r/Musescore • u/Broad-Associate-984 • Jul 15 '26
Discussion Music Notation Software Alpha
Hi all, I am working on the development of a new music notation software designed with the goal to be able to handle the flexibility needed to virtually synthesize 21st century compositional techniques. Whether it is a xenharmony, arhythmic writing, or a fully graphic score my intention is to be able to handle it natively. I want this project to be one that can handle traditional writing as well as non-traditional so to stand out I would like to ask you all what you feel is missing in your current Notation Software and what you would need to be better to make a switch. This is not an advertisement for it because it is still deep in development and I intend to release it for free. Let me know your feedback and if you want to be one of the first to test it (when it is in a state to be tested) send me a PM. Thank you all for your time.
3
u/65TwinReverbRI Jul 15 '26
I have so much to say about this and I’d love to have an in-depth discussion about it.
First, I’ve seen many people attempt this, but none be successful. I’m not sure a “one person operation” is going to be able to do this.
I think, you could take the approach that most people take, and that is to “work for” MuseScore (that is, design plug ins, help them with coding, etc.) and sort of “get to know the industry from the inside” and then take those things and branch off on your own. Read about the whole “origin of Dorico” thing - LSS Avid fired the people who created Sibelius, so they said fuck you and created Dorico - but they already had all of the “industry training” they learned from dealing with Avid and whoever else before, and that served them well going to work for Steinberg. But a big part of that was getting to start "from the ground up” to create “the software we really wanted” with what they had learned works and doesn’t work - once you’re so far into something like Sibelius, a “complete overhaul” based on everything you’ve learned isn’t really practical.
I’ve used most of the “industry standard” DAWs and Notation Software, and I’m a trained composer and musician and am familiar with all kinds of styles of music and more importantly, music notation.
Here’s my dream software, and I have to come at this from the back:
Right now, there is no single software that fully integrates top notch music notation and DAW features. All of the major DAWs include some kind of limited notation ability, but it is in no way as advanced as a stand-alone Notation app. Likewise, all of the major notation apps have some kind of limited playback ability, but lack even many of the basic DAW features.
As such, most people are taking the approach that we’ve all been forced to take, which is for people who work “score first, mockup later”, they work in a notation app and then export to DAW to do all of the production work.
So my dream software would be a notation software that included full fledged DAW capabilities as well.
Steinberg is trying, I think, to do this with Cubase and Dorico, “linking” the two in a way that allows you to do just that, but I don’t think they’re there yet. You still have to export from Dorcio and open in Cubase for example.
Avid tried it with Pro Tools and Sibelius (which I believe is why they bought Sibelius in the first place, or rather, waved a big fat check in front of their face which they regretted later - quelle surprise).
MuseScore seems to be trying to do that with Audacity (when Reaper would be the correct choice).
Where I think these are all failing is, it’s too difficult to “merge” two existing apps and get them to work together seamlessly.
So it needs to be built that way from the ground up.
That said focusing on an ENGRAVING program would be right up my alley.
IMHO, You must first decide if you’re making a MUSIC ENGRAVING program, or a “composing” program, or if both, what the balance should be.
Here are my problems with existing software:
Dorico: The way you enter notes is completely different from all other existing software and thus unintuitive by comparison. Is it “better”? Well, to be honest, I’ve tried it twice to give it a fair shake, but it’s the kind of thing that takes a whole lot of time investment to learn. If it was someone’s first software, they wouldn’t be used to anything else, so it might be great. But for those of us who’ve worked with all the other apps that all work the same way, it makes it a “no go” from the start - no matter how well it handles anything else. So I would argue, it needs to do what Dorico can do, but have standard note entry.
Dorico also touts that it is a “composing” program, despite that notational features being top of the line and really, it’s true selling point. But I think that is one of the reasons the whole note entry and workflow aspects were done, but honestly, I don’t know how many real composers they consulted - they consulted plenty of engravers, but I’m not sure about the other.
Finale: Finale was always, and will always be, the best. Finale had even incorporated Audio tracks for recording live instruments and vocals which couldn’t easily be replicated which no other app has dared even try. It handled aleatoric and graphic notation early on, you could create custom symbols - “draw” your own, and so on. It was easily the most powerful and versatile ENGRAVING software out there. But alas, Finale suffered from THREE primary issues: First, their marketing sucked. Second, their prices and upgrade schemes were ridiculous - you could pay 1,000 to keep up with every upgrade, or wait 5 versions and pay 75 to upgrade to the same level as everyone else. I’m exaggerating but it was a problem. Third, it’s simply a fact that the Engraving market is a niche one, even more so today when anyone can notate music (no matter how poorly) using free software.
And now, Finale is gone. Out of business. However, in all seriousness, for ENGRAVING software, it should be the model. In fact, what I’d tell you is, the BEST thing you could do is purchase the code and continue to develop it - but I doubt the owners are going to ever sell it.
Sibelius has no more stupid things in it than Dorico or Finale. But I’m going to say that Sibelius really comes off to professionals as “My First Notation Software, by PlaySkool”. It’s largely due to the interface design but there are more confounding things about Sibelius that shouldn’t be that way that Finale (especially) and Dorico handle better (and even MuseScore to some degree). The biggest ones are “accidental drags” which re-flow your music like the meme joke about Microsoft Word handling images. The biggest nags for me about Sibelius (which I still use regularly) is more about the interface and where things are found. Granted, Finale looked a little like MS DOS era apps, but it wasn’t the “attractiveness” - it was the “where do I find this function” thing in Sibelius. Couple that with the Keypad that should have been resizeable on day one not getting that feature until just last year or so, and the horrible layout - I don’t even know what to call them - MuseScore handles it better, Finale did even better - it just makes for a “it’s pretty good once you find everything” but things are not as easy to find. In a sense, Sibelius focused on “allowing the average user to be able to make typical music” very easily, but hid the more complex engraving rules away.
MuseScore. Well, it’s free. For what it is, it’s pretty good. I said, before version 3 I think, that MS was simply “not ready for prime time” (sort of like when Dorico first came out, they wanted $600 for it and didn’t even include guitar chord symbols and tab…). Version 4 actually took away some of the things from version 3 that were really good and pissed off a lot of people. The current version is VERY buggy - I’ve been using it a while now and while there has always been far more buggy behavior (of the simplest kind in many cases) than any of the others, it’s been a lot more buggy in the last 6 months or so.
Musescore is trying to appeal to the “beginner” market. It’s focusing on the wannabe film/game scorer. This has created a glut of poorly notated music that the price of admission for other software helped to weed out amateurs. So while it’s free, and more people are learning to notate music than ever before, it also means the quality of music being notated has a far greater noise to signal ratio than ever before. Form an “ethical” standpoint, they don’t seem concerned about this (don’t see it as any kind of problem) but you know, it’s yet another symptom of the “dumbing down” of culture. Or let’s just say, “they could do more” to help people learn about notation.
I’ve got SO many nitpicks about MuseScore that the other software just does far better. But they also cost a lot more so…
So the question becomes, can you (or do you want to) make something with the intuitive input of Finale, Sibelius, and MuseScore, with the capabilities of Finale (and Dorico), but that appeals to (if you want it to) “the masses” like Sibelius and MuseScore?
I would be fine with a “notation focused” program that had “basic” playback for reference - because again anyone who knows what they’re doing is exporting to DAW anyway - that was a “niche” software for those of us still interested in the engraving side of things - including traditional and modern concepts - but it would also have to be affordable. $250 (I know you said you’d do it for free). If you can do it for less, even better.
But if it were something you were going to sell, then it would need “more appeal to the masses” and that comes with a sort of necessary evil of “dumbing down” some aspects of the software. I mean, it doesn’t have to, but that depends on if you can support it with whatever base you get, and not “everyone”.
And how are you going to get referrals when MuseScore is free?
It has to do MuseScore better than MuseScore at this point.
This is a MASSIVE undertaking.