NoteFlight Review: The Best Online Music Notation Software?

This music notation software has been around for twelve years now, making significant changes to the way we perceive online music, or has it? ‘Dedicated to reinventing the way people create, share, teach, buy and sell written music’. These are their exact words. During their twelve-year online presence have they been true to their word? Compare the music industry now to what it was before they came up. Have they made a mark?

Their objectives: make it easy to create and share written music online; Empower developers to build a new world of musical and educational applications and encourage a vibrant community of users by keeping the basics free.

The objectives set by the company give you an idea of the software you expect. In the next few paragraphs, I shall be attempting to unravel the inner workings of this software to test if they have lived up to their word.

What Is Noteflight?

Noteflight LLC was founded in 2007 by Jack Berkovitz and his team of engineers and architects with the aim of changing the way things were run in the online written music industry. It can be described in a number of ways.

Noteflight is a music notation software and an online platform where written music is created, shared among its users, taught and sold. In other words, it is a full-featured application to display, edit, and playback music notation.

An online notation editor for creating quality and professional scores featuring a marketplace to buy, adapt and sell your music scores allowing you to purchase, download, print, and play written music.

How I Learned Music On Noteflight

I recently joined the millions of Noteflight users in an effort to fulfil my lifelong dream of learning how to write and create music. On Noteflight learn, I managed to cover quite a lot in such a short time. They made the learning process simple, fast, an efficient, offering more value throughout than I had anticipated.

I can now say that I can proficiently write music. I can read and write scores. One more item off my bucket list thanks to Noteflight.

Noteflight Features

1. Marketplace

This is a platform where music scores are offered up for sale by the users of the service.

2. Plan Features

Noteflight has a number of different features that are unique to the various plans. Here is a look at the features that each plan comes with.

– Noteflight Basic

This is the free entry-level software. It has a number of cool features like;

• It allows you to write music anywhere, anytime.
• You can share scores publicly.
• You can also view and join groups.
• Connect with musicians, composers and arrangers.
• Allows to import and export MusicXML and MIDI.

– Noteflight Learn

This is a plan offered to students and music teachers with a variety of features like;

• A private website for organizing classroom sessions.
• Perform Mode which is used for listening to and performing alongside selected music scores.
• Learning Management Systems integration, Google Classroom and Music First Online Classroom.

– Noteflight Premium

Features all free notation software plus a couple of cool features like;

• Create an unlimited number of scores.
• Sell music on Noteflight marketplace
• Compose and listen to your scores using more than 85 professionally recorded high-quality instruments.
• Live audio recording into scores.
• Share scores with individual Noteflight users.
• Organize scores into collections.
• Create communities and private groups.

How Does it Work?

Noteflight is a score editor to use. The score editor’s interface is easy to interact with. You have to sign up for the service either by subscribing to the paid plans or using the free Noteflight Basic.

Navigating the homepage is easy. At the center is a list of all your scores. To create a score, click on the create new score button at the top left corner of the screen. You can create scores in three ways; from a blank sheet, by importing an XML or a MIDI file or by using templates accessible to the premium users.

The score editor is organized into pallets, which are groups o tools organized by function. The pallets can be pinned or unpinned from the toolbar by clicking the menu button. Examples of the pallets available are; the rhythm pallet, sound pallet, time pallet among others, several in number.

On the score editor, you get 3 options on the top left corner of your screen. The three options; to play a score, transcribe or record a score. Use your mouse and cursor to create and edit your scores. You can watch the videos on their site to learn more on how to use the score editor.

The scores created can be shared between the users for instance on Noteflight Learn, students can access common pallets created for their classes.

Noteflight users can also sell and buy scores in the marketplace.

Prices and Plans

Noteflight has three plans.

• Noteflight Basic: This plan is free forever! It is accessible to everyone who signs up for free. You get access to free cool features.
• Noteflight Learn: An annual subscription of 69$ for 10 users and with every additional user, an extra 2$ is added.
• Noteflight Premium: A monthly subscription of 7.95$ or a yearly payment of 49$. This plan can be cancelled before the end of 30 days after subscription for a full refund.

Pros

• The Noteflight user interface is drop-dead simple to use. It also has a professional look that is appealing to the eye.
• With Noteflight, it is easy to create and share written music online.
• The free version, Noteflight Basic has loads of features for an entry-level software. It features customizable text and musical markings, which is a lot compared to what other software are offering.
• The cloud storage feature allows you to do your music creations from anywhere, anytime using a range of devices that support compatible browsers like Firefox, Google Chrome and what not.
• Noteflight allows you to seamlessly export and import files in a variety of formats such as MIDI and PDF.

Cons

• The playback feature on this software usually ignores slurs and ties. It rearticulates the notes when they are meant to be connected.
• It can be a little difficult to switch from writing notes to writing tests on Noteflight Learn platform.
• The software is demanding, overpowering most browsers making processes run slow at times.
• Too many functions make it hard to navigate, especially for first-time users.

Verdict

Simplicity is everything when it comes to software and music writing. Noteflight gives you this and more. It offers up countless features presented in a professional, high-quality user interface. This, combined with how easy it is to export and import music files in a variety of formats and a couple of other conveniences like cloud storage that lets you work from anywhere in the world, anytime is definitely enough for me to recommend it. It is a great learning tool for students too.

Has Noteflght LLC achieved what it set out for twelve years down the line? Definitely. You will have to make some compromises as you use the software, like how it slows down or even occasionally crashes your browser, but these are problems that can be solved with clever programming. So I would say go right ahead.