Sheet music and notation

A hands-on review of Maestro, the free notation app that opens Finale files. Entry feels like home; layout and engraving do not. What that means if a Finale file is your source for a score.

Maestro, a free notation editor for Mac and Windows, now opens and saves Finale files without Finale. Here is what it changes for anyone holding a folder of legacy scores.

Scoring Notes spent an episode on reading a notation file before you change it: missing fonts, hidden instruments, fragile setups. Here is how that applies to a score you just generated from audio.

Sibelius 2026.9 lets you move tremolo strokes without moving stems, set tie height globally and apply voice rules to cross-staff notes. What that fixes at the desk.

Golden Gate drops Intel Macs and gives Rosetta one last year. The notation apps are already native, but your plug-ins, printer drivers and old Notion 6 install may not be.

Flat has moved beyond the browser with Mac and Windows apps, and built its own optical music recognition engine, released as a separate scanning app called Opuscan.

A guided tour of the four stages that turn a stereo audio file into engraved, exportable sheet music — and the engineering tradeoffs at each step.

A simple guide to understanding each export type and when to use them, whether you're heading into a rehearsal, DAW session, or notation software.