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LinuxLinks has a 12-section article on the various free and open source score writers available for composers and musicians.
Fortunately, there is a wide range of open source scorewriters which are supported in Linux. This article recommends cost-effective alternatives to Sibelius and Finale. The software featured here is released under freely distributable licenses, all are available to download at no charge, and generate music scores which are engraved with traditional layout rules.
This article does not limit itself to software with a graphical user interface. One of the benefits of using software which doesn't depend on a graphical interface is that you can create and edit music on any type of device, even small handheld devices.
Towards the bottom of the first page, there is a table of the score writers reviewed. Each is reviewed on a separate page. Follow the links there to the individual pages describing each one.
Source : 11 Excellent Free Scorewriters – Compose, arrange, print, and publish music
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 10 2018, @05:27AM (2 children)
Musescore lets you enter notes with a keyboard of either type.
It does the typesetting. It lets you change things globally. It lets you override that for specific notes.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday February 10 2018, @04:11PM (1 child)
Lilypond has a number of front ends (including Frescobaldi) which allow entering pitches via MIDI keyboard, too.
So does Lilypond. Arguably Lilypond is mainly a typesetting engine.
There are hundreds -- probably thousands -- of global settings within Lilypond that you can alter, handling settings Musescore would never dream of altering.
In Lilypond, you have the "\override" syntax just for that, though Lilypond can override commands within any level of context (for a specific note, a specific series of notes, a specific voice, a specific staff, etc.).
To be clear, I have nothing against Musescore, which is a fine piece of software. For people doing basic music typesetting, either is likely fine. I'm not a Lilypond zealot. I suppose the reason I wrote my original post is because text input of music seems weird at first. I tried Lilypond twice and then quit it before I finally adopted it as my main method to typeset music. But over the years, I've realized it's significantly more flexible and powerful than other methods for input, once you're used to it.
If you want to argue that casual users will have a quicker "start up" with Musescore, I wouldn't disagree. But in terms of features, it's hard to find something with as many options as Lilypond.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 10 2018, @06:36PM
Lilypond + Frescobaldi is definitely more flexible than MuseScore, but MuseScore is getting closer. For my wife's use MuseScore was more than sufficient except that it was difficult to adjust the size of note-heads. (I could generally manage that, though not always, but she couldn't.) There was a period a few years ago when when would enter music into MuseScore, I'd convert it into Lilypond, and then I'd edit it in Frescobaldi until she approved of the layout.
OTOH, Lilypond + Frescobaldi was what I found ideal. it was the most flexible in every way. And the quickly regenerated PDF window showed the effects of the changes as you made them.
OTOH, was we were doing was direct composition, not playing into the score and then adjusting it. (I'm not any kind of musician, and my wife was definitely not a programmer.) So she would either enter notes in a GUI, or tell me note my note what to enter. If I played a midi instrument, I might well want to play in directly and then edit. And if my wife had, she might have. But she played largely flute and recorder, with occasional acoustic (not electric) piano. (She didn't like the feel of the keys on the electric pianos that she tried...and frequently didn't like the sound.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.