What is the best music notation software for composing and playing music tracks live

[jabarimark55]

I am a musician and I want to compose music on my computer to perform with and play live. I have been given two music notation software products. Cakewalk "Sonar" and and Band in a Box. Which one is best for compsition as far as chord creation,instrument parts and music notation?

[Sherry C]

Hi,

Since you've found the Notation Software user's forum, I'd encourage you to try out Notation Composer. Composer offers a variety of ways to enter notes, has easy and intuitive editing capability, lets you hear what you've entered (and edit the performance quite finely for great sound), is currently having a "pick your price" sale, and also has a great community of supportive and helpful fellow musicians. Is that a sales pitch you hear? You bet ;)

To find out more about Notation Composer, you can visit the information page at www.notation.com/NotationComposer.php and watch the videos there. To try it out free (fully functional - not "crippled" at all) you can download the trial version from http://www.notation.com/DownloadComposerTrial.php There's also a new (and growing) section of Tutorial Videos (just click here) to get you going fast. (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/forumdisplay.php?f=2856)

As a disclaimer, I do work for Notation Software. But the biggest reason I started working here is that I love Notation Composer :)

ttfn,
Sherry

[Sherry C]

p.s. For my own personal example of how I use Notation Composer, I compose the entire musical for our kids' Christmas program each year for church on Notation Composer, and then use it to play the sound track. Doing this, I can create a "lyrics" part which displays to the kids in real time so that they can use it as a "prompter" to keep up with where the music is at (a huge advantage over a recorded sound track) and Notation Composer is actually playing the sound track "live", so I can manipulate it as needed on the fly.

Prior to the actual performance, I printed out parts that the kids could take home and practice on their own, either by playing the sheet music themselves, or by using our free Notation Player and the .not file to practice along on their own computer while hearing the music and following the notes and lyrics.

I really do love this software :)

ttfn,
Sherry