of what MuseScore should fix especially).
@@michaeldodd9671 Do you use notation for lead sheets and jazz charts a lot?
@@MrMayAllDay Not jazz charts but Contemporary (sometime gospel type) choral stuff, Worship music etc. So if you have syncopated notes that break the bar line from one measure to the next, and you're doing this on the last measure before a repeat to an earlier measure, trying to tie an Eight note to the next eight note of the next measure that's back at earlier measure doesn't work. Also, another big missing feature is that Muse score does not allow you play in and then quantize the music. I'm in the process of evaluating my upgrade options. Do I go for Dorico, or MuseScore? I tried notating a one page lead sheet MuseScore and I do like the simplicity of what it does do. I'm going to try to notate it in Dorico next to see which was easier/faster. I don't want to say this in a competitive sense, but Finale was able to do anything I threw at it. Musescore is more limited so far. It is easier to do what it can do though. Finale, once you learned it was not hard and it got much easier to use when Sibelius gave it a run for its money. MuseScore needs quantization features, better lyric management, better chord management, and more flexibility on the expressions globally. I like what I see in it but I'm beginning to understand why people say it's limited. The question for me is.. is it enough. right now I'm not notating much So I'll have to figure that out.
@michaeldodd9671 You’re definitely correct in these observations! My composition teacher would say that, “you have to bend these programs to your will.” 🤣
With some of the issue you are finding, you might not find them as frustrating in Dorico. Most of the problems you mention have workarounds (but those can be a pain to go menu-hunting for).
Thank you for sharing! I hope you find the program that works best for you and doesn’t give you some of the trouble mentioned above. 👍
@@MrMayAllDay Firstly, thank you for taking time to respond. My comments were NOT meant to attack Musescore. The issue with Notation software is that Music Notation is so vast that the software has to be able to do so many types of notation, the software will eventually become more complex. Even as Musescore expands it will become more complex as it endeavors to do more. You're probably correct about Dorico. The issues I found do have work arounds, some I found in the online community. I do believe that Musescore has potential. I would like to see it grow also on its iPad app. Adding the ability to edit or compose, say with a stylus is huge and I would like to see this as well.
Just tell the devs of musescore what you're missing, or cool features of finale, and they'll work something out.
@@Dave1507 I’m considering making a video specifically about what MuseScore might improve.
I have heard from many since this upload about unique bugs within the program. Also, the 4.4 update might be the buggiest one yet. 🤦♂️
Very informative and helpful video - even for a non-composer
Articulate as always
I moved from Sibelius -> Finale -> Dorico and may move to something else that has better playback. Articulation changes in Dorico is a setup I have yet to master and am about to give up. All this being said, I still prefer to write on paper, input in Dorico and orchestrate in Cubase. At least my internal error is getting more exercise!
So two thoughts. 1.) Pencil and paper is still a good option and 2.) Back in my day - although I used Finale; Sib. was the big alternative to it, and I viewed it as a PC vs. Mac analogy. End of the day - use what works best for you. On my end - I already have Dorico up and running and I'm learning that. I was one of those old long term Finale users, but never snobbish about it. Free thought - for the love of music - cannot Musescore, Finale, Dorico, Sib etc - create a standardized file system that can be opened by all? That would be a Godsend - especially for collab.
Wonderful points!
Some universal, standardized file type that could accurately move between these programs would be incredible.
You might want to invest in such a technology. I certainly wouldn't know where to begin!
I bet that even if they don't do any updates anymore, they still sell licenses. So what's the deal? For the little things I need, I use Capella 2000, which has no updates since more than 20 years and it still runs. Or if you look somewhere else: a lot of CNC machines use Mach3 which is also not supported anymore for years and still licences are sold and that one is full of bugs. If Windows does something right, than it is backwards compatibility.
I wish only that the copyright laws were altered worldwide for software, that any software which is abandoned by its developers automatically loses its protection and even force the ex-developers to publish the source code that anyone can pick up the development instead.
Very good point with the copyright law!
You make sense, but it's such a classical perspective. "pencil and paper" etc. If you make a bunch of small charts for pay, quality of life features matter in saving work. Saving 2 minutes on dozens of charts matters, and that time gets saved in ways that couldn't exist with pen and paper. Free software is a red flag when it comes to being able to churn out charts without wasting time. I would rather learn to program sibelius plugins than learn MuseScore.
The pencil and paper crowd are hard to find and usually just compose for their own delight.
Commercially, it is not really an option beyond drafting some ideas.
However, let’s not forget that most of John Williams scoring was done with pencil and paper. Others would engrave.
Free software is the only option some have. MuseScore 4 is also incredible & creating larger waves in this field than any for-profit company.
@@MrMayAllDay Of course, I remember them from music school. What you're saying is absolutely true, just not for all situations. MuseScore feels trustworthy for these purposes you're describing. Hitting that subscribe button
I appreciate you very much. Take care!!
Well.... playback is TOTALLY a crutch. How could you say otherwise? The "older people" of whom you speak, who are "not technically savvy" don't need it because they developed the skills to hear it in their heads.
@@jardbinkley3144Did you watch the whole video?
I literally say, “we need to get back to hearing the music in our head.”