MuseScore

MuseScore is a scorewriter: notes are entered onto a staff and what appears on screen matches what will be printed. Input works from the computer keyboard, the mouse, or a connected MIDI keyboard, and the layout engine handles spacing, beaming, page breaks and collision avoidance while the score is being written.

Notation coverage goes past plain melody: multiple voices per staff, dynamics, articulations, ornaments, repeats and jumps, chord symbols, lyrics with several verses, tablature for fretted instruments, percussion staves and figured bass. A score plays back through a bundled sound library so mistakes are heard as well as seen, with tempo, dynamics and instrument changes following the notation. Instrument parts are extracted from the full score and stay linked to it, so a correction in the score reaches the part.

Scores export as PDF, image, MIDI or audio, and MusicXML import and export moves them to and from other notation programs. Plugins written in QML add extra editing operations.