Top 5 Free Music Notation Software Picks

The first stanza of the manuscript copy of Mozart's K. 388 Serenade No. 12 for wind octet

It’s tempting for us to envy Mozart and his unique ability to throw notes onto a page with unimaginable accuracy. What a spectacular gift! But surely most composers of his age would turn green over present-day technology that enables us to drop notes into a computer with the mere flick of a finger, immediately hear how they sound together, and then print off as many scores as we like in less time than it takes to check our Instagram feeds.

Unthinkable to them would be that this type of technology is available to us for free!

The post below is written by guest author Elliot Butler, a senior at Western Illinois University who will graduate in December of 2020 with a degree in music composition. He evaluated several free music notation software programs and reviewed five of them for us in this ranked list.

#5: Noteflight

Noteflight is a browser-based notation program that is relatively easy to use. Scores are stored online and easily accessible from any computer with a browser. Noteflight hosts a pretty active online community, which is helpful for receiving encouragement, tips, or feedback. However, the free account only allows for the creation of ten scores before either having to pay for the premium version or deleting a previous score.

#4: ScoreCloud

ScoreCloud is a program that might well deserve a higher spot on this list. From my research, it’s the only notation software that can transcribe music live without the use of a beat track or a MIDI keyboard. However, there were some kinks I couldn’t figure out, which may be a result of my devices or my technological shortcomings. The free version only allows for single voice dictation, but the ability to dictate polyphonic music is there and is a really promising piece of technology for the future. I found the manual notation to be a little sluggish, but there seemed to be no limit to the number of staves, and all of the necessary features for good score notation seem to be there.  

#3: Flat

Like Noteflight, Flat is a browser-based notation program. It is sleek, easy to navigate, and has a very passable MIDI playback. Three features make it stronger than NoteFlight. First, the free user can create up to fifteen scores in contrast to Noteflight’s ten. Second, Flat can be used as an add-on to Google Docs, making it easy to insert musical excerpts into a document. This is great for students who may need to write a score analysis paper and for professors who are creating a written music theory exam. Finally, scores created on Flat just look cleaner and more professional than scores created on Noteflight.

#2: Finale Notepad

Finale is probably the most universally recognized notation platform, and learning Finale Notepad is helpful for anyone going into music composition or publishing. Notepad does have some limitations, however. The selection of time signatures is limited, and it’s not possible to extract individual parts from a full score. Also, Notepad caps the number of staves at 12, but it does read all staves imported through an XML file that had been exported from another notation program. Finale scores can be very clean, legible, and professional-looking, and that alone can make all the time required to master the interface worth the effort and possible frustration.

#1: MuseScore

MuseScore well deserves the top spot on this list. It is 100% free and open-sourced, and unlike every other program on this list, the best features aren’t locked behind a paywall. It is easy and intuitive to use, even while offering all the features that a demanding composer or arranger might require. The potential for formatting a professional-looking score is unrivaled, and an unlimited number of scores can be uploaded to a free account and shared with a large online community of fellow musicians. Additional sound libraries are available for free, making it possible to customize music playback with MIDI’s most realistic instrumental sounds. MuseScore is a solid tool for musicians and comes with my full recommendation. 

Elliot is available to answer questions about his review and can be reached through his profile at MuseScore.com, although a free account is required.