Noteflight & Noteflight Learn

Click here to learn how to use Noteflight

Click here to learn about Noteflight Learn!

As a musician in general, I use Noteflight ALL THE TIME. It is an easy to use, FREE, music notation software that is available for use online with an email subscription. When I was entering college, it was suggested that incoming freshmen studying music purchase programs like Finale or Sibelius, both of which are music notation software that cost quite a bit ($350 for Finale, or $599 for Sibelius). While they are both excellent options for notation software, Noteflight is FREE and can just about do it all.

You can use your computer keyboard to enter notes on the staff, and create works that include multiple instruments, multiple voices, dynamics, articulation, text, chord symbols, phrasing, etc. As a user, I have never been let down.

As an educator, I have used Noteflight with my students many times to teach basic music theory, and to offer as a template for composition projects. Manuscript writing can often be tricky for beginners, and this offers students a way to document their compositions, and hear them played back in real time. This gives students a sense of tonality in their composition, as well as how rhythms fit together.

Noteflight itself allows users to save 12 scores in its free version. Noteflight premium can be purchased for $49/year, and allows for an unlimited amount of scores. I haven't found the 12 score limitation to be too limiting, as you can delete old scores that you no longer need, or use the same template.

All of my excitement about Noteflight aside, I have recently found a reason to be even more excited about it.

Noteflight Learn is now available for purchase for $69/year. This is very little when factoring into a school budget.

Noteflight Learn offers all of the same features as Noteflight premium, but it allows for collaboration between student and teacher. Instead of creating templates on my own or having students do it in separate accounts, download their scores as PDFs and send to me, it can all be done through Noteflight Learn. It offers teachers the option to give assignments, create templates, check work, and give feedback to students all while they are composing.

This is something that I believe to be an important investment for secondary level music programs. Music literacy is the foundation of being a music-maker, and that begins with understanding how music theory functions. I think that utilizing Noteflight learn in the classroom is a very helpful way to help boost literacy and make life-long music makers!