It’s all too easy to use the copy and paste features to quickly bash out lots of notes without giving them due consideration.įor the performer, he may be faced with music that has been inconsiderately laid out, with poorly-chosen page turns, too large or too small a staff size, and so on. So if the tools are currently imperfect, what impact does this have? For composers, particularly inexperienced composers, it is all too easy to rely on the playback they hear through their computers’ speakers, and to believe that the ease with which instruments can play and balance each other at extremes of register will translate to the real world. However, I don’t believe any of the currently available music notation programs have achieved this level of power: they are either too complex, too slow, or not flexible enough to express the complexity of every creator’s intention. This impact is both positive and negative, of course, just as with any other tool.Īt its best, music notation software should be as invisible to its user as a chisel is to a sculptor: it should provide no impediment to the expression of the creator’s intentions.

I’m certain that music notation software has had an impact on musicians in many fields, both on the creation side with composers, arrangers and publishers, and on the consumption side, with performers. (If you want to follow me on Quora, here I am.) I was asked to answer the question, “ Does music notation software have a considerable impact on musicians?” on Quora.

Best music notation software for fun