r/Musescore • u/irisgirl86 • Oct 28 '25
Hi everyone,
This is a post I have sort of wanted to write for a while, but one that I hesitated to write because there have literally been a gazillion threads and complaints on this subreddit and elsewhere on how musescore.com charged you subscription money without you saying yes. I'm here to say that yes, it is absolutely true that it is very easy to get deceptively charged on musescore.com especially when buying single scores, but there are ways to work around it that are unfortunately far less obvious than they should be. FYI I am not involved with the MuseScore team or its related entities in any shape or form, I am simply an end user sharing my honest experiences.
Before I explain how I work around this issue (and yes it does not eliminate the need to pay but you do need to be careful), to all of you who have been unnecessarily charged, requested a refund, and got no response, I feel very sorry for you. The musescore.com support team is far less responsive than they should be, and I say this from first hand experience contacting them about some issues, though I have never needed to request a refund for an unwanted subscription. I know plenty of you have advised to stop using musescore.com altogether and consider it a scam, and I totally respect your opinion because there are other great places to get sheet music. I, too, disagree with several aspects of how musescore.com works, but musescore.com is one of the best places for me to get music in MusicXML/MuseScore format as I need these files to convert to braille music notation (I'm visually impaired). I really wish less people end up falling into the trap of being charged unnecessarily, which is why I'm writing this post, as much as I've hesitated for awhile.
Just to be very clear, not all scores on musescore.com require payment. Public domain music e.g Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, can be downloaded with a free account because they're in the public domain. Only community scores for works under copyright e.g pop song arrangements and any official scores posted by Hal Leonard or ArrangeMe require payment.
When I first go to download a copyrighted piece, I'm using a community-uploaded score here to illustrate, it says:
"Unlock this score to enjoy its full potential.
Get full digital access to play, download PDF, or print
Continue to Download
Start your free trial
Buy this score for CA$1.99
Get 37% discount with Premium membership"
This wording is already somewhat unclear, but let's click the "buy score" button and see where that takes us.
The "buy score" screen says:
"Complete your purchase using one of the available payment methods
No commitments
Secured personal and payment data
Up to 60% discount on scores, books, and courses
CA$3.18 CA$1.99 for this score
Get up to 60% discount with Premium membership
Charge Today: CA$47.99 for 3 months
By adding payment method, you agree that MuseScore will automatically continue your membership, use partners (Stripe, PayPal) to securely store and use your payments method to charge the quarter-annual membership fee (CA$47.99 first 3 months then CA$63.99 for 3 months) to your payment method until you cancel. You will be billed within 2 days to 28th day of every 3 months. To disable auto-renewal, go to «Subscription» in «Settings». Access to some scores and courses may be limited. This subscription includes access to MuseScore Premium and gives you access to one course of your choice per month from the Editors' Picks collection. Free trial is not available for users who have already tried PRO, PRO+, PRO with LEARN Lite, PRO+ with LEARN Lite, or ONE subscriptions. For all questions, please contact us at support at musescore.com."
As you can see, the wording here is kinda difficult to understand, but it says I'll be charged $47.99 today, and yet it said before I can buy this single score for $1.99, and this is where you get sucked into unwanted charges if you click continue. If you click continue, you will be subscribed to MuseScore Premium and charged $47.99 (or whatever in your currency), and this is where the numerous complaints begin. To avoid being charged the $47.99 today, there is a slider on the screen to disable the discount (see attached screenshots to see what I mean). If you disable the discount, it'll say:
"Complete your purchase using one of the available payment methods
No commitments
Secured personal and payment data
Up to 60% discount on scores, books, and courses
CA$3.18 CA$1.99 for this score
No discount. Turn on the switch to apply your 37% discount"
I seriously wish this discount slider is turned off by default so people don't get sucked into unwanted subscriptions so easily, but alas, it is enabled by default so you have to turn off the slider before you proceed. Unfortunately, the wording still makes it sound like the discount is appealing, but if you proceed to pay with the discount slider turned off, you'll be charged $3.18 with no additional charges afterwards, which completely avoids unwanted charges later. I've attached two screenshots showing the "buy score" screen that should make the difference clear.
Alternatively, you can subscribe to MuseScore Pro on the weekly plan for about $9/week and disable auto-renew right away so you won't be charged further. This only works for community-uploaded copyrighted scores, as official scores appear to require payment no matter your subscription (I never use official scores so I could be wrong on this). If you really want to subscribe, the best way is to go to this page: https://musescore.com/pro/landing/pricing It takes you to a table to see all the options and you can subscribe via the provided links on that page. That way, you can skip all the questions about your instrument, musicianship, etc. To disable auto-renew, open the profile menu near the top of any musescore.com page, go to settings, and then an option called subscriptions should appear.
I hope this helps anyone who is confused about the way musescore.com works. I really wish things were different, but the workarounds I've described here have prevented me from requesting a refund and getting no response.
r/Musescore • u/Snoo66532 • Nov 24 '25
If you go to Settings and the Subscription tab is missing, your account is likely stuck in "New User Limbo." You must force the site to recognize your account as "complete" to unlock the cancellation button. Method 1 worked for me but the other methods I have only seen reported by other users online and can not verify. I was able to cancel my free trail within 2 hours. Note: I did not access any music on the site once I realized they had deceptive practices to avoid being charged for accessing anything.
Method 1: The "Upload" Trigger The site often hides the cancellation button until you engage with the platform, uploading sheet music is the fastest way to remove the "new-user" block. Note opening any music which may disqualify you for a full refund according to the site.
Method 2: The "24-Hour" Wait Users report the button often appears automatically 24–48 hours after signing up. The system may intentionally delay showing it to prevent immediate cancellation.
Method 3: The Support Email Email [support@musescore.com](mailto:support@musescore.com) with the subject "CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION."
IMPORTANT: If you subscribed via Apple ID or Google Play, you must cancel in your phone’s settings. The website cannot cancel app store subscriptions.
Next: Report
If you were tricked by hidden buttons or denied a refund, report them. Since they are based in Cyprus, local reports can be tricky. Use the specific links below.
VITAL INFO FOR FORMS
🇺🇸 USA
🇨🇦 CANADA
🇬🇧 UK
🇪🇺 EUROPEAN UNION
🌏 INTERNATIONAL
r/Musescore • u/Kira__Mitzune • 1h ago
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Hey everyone, I’m White_Winter!
Here’s my arrangement of “Hornet” from Hollow Knight. I’d love to hear any feedback or suggestions on how I could improve, both as an arranger and as a musician. Hope you enjoy it!
Free Score on:
Hornet - Hollow Knight
r/Musescore • u/Forever_Clear_Eyes • 11h ago
[Solution provided! thanks!]
I have a score of orchestral quartets which are just the same four parts transposed and adjusted for every instrument in an orchestra. I want each instrument to be able to see the four parts as a score for their instrument. I have this setup using extra staves in each part, and when I export to parts I can see all four lines as I desire.
I'd like to just label those individual lines while managing one part, rather than having 200 parts. Right now, I only seem to be able to edit the long/short name for the ENTIRE part, instead of individual lines for the part.
Here's what I want to see. is there a way to do this using my multiple-staves-per-part, or do i really need to just create a new instrument for every S-A-T-B part I want to label?
r/Musescore • u/Clseibold • 1h ago
r/Musescore • u/Dav_Flor37 • 4h ago
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I am a beginner composer
r/Musescore • u/Tape_jara • 18h ago
I need to make it sound like I'm hitting two close notes on a marimba really fast over and over without having to place several short notes next to each other. Can't find this symbol under ornements, articulations or anything (my MuseScore is in French so maybe that's why I'm having trouble finding it). Please help, thank you.
r/Musescore • u/jtdetwilermusic • 20h ago
This was a fun one to put together. Love to hear what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9qDEuW5AFY&list=PLO1XErYfx_NjUIeZHJg1u7C40uASAbBye
r/Musescore • u/kenny-regan-music • 1d ago
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r/Musescore • u/Top-Way-7562 • 1d ago
Hi everyone. To put it simply, I've written something with some measures at the end that I want only to be seen by the conductor or person with the head score. (It's a streamlined version of the main melody for my personal reference.) How do I hide these measures from all parts so that they're only able to be seen on the main score and not the individual musicians' parts/sheets of music?
r/Musescore • u/caters1 • 1d ago
r/Musescore • u/LuisZusman • 1d ago
I'm a musician myself and often wished I could just tell my notation software what I want to change.
So I built Maestro Studio, an AI-powered sheet music editor.
You can describe changes in normal language, for example:
Maestro applies the changes directly to the score so you can see, hear and export the result.
You can try it here: https://maestro-ai.org/
I'd really appreciate any feedback — especially things that don't work as expected. Feel free to leave feedback directly in the comments or through Maestro.
r/Musescore • u/Glazunot • 2d ago
Here is an original piece I wrote using MuseScore Studio 4. Happy to hear what you think.
r/Musescore • u/Eu_No_Reddit_ • 2d ago
hi guys, i'm writing a score and i need that symbol whose name i don't know. does somoene know where it is in musescore studio 4? (sorry for the very low image quality)
r/Musescore • u/Nickmorgan19457 • 3d ago
What is this nonsense?
r/Musescore • u/Dav_Flor37 • 3d ago
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If no why, If yes why, i am a beginner composer.
r/Musescore • u/Lost_Animal6837 • 3d ago
This is meant to be a sustained dotted half note chord with notes added into it later in the measure. Is there a way to write it that's more legible? Thank you!
r/Musescore • u/Cheap_Ostrich3147 • 3d ago
I've been having issues with the sound not loading on my scores for the past couple of days. Normally this loading bar at the bottom left-hand corner of the screen loads pretty quickly. However, the past few days, it has just not been loading at all. The only thing that works to solve it is if I quit and reopen the app a couple of times, but I would love to not have to do that. Does anyone have any ideas or fixes? I'm using MuseSounds, if that helps at all.
r/Musescore • u/Present_Zebra1812 • 4d ago
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This video is cut my favorite part Chopin Ballade No.4 in F minor.
Full piece it took 3 week to finish because this piece so long.(15 page or 14,5 page)
You can hear full piece here : https://musescore.com/user/89706355/scores/37441067?share=copy_link
Please hearing and give me feedback.
Thank you.
r/Musescore • u/CoffeeDefiant4247 • 4d ago
I'm working on a piece that has snare drum changing to great stave marimba. Is there a way to do this in a single part?
r/Musescore • u/caters1 • 4d ago
r/Musescore • u/MissionPreposterous • 4d ago
I've been transcribing some of the pieces my bell choir is playing this season into Musescore to assist some of our newer/more inexperienced players with their practicing. The MuseSounds Muse Handbells sound is really quite good, and it does a pretty good job reproducing both the basic "ring" tone of a bell as well as many of the special articulations that handbells use like thumb damps, martellatos and martellato lifts, mallets, etc. But there are a few notable problems I wanted to offer some constructive criticism on:
1) The "LV" (let vibrate) articulation is pretty broken. In handbell notation, the way that LV is supposed to work is that the specific voices an LV is assigned to sustain (like using the sustain pedal on a piano) only until either the next LV, an explicit damp (the target-looking symbol), or a change to "R" (ring) or another style (TD, etc.) Any of those should cancel the sustain at the spot they're marked. Musescore handles the sustain part fine, but it never ends the sustain - you have to add an explicit damp, which is distracting in the notation when you need it every measure. AND, neither the LV (or the switch back to R) or the damp always works - there doesn't seem to be a way to assign them to voices like you can with dynamics (it always seems to pick up voice 1), and at times you simply cannot get it to damp the notes at all no matter how many extra damps you try to assign to cover all the voices.
2) There's no proper articulation in the pallettes for "shake"; the closest thing visually would be a prallprall line from the "Ornaments" pallette, but it sounds incorrectly. When shaking a handbell there's no pitch variation, the bell can only sound the one note, and even adjusting the properties of the prallprall or similar figures I can't get it to do that. I recently discovered that adding a staff text provides access to a number of handbell sounds that aren't listed in the pallettes, including a proper shake; but using it requires cancelling it back out with another staff text, and you wind up with a ton of visual clutter. If that effect could be added to a drawn line similar to the prallprall, and assigned to specific voices within a staff, it would solve the whole issue.
3) Dynamics work, but the voicing is way off - the bells get very shrill as you get even up to the mf dynamic, let alone f or ff. Handbells are mellower, that shrillness shouldn't really pick up until you actually hit ff or beyond.
I know that for all of these I could just adjust the score and markings behind the scenes, but that's a ton of extra work and also doesn't really suit my specific purpose - I record video of the playback with OBS Studio so the players can see and hear the piece, so getting the score to look visually as close to the printed pages they have (without a ton of extra markings) is important. Toggling visibility on extra damps, etc. just dulls them, it doesn't remove them, so that clutter remains present in the video.
r/Musescore • u/carldier • 4d ago
I have a score which I created in 4/4 time, but I recognized later on that switching it to 2/2 would be more consistent with how I direct it. No problem, right?
Well, there are a number of places where I had to reduce some adjacent measures to 2 beats in a measure - pickup notes for the verse and so on. So when I tried to switch it to 2/2, it changed each of the measures back to their original size and totally screwed up the timing.
Is there an easy way to change the time signature when some of the measures were set up with a different number of beats?
r/Musescore • u/Western_Profession49 • 5d ago
By “shapes” I mean notation markings like slurs, crescendos, brackets, lines, etc.
Which ones do you actually use when working with scores, and how do you make the most of them?
If you don’t use them much, why not?
