[batonstar]

I have been playing alto sax now for a while and considering buying a tenor sax as well.

I have loads of sheet music (with accompaniment CD) for alto sax and I have heard you are able to transpose this music so you can play it on the tenor sax along to the same backing tracks ont he cd's I have as the alto.

Does anyone know of a good program I can use that will help me do this quickly on the computer - where for example I can get the sheet music from a file on my computer onto the program and click a button to transpose it for the tenor sax?

P.S. - I am not very computer minded so program will have to be very straight-forward to use

 

[Saxplayer67]

I have been playing alto sax now for a while and considering buying a tenor sax as well.

I have loads of sheet music (with accompaniment CD) for alto sax and I have heard you are able to transpose this music so you can play it on the tenor sax along to the same backing tracks ont he cd's I have as the alto.

Does anyone know of a good program I can use that will help me do this quickly on the computer - where for example I can get the sheet music from a file on my computer onto the program and click a button to transpose it for the tenor sax?

P.S. - I am not very computer minded so program will have to be very straight-forward to use

I have a cheap program called Noteworthy Composer. You have to type all the notes and symbols etc. on the staff, which is laborious but pretty straightforward but then you can magically transpose by a few mouse clicks but sometimes it does put it in weird keys - you then may have to 'clean it up'. Or... you could do it the old fashioned way and write it out on manuscript, as I still do if I can't be bothered spending the time Noteworthy-ing it.

 

[AltoRuth]

I have a cheap program called Noteworthy Composer. You have to type all the notes and symbols etc. on the staff, which is laborious but pretty straightforward but then you can magically transpose by a few mouse clicks but sometimes it does put it in weird keys - you then may have to 'clean it up'. Or... you could do it the old fashioned way and write it out on manuscript, as I still do if I can't be bothered spending the time Noteworthy-ing it.

Finale's Notepad which is available as a free download from the Finale web site, will do the same thing. But as Saxplayer says, you have to enter all the notes and symbols. However, unlike Saxplayer, I could do it on Notepad as quickly and far more legibly than I could by writing it out by hand on manuscript.

 

[Saxplayer67]

Finale's Notepad which is available as a free download from the Finale web site, will do the same thing. But as Saxplayer says, you have to enter all the notes and symbols. However, unlike Saxplayer, I could do it on Notepad as quickly and far more legibly than I could by writing it out by hand on manuscript.

I'm a pretty fast typist, I beat all the gals in my class (which gave me no end of pleasure!) and got a distinction in the exam (this was in the manual typewriter days) and of course I'm much quicker on a PC but I love to still put pencil and pen to paper on occasion, whether transposing, transcribing or composing.

 

[gary]

Or - depending on your philosophy of time-to-money ratios, you could buy a music scanning software like Sharp Eye which, for around $180.00 is fairly accurate and, if your original music is printed (not handwritten) in a conventional font and clear, you could scan the music and import them into a basic notation software program, then transpose and print out. If you want to change a lot of music, I would consider this route. Scanning is not always as accurate as we would like it to be, so some editing might be necessary, but it's a lot quicker than manually entering all of that music into a notation program (unless you've got good piano chops and a MIDI keyboard, and then you should be able to directly play the music into your notation program.)

 

[Saxplayer67]

Or - depending on your philosophy of time-to-money ratios, you could buy a music scanning software like Sharp Eye which, for around $180.00 is fairly accurate and, if your original music is printed (not handwritten) in a conventional font and clear, you could scan the music and import them into a basic notation software program, then transpose and print out. If you want to change a lot of music, I would consider this route. Scanning is not always as accurate as we would like it to be, so some editing might be necessary, but it's a lot quicker than manually entering all of that music into a notation program (unless you've got good piano chops and a MIDI keyboard, and then you should be able to directly play the music into your notation program.)

I personally wouldn't want to fork out the dough on such a program (my Noteworthy was free!). Noteworthy does apparently allow you to use a MIDI keyboard as an input device but only to position the notes quicker on the stave, not to automatically create sheet music but my PC wouldn't work with my MIDI keyboard anyway.

 

[AltoRuth]

I'm a pretty fast typist, I beat all the gals in my class (which gave me no end of pleasure!) and got a distinction in the exam (this was in the manual typewriter days) and of course I'm much quicker on a PC but I love to still put pencil and pen to paper on occasion, whether transposing, transcribing or composing.

I, too, enjoy the occasional pen-to-paper session but, sadly, hardly anyone, including myself, can decipher the result!

Gary's way is definately the way to go if you have the need, the techno savvy, and the $$ to do it that way.

Regards, Ruth

 

[batonstar]

Thanks a lot for all replies so far but I was looking for a program more on the lines of what Gary has described - but free download or at least a free trial before I buy as i do not know what certain programs are capable of

I would love to use something like noteworthy but I just don't have the time.

I already have all my sheet music stored on my computer because I scan it and put it all in a big folder together instead of hunting out my books all the time - so I was hoping there might be a program I could just open the document and click a couple of buttons to re-arrange the transcipt