» Becoming Beethoven [- mass konfuzion.com -]: Music, Life, etc.

Recently, I’ve made a breakthrough discovery: a little free app called MuseScore. It’s not a studio-quality synthesizer, sequencer, or recording tool, but it will still revolutionize the way I make music. MuseScore is musical notation software–in plain English, it’s a sheet music editor that lets you listen to what you’re writing. Lately, I’ve been getting more interested in “natural sounds”–actually playing my instruments, as opposed to “cheating” by programming the notes with a sequencer, such as my beloved FL Studio. With MuseScore, I’ve started writing music as a musician would read it, as opposed to the piano roll style that FL Studio uses.

Now, any digital musician worth his/her salt knows that other pretty powerful programs, like Cubase, already include a score editor. In fact, Cubase’s score editor is so sophisticated, you can record yourself playing whatever you want through MIDI, click a button, and you’ll instantly have the sheet music. MuseScore can’t do that (er, it can, but not as well as Cubase can). For that reason, it’s just as powerful a learning tool as it is a creation tool. Plus, it’s FREE! It’s completely gratis, open-source, and awesome.

So, now that I’m writing sheet music, expect a symphony sometime soon