Best Music Notation Software for Linux of 2024

Denemo is a free music program for GNU/Linux and Mac OSX. It allows you to quickly enter notation, which it then typesets using LilyPond's music engraver. Music can be inputted via the PC-Keyboard or played in using a MIDI controller. LilyPond is Denemo's preferred software for creating beautiful sheet music that meets the highest publishing standards. Denemo makes input easy by displaying the staffs in a clear format so that you can easily enter and edit the music. The typesetting takes place in the background, so you can work while it is happening. It is generally of flawless publication quality. If necessary, you can make some final adjustments to the typeset score using the mouse. This is a significant improvement on the other programs that require you to reposition colliding notation as you enter the music. Compare with Finale, Musescore and Sibelius.

MC Musiceditor music notation software is free/open-source (GPLv2 and above). Both MCMusiceditor-Lite and MCMusiceditor full versions are available for Windows (XP or higher). MCMusiceditor Lite also runs well on Linux (under Wine). Reinier Maliepaard is a psychologist, software engineer, musician, and teacher at ArtEZ Conservatorium Netherlands (music history and music theory). Why? To make it easier for musicians to create scores. The editor is user-friendly and can create professional scores without any musical knowledge. MC Musiceditor makes it easy to create, refine, hear, and print professional scores. MC Musiceditor also allows you to share and exchange musical notation data with WYSIWYG music editors like Finale, MuseScore, and Sibelius. (To name just the most popular programs among my students).

LilyPond, a music engraving program, is dedicated to producing the best-quality sheet music. It brings the beauty of traditional engraved music to computer printedouts. LilyPond, part of the GNU Project, is free software. LilyPond can be used to create engraving tasks of any kind, including classical music, complex notation and modern music. It also allows you to create lead sheets, educational materials and Schenker graphs. LilyPond was created by two musicians who wanted to do more than just print sheet music. Programmers can create software that produces beautiful printed parts. Musicians love to read beautiful music. It creates beautiful sheet music in accordance with the best traditions of classical music engraving. It handles all details of layout programmatically, so composers, transcribers, and publishers can focus on the music.