William Ashworth

Jun 08, 2018 10:03 PM EDT

I'd comment, but I'm afraid of being wrong.

- Melody

Jul 29, 2020 4:45 AM EDT

Very informative and helpful for people who have food sensitivities like me . Thank you

- Shivani Malhotra

Dec 22, 2017 2:57 AM EST

Very good. Another advantage is text based content of clipboards that make user written tools and objects possible. Collisions between objects on layered staves is a problem a user webpage can help fix. http://wjporter.com/nwc/spacepart.htm

- Warren Porter

Dec 22, 2017 8:17 AM EST

Superb!! Lovely words, William.

- - Lloyd

Dec 22, 2017 2:57 PM EST

I've been using NWC since 1996 as well. I agree with most of what William writes, and wish to add that the learning curve is very shallow. Where the programme doesn't do something natively, there will often be a user tool (user object) that will do what you want; if not, there will be a workaround for most things.

One minor correction: there is a keyboard shortcut for Print Preview: {alt}{f}{v}

- David Palmquist

Dec 23, 2017 6:32 AM EST

Great writeup.

Yet, it made me think on how I compose (! - a very specific thing, different from arranging and certainly from rewriting a score). With composing, I find that the *pure* sequential nature of NWC in some cases hinders my flow of work (which is *not* to say that other software would be better - it is not, as far as I have tried it). But I have found ways around this, which I should describe somewhere...

Also, with regards to creating large scores, there are a few small features missing (e.g. synchronous switching of fond size, title and the name of the file to be printed would be very helpful). Again, I don't have any idea whether and how ohter score editors far here ...

... because I love NWC so much that I will never, never, never give it up any more!

Anyway, I did not know about the "Disable Justify" - thx for that.

- H.M.

Dec 27, 2017 5:15 AM EST

This was helpful. I've been using NWC for at least 10 years, maybe longer (new computer during that time, and old files have gone missing). I needed something at the time to enable me to quickly notate music for the groups I was working with. I can't remember how I originally came across NWC, (I think it was a blog recommendation for something easy and cheap!) but it got me up and running quickly.

I was too busy working as a musician to sit down and figure out all the workarounds, and would get frustrated at times by the native limitations. However, now that I have discovered the user objects, most of my frustrations have disappeared. I'd like to see a synchronized scrolling feature because I work with many drafts of the same piece, and when I'm editing, I find myself going back and forth over the same pieces until I go a little bit insane... If you know of a solution, I'd be eternally grateful.

My scores do look great, and I've had other professionals assume I was using Finale and compliment me on my notating. So that is really a compliment to Eric.

My newest conundrum is that I have a publishing house interested in my work, but they only use Finale. I'm thinking that I will need to switch and dread the learning curve. First I will try to do a file conversion to xml format and see how much data is lost. Also, I've done some self publishing, but have to think about whether NWC fits the bill for that on a bigger scale. Any thoughts on this topic would be welcome.

There are a few other things that would help me. I need to spend more time on the forum asking questions I guess. Whenever I do, I learn tricks that are helpful and that I wish I had learned sooner.

- Fiona Evison

Jun 29, 2018 6:08 PM EDT

You could just send it as is. They could easily download the free version of Noteworthy READER, but Finale must certainly use a sharp-eye type scanner like Sibelius' AudioScore, and they are probably having to fiddle around with it anyway.

- Anonymous

Nov 21, 2019 1:17 AM EST

Interesting comments. However the positive view from the composer's perspective hides one gaping flaw: if indeed NWC is going to focus on the first part of the chain (composing) but not on later parts (arranging, printing) then it would make compelling sense for it to be good at exporting to other systems which are good at the latter. The lack of comprehensive export capabilities mean that I do not ever want to get stuck on the NWC island.

- Patrick

Nov 21, 2019 1:51 AM EST

I agree with you, Patrick. However, there is an online NWC<>musicxml converter that works pretty well. It's available at https://www.niversoft.com/products/xml2nwc/

- Bill

Nov 21, 2019 3:20 AM EST

Patrick, please send me an email through the contact tab on my website. Let's talk.

- Bill

Dec 31, 2020 5:23 AM EST

NWC is the first composing software I tried since I was a primary6 pupil. And it is still my favourite after 20years comparing to all those finale, museScore, etc... after 20 years!
I feel happy to see there is another person shares the same thoughts! <3

- Abby Chau

Jan 14, 2021 6:05 PM EST

I'm a superfan! I've tried everything and the biggest thing that gets me down is that the other programs all have auto-correct! Sometimes I WANT to write something the wrong way!
But I feel like I must be missing something? Other than super avant-garde music (which, let's be honest, you're probably better off cobbling together in photoshop or something) what is the reason to use Finale or Sibelius instead!?

- Bloop

Feb 28, 2021 2:26 PM EST

I'd have to agree with your view of NoteWorthy. We’ve used for 25 years to add scores to the Cyber Hymnal (http://www.hymntime.com/tch), and it's been more than adequate. Granted, our focus is primarily congregational singing, so most of the scores are SATB, but there are a few like O Holy Night (the first music broadcast over a radio!) and The Holy City, which show off NWC's capabilities more fully.

- Dick Adams

Mar 24, 2018 4:22 PM EDT

Agreed that humans are not evil, and that acts can be evil. Well put.
My criterion for evil acts is any act that intentionally hurts another human. Of course some would widen that to "other life" or even to "our environment".

- Ken Deveney

Aug 14, 2017 9:27 AM EDT

Hatred and cruelty are terrors of fear and loneliness crying out for help.

- Melody

Aug 14, 2017 11:56 AM EDT

Jesus gave a commandment to love others. The Ten commandments can really be summed up in that one. How much we love others shows a direct correlation to our love for God. Today's world is filled with so much hate. What would happen if we tried to love more, not post the hateful comments nor read them. It might be a small beginning, but it might lead to something big.

- Caralyn Haglund