MusicEase was initially created under DOS using muLisp The first version appeared in 1987 and was completely controlled by the keyboard. In 1995, a Windows version was created using Allegro Common Lisp. Toolbars and mouse support were then added. During the ensuing years, additional functionality was added as new versions were produced. In 2013, version 9.0 was released for both Windows and the Mac.
Functionality
MusicEase is both a music score editor and an automatic accompaniment generator. As a score editor, the user can create, edit, play and print high quality music notation. The user sees on the computer screen the musical score exactly as it will be printed out. As an automatic accompaniment creator/generator, it allows the user to quickly create accompaniment styles using the full range of notational functionality and to easily apply a style to a melody to add an accompaniment consisting of any number of general MIDI instruments including drums. MusicEase is a constraint-based system with a large amount of knowledge of music notation. This allows it to handle intelligently many of the details of scoring automatically. For instance, bar lines are inserted automatically according to the current meter. If the user changes the time signature, the bar line placements change automatically, and beam scopes are automatically recomputed as directed by the new time signature. Slurs and phrase marks can often be inserted with a single keystroke combination. The end points, shape, direction and location are automatically determined. The result is that users can create professional looking scores easily and quickly without knowing music engraving/music copyist rules. Jerry Pournelle, reviewer for Byte Magazine, says The samples I have seen, and a couple I have produced, are sure in the same league as hand engraved. Since many people are familiar with word processors, the notation aspect of MusicEase is designed to work much like a word processing program. For instance, pressing the G key enters the note G. Pressing the Delete key or Backspace key then deletes this note. Pressing the Enter key begins a new system. Pressing the Delete key or Backspace key at the beginning of a system appends it to the previous system. Blocks can be cut from one location and pasted into another location and then everything can be reformatted with just several keystrokes Most functions are invoked via key presses which allows fast content entry as opposed to using the mouse to drag music notational elements from palettes to staves which generally requires more effort. MusicEase supports a number of additional generally useful functions such as true transposition, part extraction, scaling of the music to a large range of sizes, inverting or retrograding selected blocks of notes, combining 2 staves containing single voices into a single staff containing mixed single and double stemmed voicing and vice versa, automatically adding chord fret diagrams, using any computer fonts for verses, titles, etc., unicode text support, and displaying music as tablature and/or as shape notes
Most notable features
Fast score entry by computer keyboard
Automatically positions most common music notational elements correctly so the user need not know music engraving rules
Library of predefined templates
Transposable guitar chords
Keyboard shortcuts for many common notational elements
Retrograde and Inversion of user designated portions of notes to facilitate composing
Playback
Cast off
Handbell music notation
Automatic justification
Automatic accompaniment creation and style definition
Automatic chord-name setting for simple melodies
Tablature notation for guitars and mandolins
Free version
Prominent uses
MusicEase was used by University of Colorado at BoulderProfessor Emeritus of Music Karl Kroeger to create much of the music in , for which he was the main editor. Professor Kroeger states, In particular, I acknowledge my debt to Gary M. Rader, developer of the MusicEase music notation software used for the musical scores MusicEase Software's virtual songbook technology was created using MusicEase Professional. It allows a single piece of music to be ramified in many different ways. Integrity Music, a major publisher of praise-worship music, used this functionality for the transposable sheet music versions of many of its recent products: e.g., the CD-Rom versions of its Hosanna! Music songbooks, versions 3 and 4 of its Worship Software, music available via its worshipleaderassistant.com and Worship Kitchen websites, and various iWorship CD-Rom songbooks. The "Shout Music Manager" by Media Shout included this virtual songbook technology to provide transposable, customizable printed music. "" was also created using this functionality.
