I Need a Simple Music Notation Software for "Chord Progression Charts"

[warwick.hoy]

I just want to be able to input the chord names and bass melodies over a two voiced staff (guitar and bass), 3 or 4 measure per bar according to meter; and be able to save it in a file that is Facebook friendly.

So far I've looked into Finale Songwriter (Notepad doesn't seem to allow you to input chord names ie "Am" over the staves) MuseScore (seems tedious to get a full page of staves and you have to associate the chord name with a note, rest or slash) and Sibileus (maybe gave up on a bit to hastily) and they all seem great but are way more than I need or to tedious to use and none of them save in a file that is easy to post.

I've searched the free software threads here on TB and those seem to be the three that pop up and also a tab writer,...which is not for me.

I don't need playback or midi input but I would like to be able to save the file in such a way that I can upload it to a closed Facebook group either by copy and paste or perhaps as a jpeg or pdf file. This will be to chart out cover songs to share with bandmates.

Any help would be appreciated. Freeware/Shareware would be nice (I've been checking out trial versions,...not pirated software).

[Chris K]

I use Sibelius. You can use the graphic export function to export to Word (.txt). Word may be converted to .pdf or .jpeg.

What more do you want?

[warwick.hoy]

Sibelius is too pricey for me especially for what I want to do.

I'm used to just writing the progressions out on staff paper but adding in all the measure lines with a straight edge (I'm a neat freak) is tedious,...I guess I could just get the staff set up the way I want print it out (if I had a printer),..hand write the progressions in then scan it (if I had a scanner).

Finale Songwriter is the easiest to use for what I want to do,...but I can't seem to save files in anything other than .mus and midi,...maybe the full version will save txt,...but at $50 it still a little more than I want to spend especially if I'm not going to use all the feature,...perhaps I need to look a little further into the demo version for export functions.

[Dirk Diggler]

No doubt go for open source, great program:
http://tuxguitar.herac.com.ar/
Tux guitar is great to use and a pleasure to work with.
Dirk

[Intenzity]

Check out Lilypond -

http://lilypond.org/

It's free, cross platform, doesnt require reading music even, which seems odd, if you can type you can enter stuff in.

It's a little weird at first, but it makes awesome looking printouts and can do anything Sibelius or Finale can do.

[FenderP]

Sibelius First is not expensive. The full blown one is. Most of the popular notation programs have a scaled back version. If $50 - $100 is too expensive, look into music paper and pen. Easy, cheap, and nearly free.

Guitar Pro may also work for you, too.

[WJGreer]

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

So far I've looked into Finale Songwriter (Notepad doesn't seem to allow you to input chord names ie "Am" over the staves)

I think it does - you would just add a text box and position it where you want it. It does not, however, natively print to .PDF, so the best way to share it seems to be taking screenshots of the music and saving them off as .jog files.

See what I did here - not at all complex and just a couple lines, but there is some text to show you how you could use it...

[RosieB]

I use Finale and save as pdf files quite often. I use adobe professional on my desktop to convert to pdf but didn't want the expense for my laptop, so I downloaded a free pdf converter (primo/nitro) from the internet. To convert, you open your file in Finale, go to print and set your printer as the pdf converter. After you click on print it will ask you for a file name and where you want to save to. Since this gave me pdf capabilities for all the software on my laptop, I would think that it would work with any music notation software you choose. I'm also assuming that you are running windows and not a mac.