Songwriting Software Express, Issue # 39 - Music Writing To Your Ears

April, 2006 Issue

To help your songwriting with a focus on the benefits of innovative software, tools, resources and programs for your songwriting craft and career.

Play Music - Music Notation Software - Notation Technologies has revolutionized the music notation software market by creating Play Music…the easiest music composition software available and quite likely the most affordable.

No Music Theory needed. Just play, point-click or import a midi file - Play Music easily guides you through the composition process.

Next, click on the instrument sounds you want and Play Music will play back your song and print out the melody! ...add chords and any other notation you need. Great for a songwriter lead sheet with chords and melody all the way to four part choral arrangements.

Add lyrics and print out your masterpiece.

Even beginners can compose music the very first time they use Play Music!

Click here for more information and to purchase Play Music.

Songwriting Software Plus' #1 selling notator!

Play Music - affordable notation software.

First up: Editor's Note from the laptop of Robert Curtis,
your songwriter in residence at Songwriting Software Plus.

1. Music Writing To Your Ears
2. This Month's Notable Quote
3. Songwriting Software Plus Software Superstars

A question I get a lot is "Is there a program that will allow me to sing my melody into my computer and then have it interpret the notes and print them out?" - fortunately in today's high-tech world the answer is yes.

Very frequently in popular songwriting endeavors the most elaborate a lead sheet gets is a set of lyrics with chord symbols written in above the words. But there are times when creating a lead sheet with measures and even your melody line written out as well are helpful like for certain studio situations or mail-in demo productions.

Of course melody is one thing but having the right chord accompaniment is at least equally important and here there is help too that I'll discuss in today's feature article.

So in this month's annual focus issue on music writing software programs I'm going to start with these programs and work into the more elaborate and sophisticated programs as the discussion goes. Just jump in where your needs are best met per the headings below.

We'll start with auto-scoring programs (makes your sung melody immediately into notes or into a midi file that can then be converted to notation) then we'll move on to chord based programs and then on to high-end compositional programs.

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Let's start this discussion at the outer most edges of musical sensibility where you might not have, as is the case with many a songwriter, any music theory training yet alone notational skills - yet you need to get your song down on paper with at least a melody and optimally with at least a basic chord progression along with it.

To suit those needs we'll touch on some programs that can help you, in an automated way, to get your melody notated and then even a program that can help you put at least a basic chord arrangement to your song, again automatically. All this under the topic Auto-scoring programs below.

From there we'll walk through the chord based programs (for those with at least basic chord knowledge) where you're essentially placing chord entries over lyrics, your typical lead sheet presentation for songwriters, to the more elaborate programs that are designed to create full musical scores that depict every note and nuance of a musical arrangement or as simply as just chords and melody if you prefer.

Like the heading implies there are programs available that can take your singing or live performance on your instrument (in addition to midi-instruments) like your acoustic guitar or piano and notate the the notes you've played.

Some programs can do this on the fly like Autoscore. And some programs like Digital Ear and IntelliScore convert your recorded performance (singing voice, even whistling, or played instrument) from its recorded audio file (a .wav file typically) into a midi file that can then be loaded into a notation or sequencer program.

For example you could sing your song's melody into Digital Ear or IntelliScore, convert it to a midi file (all explained in each program) and then load that midi file into notation programs like Play Music, Finale or Sibelius and or sequencer programs like Cubase or Cakewalk's Sonar Home Studio or Logic , just a few among many choices of sequencer programs, and the notes can then be created on regular musical staves accordingly.

Having your melody clear is certainly helpful but then you move to the all important chord progression accompaniment. Whereas melody tends to be an intuitive expression creating a chord progression to support the emotional intent of a melody is frankly more intellectually based. Granted the result of the sounds of chords creates an emotional response but choosing the best chords for the emotional tone you're trying to convey takes thinking and not so much emoting.

So accordingly for those chord ignorant there is one program that is relatively affordable and has a good support staff that can take your melody and create a chord progression accompaniment that may be emotionally satisfying. That program is Band-in-a-Box from PG Music. Check out their site for more on that and feel free to contact their support staff - they're pretty helpful and well informed.

Just as an aside a great site where you can start or elaborate on your chord knowledge to allow you to at least tweak what a program might come up with or even write out the chord progression yourself is at Complete Chords. Also check out the Jai Josefs best selling book on the subject Writing Music For Hit Songs right here online or ask for it at your local bookstore.

If you've got a melody fairly well ingrained in your head or maybe have recorded it into your computer on into a portable recorder and you feel fairly comfortable that you can reproduce it over and over again, just by singing it and playing along, then creating a chords only lead sheet may well suffice for your song's written rendition.

A continually popular program for this approach is Lyricist (now in its third version release). Lyricist is aimed at aiding the lyric writing process but is also designed to allow you to create chord based lead sheets - both piano and guitar based and even has a built-in Nashville Numbers component.

Two other chord based lead sheet programs that are geared more towards song production are Band in a Box (also helpful in developing a chord accompaniment as mentioned in the above section) and Power Tracks, both from PG Music. With each you can print out chord based lead sheets but their lyric entry is only exacting to any entered melody. So if you only need the chords printed out in measure style and can write in your lyrics (if your without a written melody) then these may work for you too.

Both program's benefits are really other than their ability to print out a chord style lead sheet but its kind of funny in that they provide this feature whereas a lot of the more "sophisticated" and known music production programs do not.

When you need more exacting written renditions of your songs, especially where you may need the depiction of your chords with particular voicings (root note on top for example), then you're getting into the territory of needing more sophisticated notational abilities in your programming.

Play Music - affordable music notation software.

These programs are almost a necessity when you're writing music possibly for a band, a choir or an orchestra and also for musical theatre where a piano-vocal score is needed.

For starters, a low cost entry level program that is for notation only and has been compared to much more expensive notation programs is Play Music. Play Music will create notation from basic mouse click entries all the way to midi instrument input and it rates high among users for ease of use and capability.

Another lower cost program that has earned several 5 star awards from sites like TuCows.com is MagicScore Maestro.

The big guns in this category and thus the most expensive are Finale and Sibelius. They're both quite a bit more costly but they're unrivaled for their capabilities.

If you're going in the direction of complex scoring then check them out and note that more basic versions are available that you can get your feet wet with before spending several hundred dollars on their full blown programs.

"Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy."
-- Bill Blackman

Lyricist - the premiere indispensable and affordable lyric and lead sheet music writing program.

MasterWriter - the most comprehensive program for writing lyrics with a recorder for melodies and preprogrammed grooves.

Used by hit songwriters Gwen Stefani, Rob Thomas, Jimmy Webb, Kenny Loggins, Trent Reznor, Clint Black, Jeffrey Steele, and many more. Windows and Mac compatible.

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