Songwriting Software Express, Issue # 28

To help your songwriting with a focus on the benefits of innovative songwriting 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 knowledge needed. Just play or point and click - Play Music’s user friendly interface will easily guide you through the composition process…simply click on the instrument sounds you want and Play Music will play back your song!

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.

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. How To Write Your Songs' Music
2. One Minute To Better Songwriting With Evyn Charles (New Regular Tip Column)
3. This Month's Notable Quote
4. Songwriting Software Plus Super Savings Zone

There are times in songwriting when it's advantageous or even necessary to depict the music of your song in written form. And situations can vary from simply just needing chord symbols over your lyrics to multi-instrument scores.

Depending on your level of music theory training this can be anywhere from almost easy to downright daunting. Luckily with the advent of ever more sophisticated technologies software programs are available for all skill levels and make such tasks a lot more manageable and much easier and in some cases the process is even automated.

We'll look at the three categories of music writing programs from chord based to compositional to automated interpretive and I think you'll find a program to fit your needs and skill level.

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Music writing software programs vary widely from the very simple chord based lead sheet programs to the very sophisticated compositional and scoring programs. And there are even programs today that can score your performance from an instrument, or even your vocal, automatically and without you needing to know how to notate music.

Today we'll walk through the chord based programs first 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. Then we'll touch on the automated programs that make music notation possible for those with little to no musical training at all.

Lead sheets serve the purpose of getting your song across to a demo producer and to other musicians if you're playing live and also simply serve for your own reference to practice and or produce your song.

However, most songwriters' lead sheets typically just cover the basic harmony component (chord progression) of the song and this of course leaves the need to communicate the melody, rhythm (groove) and tempo as well.

The melody, rhythm and tempo are typically expressed by most songwriters by simply singing or singing and playing the song if you play guitar or the piano accompanying your vocal.

A program that works well to address this approach is Lyricist that is primarily oriented towards lyric writing with provisions to automatically click in piano chords above your lyrics and to even automatically click in guitar templates that show exact fingering positions.

With Lyricist if your instrumentation is keyboard based or you just want to note a chord in shorthand then you can click in the chords like Amin7 above the lyric lines.

A music oriented program that actually takes your chord progression and then can construct an entire full band arrangement to any number of classical and contemporary styles is Band-in-a-Box. This program has been around for several years and has gotten more and more sophisticated. It works great particularly if you're a songwriter who's stronger suit may only be developing the chord progressions to accompany your song.

For more sophisticated renditions of your songs, especially if you're needing to portray a melody line along with your arrangement then you'll typically be looking at programs that can literally take what you play and can plot the notes for you onto music staves with the notes placed precisely where you've played them.

You can also "write" the music in with your mouse or digital pen and this type of software will also allow the depiction of your chords with their particular voicings that you may want to be precisely indicated as well. In other words you may want the first FMaj7 chord of your song to be played with the root note on top and writing this out on musical staves clearly indicates this.

Play Music - affordable music notation software.

These types of programs are used frequently by composers needing to produce written music for bands and or orchestras and also for musical theatre songwriters who need to produce a piano-vocal score as the essential and initial rendition of their work.

For starters a lower cost program is the Band-in-a-Box program that I mentioned above in the Chord Based Lead Sheet software discussion. Band-in-a-Box has notation capabilities that are starting to rival the capabilities of much more sophisticated programs.

Also if you notate your melody in Band-In-Box you can enter your lyrics note for note but Band-in-a-Box is not that easy to use in this regard compared to programs geared more to music notation only.

Another lower 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.

A slightly more expensive program that is also highly regarded having earned several 5 star awards from software sites like TuCows.com is MagicScore Maestro. It has more capability suited well to more complex scoring needs. It also has a lot of customization features.

And to move in the direction of very sophisticated notation programming two programs continue to lead the pack, Finale and Sibelius. They're both quite a bit more expensive but they're unrivaled for their capabilities.

Auto-scoring programs can take your live performance on your instrument (in addition to midi-instruments) like your acoustic guitar or piano or even your vocal and notate the the notes you've played.

If you're not versed in music notation this type of program comes in handy especially when you need or want to notate your melody.

For example these types of programs allow you to sing your melody either as a dummy lyric like with "na- nas" or similar or actually sing your lyrics to your melody into a any standard microphone and the program will interpret the notes you're singing and score them onto sheet music in your computer.

Essentially these auto-scoring type programs involve converting your live performance, an audio (.WAV file type) recording file, into a digital midi (.midi file type) recording file that your computer can then create the notation of your performance onto a standard sheet music layout on your computer screen.

How can you set-up and organize a writing space - or where do you go to be creative?

Most songwriters and indeed artists are sensitive the their environment. This seems to be especially true when we want to write. Having the right place and space to write can make all the difference in the quality of our work.

First of all consider your personal style and consider how you most comfortably accomplished creative tasks before.

Do you work best at a desk with a cup of coffee or in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn?

Do you work best at home alone with minimal distractions or at Starbucks with a lot of background conversation? Or one or the other depending on your mood?

There's no right or wrong place it's just what works for you. The point is to realize yes it is important to feel that wherever you are it's a place and situation that is supporting your creative energy at the time.

Evyn Charles is a full time independent singer-songwriter and musician in Los Angeles and a graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. In addition to regularly performing on his own he's played stints as varied as Club Med to currently being heard on the Orville Redenbacher popcorn commercial as well as playing with numerous classic touring acts.

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an
approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long."
- Leonard Bernstein

Lyricist - the premiere indispensable and affordable lyric and lead sheet music writing program that incorporates chord charting (guitar, piano and the Nashville Number System), key transposition, word processing (formatting, spell checking, etc.), thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, media file launch, song organization, emailing of your songs capability plus more! All the essential tools of the trade for writing and polishing lyrics and preparing lead sheets of your songs.

Write lyrics masterfully with MasterWriter.

MasterWriter - the most comprehensive program for writing lyrics with a recorder for melodies and preprogrammed grooves. Easy to use as your word processor. Won Best of Show at MacWorld Expo and has received rave reviews in every major music magazine. Endorsed by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, NSAI. Used by hit songwriters including 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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