Best Music Notation Software for Mac of 2025

Unleash your musical creativity with the incredibly quick and user-friendly Notion™ 6, a cutting-edge platform for music composition and performance. Enjoy the freedom to compose on your own terms and even input music using your handwriting. Elevate your projects through seamless integration with Studio One®, allowing for a more streamlined workflow. Experience rich and captivating sounds with high-quality samples from the London Symphony Orchestra and other renowned ensembles. Create polished scores with unprecedented speed, ranging from intricate film orchestrations to straightforward lead sheets and guitar tablatures. Regardless of whether you are an instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger, educator, or student, Notion 6 is designed to be the most accessible and sonically impressive notation software available today. Notion 6: Transforming the landscape of music notation for everyone.

Crescendo offers a straightforward and user-friendly platform for composing musical notation or guitar tabs, enabling users to effortlessly write, save, and print their music creations directly from their computers. With a diverse selection of sheet music symbols and the ability to incorporate various time and key signatures, along with a flexible layout, composers have the freedom to meticulously craft their arrangements. The software facilitates the addition of notes and rests in multiple values, from whole notes to thirty-second notes. Percussion notation can also be composed using various drum kits and templates. Composers can create dotted notes, chords, and implement repeats, enhancing their compositions further. Additionally, users can insert text for titles, tempo markings, dynamics, or lyrics, and easily manage measures with copy, cut, and paste features to incorporate thematic material. Staves can be braced together for collaborative ensemble scoring, and the program supports VSTi instruments, including piano and violin, ensuring high-quality MIDI playback for a realistic listening experience. This comprehensive tool truly empowers musicians to bring their musical visions to life.

With options for step-time and real-time MIDI input, as well as a built-in virtual piano keyboard, users can enter notes through various methods, including typing or clicking. You also have the flexibility to transpose selected sections to different keys or intervals, and even diatonically within the same key. Various tablature styles are available, featuring note symbols positioned outside the staff or upside-down string representations, alongside linked standard and tab staff pairs. MuseScore now supports opening Guitar Pro files, which facilitates a smooth transition for users. The import filters are continuously evolving with each new update. Every modification made to any part of the score is instantly mirrored in the full arrangement and vice versa, allowing for seamless editing. You can easily toggle between transposed and concert pitch, ensuring that the sounding pitches remain consistent while the written notes adapt. This feature allows you to concentrate on the essence of the music without being distracted by line or page breaks. When you're ready to prepare for printing, simply switch to Page View for a polished layout. Additionally, the user-friendly interface enhances the overall experience of music composition and editing.

Solfeg.io has created both a product for individual music learning & a product designed specially for teachers. App for schools: 👇 live, play-along music software and a lesson suite with many songs for teaching general music, theory, and instruments. Some of the features: ✅ Song library with the latest TikTok and Spotify songs you can play along 🎶 Quizzes for students 💻 Resources & Lesson Plans 📊 Student progress statistics Pricing: Maestro plan: $249 per year, Virtuoso plan: -$899 per year Solfeg.io for self learning 👇 play-along app that helps people relax whilst learning to hit songs that they known and can associate with on ukulele, piano or guitar. Features: Song library with the latest TikTok and Spotify songs 🎧 A tuner (guitar and ukulele) ✅ Chord recognition Instant feedback👂 TABS 🎼 Guided video tutorials ▶️ Weekly exercises ✨ Progress tracking Pricing: $5,99 per month or $29,99 per 6 months

ScoreCloud makes it incredibly easy to convert your musical creations into sheet music almost instantly. Whether you're working with a live recording from a polyphonic or monophonic instrument, the process of notating music has never been more straightforward. This music notation software is perfect for a wide range of users, including musicians, students, educators, choirs, bands, and both composers and arrangers, and it is available for free download. You can create sheet music from your performances, enjoy seamless syncing across multiple devices, and take advantage of its intuitive editing capabilities. With no print watermark, unlimited song creation, and enhanced import and export options, ScoreCloud 4 for PC and Mac is entirely free to download, allowing you to dive into music notation from audio files and benefit from cloud synchronization right away. For those interested in additional features, the paid plans come with a free trial that grants complete access to all advanced functionalities upon signing up. Furthermore, users have the option to connect a MIDI keyboard to play music or utilize a virtual piano on their computer keyboard. Explore the various tools in the toolbar to make edits, incorporate voices, add lyrics, and include chords into your compositions. Overall, ScoreCloud provides an excellent platform for anyone looking to bring their musical ideas to life.

NotePerformer features its own collection of sounds, representing a comprehensive modern symphonic orchestra. It evaluates your musical score and delivers performances of all instruments with an authentic musical expression. Installation is straightforward, and utilizing NotePerformer is as simple as using the default sounds available in your notation software. Our goal is to ensure that working with our software is more gratifying than any alternative playback solution. Should you encounter any problems, we encourage you to share your feedback with us. Enjoy the benefit of not having to wait for samples to load while you work on your scores, as our optimized sounds load significantly faster. We leverage our proprietary technologies to create a seamless experience that merges sampling with synthesis. NotePerformer can be installed on an unlimited number of computers, although you will need to restart your notation software between devices. This flexibility makes it ideal for businesses, studios, or educational environments, allowing multiple users to access it on a shared site. The pricing begins at $200 for 1-5 seats, with the added convenience of mixing Mac and PC workstations. Experience superior playback quality in popular notation software such as Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico, and elevate your music production to new heights. Additionally, our user-friendly interface ensures that even those with minimal technical experience can achieve impressive results.

Denemo is a free music notation software available for GNU/Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows, designed to allow users to quickly input musical notation which is then typeset by the LilyPond music engraver. You can enter music using your computer keyboard, a MIDI controller, or even acoustically through a microphone connected to your sound card. By utilizing LilyPond, Denemo produces aesthetically pleasing sheet music that meets the highest standards of publication quality. The interface presents the staffs in a straightforward manner, enabling efficient music entry and editing. While you work, the typesetting occurs seamlessly in the background, achieving a generally flawless result that is suitable for publication. If necessary, final adjustments can be made to the typeset score using the mouse. This functionality offers a significant advantage over other widely used programs that often necessitate constant repositioning of overlapping notation during music input, making Denemo a more user-friendly option. In comparison with software like Musescore, Finale, or Sibelius, Denemo stands out for its efficient workflow and intuitive design.

With a PreSonus Sphere membership, you gain access to an extensive library of master class videos, collaborative tools, monthly live streams, exclusive features for Studio One, and presets crafted by industry experts, along with a wealth of loop and construction kit content that is regularly updated every month. There are absolutely no hidden fees or extra upgrade costs involved. This membership also provides a license for the renowned Studio One Professional, the only digital audio workstation that enables you to record, produce, mix, master, and perform all within a single platform. You can seamlessly transition from a creative idea to a fully mastered album, and even utilize song stems as backing tracks during live performances, all thanks to Studio One’s capabilities. PreSonus Sphere truly serves as the ultimate toolkit for today’s composer, allowing you to create everything from straightforward lead sheets to intricate orchestrations with ease. Additionally, the award-winning Notion® software helps you produce polished scores in a fraction of the time, enhancing your compositional workflow significantly.

Embrace your musical creativity and translate it into a stunning score to share your artistic vision with the world. Just like every musician has their own individual style, the reasons for choosing Finale software to compose music vary widely. Finale empowers you to easily bring to life any music notation you envision, while also catering to your creative process. Whether your inspiration leads you to a straightforward lead sheet or a complex Hollywood film score, Finale stands as the reliable choice for achieving exceptional results. This software grants you the liberty to choose not only what you create but also how you bring your ideas to fruition. From crafting a simple melody to orchestrating an elaborate Broadway production, you have the versatility to shape your music freely, following your intuition and preferred workflow. By inputting your compositions into Finale, you unlock a world of possibilities, enabling you to effortlessly rearrange measures, modify keys, and explore a myriad of transformations for your musical ideas. Ultimately, the software acts as both a canvas and a tool, allowing your creativity to flourish in limitless ways.

Your creativity in music knows no bounds. Bring your auditory ideas to life with striking compositions that resonate with audiences, whether on stage or screen, through Sibelius. The software continuously evolves, introducing new features and enhancements regularly. With an active subscription, you gain immediate access to these updates upon release. Collaborating with composers who don't use Sibelius is effortless; a simple click allows you to convert MusicXML files into beautifully formatted scores without any hassle. You can easily import score information into your preferred template or a brand-new Sibelius document. All aspects of notation, markup, and layout are automatically and intelligently organized, enabling you to dive straight into the music without the tedious task of adjusting each element to fit a template. Used by more composers, arrangers, copyists, and engravers than any other software, Sibelius stands out as the fastest and most intelligent tool for music creation. With its user-friendly features and constant updates, Sibelius empowers musicians to focus on their passion instead of technical details.

LilyPond stands out as a music engraving software dedicated to generating the finest quality sheet music achievable. It successfully captures the visual appeal of traditionally engraved scores in digital formats. As a free software initiative under the GNU Project, LilyPond offers both power and versatility for a variety of engraving needs, including classical compositions, intricate notations, early and modern music, tablature, vocal arrangements, lead sheets, educational resources, large orchestral scores, tailored outputs, and even Schenker graphs. The inception of LilyPond was inspired by two musicians who sought to enhance the often lifeless appearance of computer-generated sheet music. They believed that musicians should engage with aesthetically pleasing music, prompting programmers to develop software capable of producing graceful printed scores. Consequently, this program excels in crafting visually appealing sheet music, adhering closely to the finest traditions of classical engraving. By automating layout details, LilyPond empowers composers, transcribers, and publishers to concentrate more on the artistry of the music itself, ensuring that the creative process remains at the forefront.