Despite the general excitement, I must say I was not impressed with Noteflight. From a user standpoint, it was slow, buggy, particular, and generally trouble to use. The note grid was often inconsistent for me, which led to notes dropping in the wrong place. Also, it was a hassle to have the cursor move forward every time I input a note. This needs to be adjustable(though maybe it is and I missed it). The playback often lagged, and the options for composition were seriously lacking beyond the very basics.
Obviously, Noteflight has two big advantages: it's free and it's completely online. No need to buy expensive software, move files around on flashdrives, work only on school computers, and the like. However, with the amount of space anyone can obtain online for free and the fact that bandwith is easy to access, either via home internet connections, publicly accessible library computers, public wifi, or other methods, to me, the only real concern needs to be the price of software.
On that note, for education purposes, I would prefer to see a piece of software somewhere in between Finale/Sibelius and Noteflight in terms of functionality, priced in the same range as a middle school or high school textbook. For students in general music class with only a passing interest in composition, Noteflight may be sufficient. But for those who do have a strong enough interest in things like arranging and composition so as to take a class, I don't think it is unreasonable to ask them to shell out some money for software, akin to buying math textbooks for algebra. Students aren't taught math from suboptimal and limited mathematics websites simply because they are free, and those seriously interested in the uses of music notation software should not have to use a program as flawed and limited as Noteflight simply because it is free.
Despite offers of student editions, Finale and Sibelius are still quite pricey. Noteworthy Composer is in a more appropriate price range, but has a rather poor interface. It does, however, have significant functionality for most compositional uses. Still, it seems to me that a better alternative could be created.
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Matt -- we're of course disappointed that you didn't have the best experience with Noteflight, and we recognize that there are limitations and, yes, even flaws.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to point out a few quick usage hints, though, in the hope that you and your readers might have a better experience in the future. And we'll keep working on improving the program, for our part.
The note grid for mouse entry can be made easier to use by simply using the Zoom slider to make the score larger. This makes everything bigger, and make note positioning more reliable in cases where mouse control is insufficient.
The cursor can be returned to the current note by simply clicking on a new note immediately after it is entered. The fact that it advances is based on our observation that when we tested it without auto-advance, many users were confused about how to enter the next note.
Finally, as with Sibelius and Finale, keyboard shortcuts remain the true "power user" technique for entering music quickly, and we do support a full set of them.
Joe Berkovitz
CEO
Noteflight, LLC