Noteflight Review

One of my favorite times of year in the studio is when we get to dig into composing. The Young Composers Project has been a highlight the past 4 summers (this year it will be featured in the Spring semester), and in addition to composing & recording their pieces, students have had great success learning to do professional looking notation using noteflight.com. 

Now I know that there are some more comprehensive music notation software programs available, but let me tell you why I've chosen Noteflight for student compositions.

• Noteflight is user-friendly & has a very intuitive interface. The iPad mobile site especially is incredibly easy for today's tech savvy kids to use. I've had students as young as 5 participate in Young Composers and are totally able to type out their music with minimal guidance. And as they grow into needing to use more notating tools or expression indicators, Noteflight provides an easy learning curve to add those in.
• Web-based software. This means parents don't have to download anything else, or worry about available space on their device. No apps, no software downloads. Students can create a login of their own, or use one on the teacher's account where both teacher & student can access the score for check-in and feedback. 
•  It's free - sort of. A basic account is free & allows you to work on up to 10 scores at once. For most students, this is plenty of wiggle room. When they finish a piece, they can export the score to save a pdf or print it, and then remove the working score from their account to create space to start new pieces. For teachers & composers interested in more features, Noteflight does offer both teacher accounts & subscriptions for a small monthly or bundled annual fee. 

I did not receive anything from Noteflight for doing this blog post. I do occasionally see questions in piano teaching circles about notation software for young students. So I'm just sharing this with my piano teacher & piano parent followers who may have a young composer in their studio or at home that they would like to support & help grow in confidence.