Of the different types of music notation software, Finale is probably one of the most well known and used pieces of music notation software. One of the great things about the software is that it comes in different levels of software that can be easily upgraded. So if you start out at one budget and level of expertise and you decide that it isn’t really meeting your needs, you can easily upgrade the product. This article covers the first two levels of the Finale family NotePad and SongwriterFinale NotePad is the basic level of software. It is available for download free and comes with basic features. Perfect if you just need to do a little music writing. You can write on up to eight staves. Music can be entered in step-time (one note at a time with a mouse) or one note at a time with a keyboard connected to your computer. Basic editing commands like cut, copy and paste are available as well. There is space for one verse of lyrics and you can add tablature. When you are finished you can export a MIDI file or print sheet music.
On the downside
This software may not be for you if you need to write multiple verses or a lot of staves. The key signature is only applicable to the entire piece so changing keys is out of the question. If you would like to be able to scan music into your computer to transpose it or you need to be able to work with other file types such as Smartscore, Encore or Rhapsody files this would not be the version for you.
Finale Songwriter
For just a little bit of money, you can trade up to Finale Songwriter. This software contains quite a few more features than Notepad. One big plus is that you can play music into the computer with a MIDI controller in real time. If you come up with a piece and can play it out all at once you can enter it that way which is a real time saver. It also allows chromatic and diatonic transposition. If you don’t like a note where you played it, you can drag it up or down and hear how it would sound with a different pitch. You can also import Music XML files and export MP3 files and Music XML files. Music XML files allow you to share your scores on the internet.
On the downside
You still can’t scan in music and many of the sounds included in more advanced versions are still off limits.
