[LAU] Simple, fast, easy notation software?

Ken Restivo ken at restivo.org
Tue Aug 18 13:55:03 EDT 2009


I'm looking for a simple, fast, easy notation software. The goal is that I can very quickly input a melody line or riff, maybe overlay chord symbols on it, when learning new songs or writing them, so that I don't forget them.

Something where I could  scribble down "Fake Book"-style charts. Of course there's pencil and paper, but then I have to deal with a music stand and shuffling leaves of paper around. Since I have the laptop sitting in front of me anyway, if I had all my charts in there, I could just page through them, use find to search for them, etc.

Rosegarden and the lilypond stuff is probably way too much overkill. It's not critical that it have MIDI in/out either, since the output device is going to be eyes-brain-fingers anyway. denemo confused me way too much; couldn't figure out how to do basic stuff in it at all.

I've played around with nted, and it seems the easiest and closest to what I want, but even it tries to be too "smart" and sticks in things like dotted rests and stuff where I don't want them, and I can't figure out how to move notes in time once it decides to put them there-- frustrating.

Any other options?

Again, the typical usage is that a bandleader will sing or show me the melody and I need to note it down very quickly.

-ken



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