What is Denemo?
Denemo is a free music notation program for GNU/Linux, Mac OSX and Windows that lets you rapidly enter notation which it typesets using the LilyPond music engraver. Music can be typed in at the PC-Keyboard (watch demo), or played in via MIDI controller (watch demo), or input acoustically into a microphone plugged into your computer’s soundcard.
Denemo uses LilyPond which generates beautiful sheet music to the highest publishing standards. During input Denemo displays the staffs in a simple fashion, so you can enter and edit the music efficiently. The typesetting is done in the background while you work, and is generally flawless publication quality. Some final tweaks can be done on the typeset score with the mouse if needed (watch demo). This represents an enormous practical improvement over the popular programs which require you to re-position colliding notation constantly as you enter the music. See comparison with Musescore, Finale or Sibelius.
What is Sibelius for Mac. Sibelius is the world's best-selling music notation software for Mac. It is as intuitive to use as a pen, yet so powerful that it does most things in less than the blink of an eye. The demo includes example scores and a demo user guide summarizing the main features of the program. Free forever, free for everyone:Music Maker Free Edition. Our promise to you: From now on, you will always be able to download the latest software version of Music Maker. Even if you use the free version, you'll receive all basic functions and bug fixes for free. And that's the case for as long as we continue to develop the program.
Unique to Denemo are methods to enter music in a musical, rather than mechanical, manner. This can be used for transcribing scores. In an ideal world we would just ‘play in’ the music, but this cannot be done reliably. If you try it, you find you spend more time spotting errors and fixing them than is pleasant. Instead, Denemo allows you to use the numeric keypad as a kind of rhythm instrument – you play in a phrase or two of the music using the number keys to indicate the note durations. Audible feedback lets you hear what you have entered; playing the phrase a second time on a real instrument adds the pitches to the rhythm. Again, Denemo gives you audible feedback so that you don’t enter E-flat when you meant D-sharp etc. You have to play the right notes in the right order, but your timing can be as sloppy as you like. Watch a 5 min demo.
New in version 2.5.2 is a pitches-first method – play in the piece first and then the rhythms – this way you hear the music in both stages – see demo
Another great feature is the ability to put links in the score to the original source document that you transcribed from. Clicking on such a link opens the document for you and highlights the bar you are looking at. You can use this to continue work from where you left off, or for looking back at the source to check a doubtful bar.
Beginner to Professional: Denemo can be used for a brief student homework all the way to a full-scale opera. Support is there for creating the widest range of notation – Tablature, Chord Charts, Fret Diagrams, Drums, transposing instruments, ossia, ottava, cue, title pages, table-of-contents, critical commentaries, footnotes quoting music, and more with LilyPond’s extensive syntax available for even more demanding uses.
In Brief: Denemo is a free (GPL) music notation editor, creating notation straight from your input that outshines the commercial competition (comparison with other score writers). You can compose, transcribe, arrange, listen to the music and much more. Watch a demo (and some other demos).
News
The latest stable version is 3.6.2
Released February 08, 2021 (release notes)
32-bit package
Microsoft Store
Portable version
Older versions
Older versions
Linux
Many distributions release a package of MuseScore with each new version of the distribution. However, with the exception of rolling distributions like Arch Linux, MuseScore releases rarely coincide with a distribution release so these packages are often out-of-date.If you want to run the latest MuseScore version and get support from the MuseScore developers, we suggest installing an AppImage, however the distribution packages, even if older, are usually supported by the distribution’s package maintainers. Community images are provided by users for their distributions and have at best voluntary support.
AppImage (recommended)
Suitable for all Linux distributions.Old computers (32-bit)
New computers (64-bit)
ARM-architectures
Snappy
Suitable for all Linux distributions.Instructions
Run
sudo snap install musescore
Flatpak
Suitable for all Linux distributions.Download
Ubuntu
Community packageor search for 'musescore' in the Ubuntu Software Center.
Mint
Community packageor search for 'musescore' in Software Manager.
Arch Linux
Distribution packageCommunity package
Debian
The package 'musescore' can be installed from the main repository using your favorite package manager or check the 'unstable' (sid) distribution.Fedora
Distribution packageor run
'dnf install musescore'
or via the 'Software' GUI package install tool.Mageia
Download the correct RPM package using Mageia Control Center.PCLinuxOS
Available in the PCLinuxOS repositories.Gentoo
Available in Portage. Just run'emerge musescore'
.openSUSE
Install through YaST with Leap 15.1 +, or with the command'sudo zypper in musescore'
. For Leap 15.0 Community packages are availabe.*BSD
Free Music Score Software For Mac Os
OpenBSD
Install MuseScore from packages:pkg_add musescore
or ports: audio/mscore
FreeBSD
Install MuseScore from the ports collection:audio/musescore
DragonFly BSD
Install MuseScore from the ports collection:audio/musescore
Older and unsupported versions
Development builds
Development builds are produced from the code of MuseScore that is being developed. They are intended for testers and advanced users who want to experiment with new features, or need access to the latest bug fixes and are willing to risk the instability of an unfinished product.
A file saved from a nightly build may not open in a future nightly or any released version. Use at your own risk.
Please report any bugs you find.
See also comparison of stable, prerelease, and development builds. Builds that have 'master' in the name of the download package are based on the development branch.
Best Free Music Notation Program
Source code
MuseScore is a GNU GPL licensed open-source program.
- Download the source files for the stable release of MuseScore.
- The latest MuseScore code is always available in the GitHub repository.
- Read the developer handbook for instructions to build MuseScore for your OS.
Minimum requirements
Windows
- Windows 7 or higher.
- At least 300MB hard disk space
- 1024x600 pixel resolution
Music Score Software
Mac
- macOS 10.10 or higher
- 1024x600 monitor resolution