Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has experience with any music notation software in Linux. If so, could they give a positive recommendation for one that would fit my current needs?

I use Finale (for Windows) quite a bit. I have not been successful at getting wine to run Finale in Linux. According to the wine website, Finale 2003 can be run in wine, but I have 2004 and no longer have the CD for 2003 (or I'd give it a shot too). At this point, I'd like to move away from my Windows machine even more, and being able to create manuscript in Linux would be HUGE for me. Converting all my Finale files would be an issue, but I'll worry about that separately.

Specs:

Even though Finale has come a long way in playback and MIDI features, right now I'm more interested in a straight-up notation package than I am in all the MIDI and playback capabilities. Many of Finale's features are complete overhead for me. I really just want to create good looking, readable manuscript. In addition to scores and individual instrument parts, I write alot of drum set parts out, so I need the flexibility to use the 5 line staff as a drum set staff as well as being able to use the various standard note heads indicating different pieces and surfaces of the drum kit. Finale's flexibility is not overhead, in this case, as it allows me to do these things more or less without hassle.

Now, if the software has some minimal playback, that would be nice for checking that what I've written out is actually what I intended, but it's not critical.

Barring any existing software, maybe I'll start a project and write my own app. I pay the bills writing code, but I've never written any Linux programs except simple command line stuff. A music notation package would be a gigantic leap. Maybe a recommendation on how to make the leap would be just as useful as a recommendation for an existing software package.

Thanks alot for any help,

Scott Cook
Chicago, IL

Have a google for Rosegarden...it is the only native linux music notation app that I know of. If it doesn't have the features you need/want then perhaps you can join their development rather than starting a new project from scratch.

Edit: here is the link...
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Scott

I just visited their web and took a brief tour of the application. It looks great. Without really digging in, I'm not sure if it is as flexible a notation tool as Finale, but WOW! it looks like it might just do the trick.

Thanks again for the tip. Maybe I'll checking into jumping into the delopment effort (at least as a testor if nothing else).

Take care,

Scott

There is actually a distro which is aiming to become some sort of a multimedia-distro, packed with softwares useful for musician, etc. At least that's how I understand them. It's called agnula/demudi (debian based) and agnula/rehmudi (redhat based). I haven't really had a chance to try them out, but if you do let us know what you think

edit:
I found this article at slashdot:

and here's the link to agnula.

Thanks Nightfrost - I'll check into the RedHat one.

Scott