Any music tech gurus out there...

[Tinkers]

I need help, as an almost non musical person myself.

My DD plays piano/keyboard. She has a Yamaha keyboard at home. As well as the general practise, she likes to compose stuff too.

I'd like to encourage this and believe you can get software that records the music as you play as a musical score (we have managed to record music as wav files onto a mac, that's not what I'm after)

I've tried a search for this sort of thing and found musescore, which was good for what it was (and DD learnt how to use it really easily) but doesn't actually record what is being played.

Any pointers gratefully received.

[ToadMum]

DD thinks you may be able to do this with Sibelius, but looking at the website, I am not sure

[Tinkers]

DD thinks you may be able to do this with Sibelius, but looking at the website, I am not sure

Thanks, there's a 'try it free' version, so we will have a look to see if it's any good.

[Warks mum]

Back in the 1990s I used a programme called MusicTime to do this - I could play on my electronic keyboard and take the midi output into MusicTime (it cost $25 in those days!) through a sound card. In those days I had to buy a sound card as it wasn't a standard feature in PCs.

I was using it to transpose music for orchestral instruments, such as clarinets, and I've passed on the responsibility for this now but I downloaded Musescore a while ago to see whether it would do a similar thing. I think it should do the job, but you'll need to record the music as a midi file first and then and import it.

DD was strongly recommended Sibelius for her GCSE music course. I was pretty horrified by the price and we tried Musescore instead. She managed an A* without the need for Sibelius in the end!

[Warks mum]

I've just re-read your post and realise you're already able to create .wav files. In that case, you should be able to use a (free?) .wav to midi converter and then import the midi files into Musescore.

Hope this makes sense!

[Tinkers]

Can musescore change a midi file into a musical score?

Basically she wants a means of writing down the music as she is composing other than pencil and paper.

Musescore isn't too bad as long as the notes are the same length, and she got use to it quite quickly.

She just would like it to do more...

[Warks mum]

Yes, see http://musescore.org/en/node/19464" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tinkers]

Thinking about it we should be able to get a midi file direct from the keyboard instead of a wav file, so wouldn't need to convert.

She hasn't got much HW tonight and is currently playing do I might just get the mac out and see what we can manage.