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The Best Music Notation Software for Guitarists?

Since New Year resolutions expire at midnight, January 7th, I’m racing to realize my goal of finally becoming fluent with music notation software before the sands run out.

A new way to feign productivity in cafes!

I’d like to share some initial impressions about Notion. This isn’t a full-fledged product review — just a few thoughts about a half-dozen features I dig. (Most also apply to Notion’s sister app, Progression, which compiles all of Notion’s fretted-instrument tools, but omits the orchestral stuff. If you only plan to notate for guitar, the lower-priced Progression is probably all you need.)

1. Appropriate complexity. Two programs, Sibelius and Finale, dominate the music notation field. Both are powerful, deep programs. Most notation pros use them because they’re packed with features essential to “music engraving” (the archaic and pretentious term for the process of preparing music for publication).

Hey, Gates: Do You Know Your Dots?

thin_kitty — “Yes, but can you read bass clef too?”

My incoherent headline is inspired by one of my favorite music quotes, from the 1947 film The Song of the Thin Man: Detective William Powell is pursuing a clue based on a classical music theme, and suspicion falls on a hipster jazz musician. Powell asks another jazz musician whether the suspect was the sort of player who would use classical themes in his solos.

Absolutely not, sniffs the musician: “Swingin’ the classics is strictly off the cob! A gate who knows his dots takes his Beethoven and Brahms straight.”

Vintage translation: “It’s corny to mix classical and jazz. A swinger who can read music tends to prefer classical music in its unadulterated form.”

Modern translation: “Fusion sucks. Gimme the pure shit.”

Do you know your dots? Do you care? I happen to be a dot geek, and I don’t regret it. But really, it’s not that big a deal. And if I rattle off my favorite non-classical musicians (especially guitarists), well, the vast majority ain’t readers. I wish I could play as well as any number of guitarists who wouldn’t recognize middle C if it poked them in the eye.