The Best Free Music Composition Software

There are several expensive programs for music notation and composition, such as Finale and Sibelius, available on the market. While these programs may be good resources for schools or professional composers, the amateur or beginner will probably want to start out with something cheaper. MuseScore, a free and open-source program for music composition and notation, is the best free download for music composition.

MuseScore contains all of the features available with the full versions of Finale and Sibelius, both of which cost several hundred dollars. It is easy to input notes with your mouse, keyboard, a piano keyboard hooked up to your computer, or a MIDI file. You can hear playback as you input notes and afterwards to hear what you have composed. The interface is very user-friendly, and there is an option to constantly display a palette of all available options so that the user can easily see what the program can do. Most of the shortcuts and commands can be figured out intuitively, but there is also a very detailed and helpful user guide.

The program is accessible to many users, available in nineteen languages and for both Windows and Linux (a version for Macs is currently being alpha tested). In addition, it is possible to save a file in many formats, including .pdf, MIDI, and .ly (for further editing with LilyPond, a free notation software that works from text input). As a result, it will be easy to share your music with people around the globe.

MuseScore is not without its flaws and limitations. For example, playback on the program itself cannot handle more than two staves; to hear all of the parts, you must save your music as a MIDI file. Information other than notes, such as lyrics and articulation marks, do not always copy and paste with the notes themselves. The program also has frequent glitches that cause it to shut down without warning.

A user can quickly adapt to these problems, however, by finishing all notes before adding lyrics and articulation; frequently saving and listening to MIDI files; and setting the autosave to every one minute, as well as frequently saving the file manually, in order to prevent any loss of work.

True, a user need not make these adaptations for a more high-tech programs. But MuseScore is comparable in features, accessibility, and available file formats to popular and expensive programs, and it is definitely worth making a few adaptations in order to get the equivalent of a $400 program for absolutely nothing.