Here's the deal: go to www.notionmusic.com to request your free trial copy of NOTION (a pretty good deal in its own right). Then use it to compose your masterpiece. Enter it into our competition. If it wins, it'll be recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. And you'll be there too, to see your work fully realized by the best players in the world. Plus you'll get your own copy of the award-winning NOTION software and $2500 in cash. Visit WWW.NOTIONMUSIC.COM/WIN today for contest details and to Enter!
REALIZE MUSIC™.

Bring the London Symphony Orchestra into Your Studio

Product Review - VIRTUOSOWORKS Notion 1.0.6 (Win)

VirtuosoWorks Notion, a new notation and orchestral-performance program for Windows, is the brainchild of renowned composer and programmer Dr. Jack M. Jarrett. Jarrett, a former head of the Composition Department at Berklee College of Music and a longtime conductor of orchestral music, is the creator of Music Printer Plus, one of the first notation programs for the PC. This time around, his goal was to develop software that would give musicians a "user-friendly, notation-based music writing interface combined with the auditory aid of full-fidelity orchestral playback." Given his many years of experience, Jarrett has clear ideas about what a notation and performance program should do.

FIG. 1: Notion's Score Setup screen allows you to easily and quickly create your score. You can choose a standard template or create a unique orchestration by selecting instruments individually.

Ready, Set, Install

Notion arrives on three CDs (needed to accommodate the sample library) with a compact manual, a handy cardboard Quick Reference guide, information about registration that gives you access to Notion's technical support, and a small iLok USB Smart Key for copy protection. Installation is smooth, and after about five minutes, you're asked to plug in the small iLok USB Smart Key for a brief hardware install, and then reboot your computer. (You can install Notion on as many computers as you like, but you need your iLok to run the program.)

After launching the program, it's easy to create a score. Fig. 1 shows Notion's Score Setup screen. You can select from a number of templates (band, orchestra, brass quintet, and so on) or create a score from scratch using the available instruments, which are organized into handy categories. If you have a favorite configuration, you can create a customized template.

After you complete the score setup, you'll see a large Score area to the right anda Sidebar area to the left. The Sidebar provides access to four menus labeled Tools, Entries, Expressions, and Properties (see Fig. 2).

The Sidebar can be placed to either the left or the right of your score depending onyour preference. The size of the Sidebar font can be adjusted, and you can even select an auto-hide feature (much like the auto-hide tool on the Windows task bar), which makes the Sidebar visible only when you move the cursor to that side of the screen. A timeline showing measures (as shown in Fig. 2) or time is located above the score, and you can click on any measure number (or time) to navigate to that position in the music. Overall, the user interface is clear, logical, and easy to learn for new users and those familiar with other notation programs.

FIG. 2: This figure shows Notion's Workspace, with the Score Area to the right and the Sidebar to the left. The current -measure indicator, measure timeline, and playback controls are just above the score. At the bottom right is a reminder that the cursor is on the Violins staff.

Nothing to Curse At

Notion's cursor has two modes. The first, called the Pointer, is represented by a small arrow and is used for editing. The second is called the Music Cursor, and it takes different shapes depending on what kind of music information you are working with. More>>>

EM's 2006 EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARDS
From Electronic Musician February 2005

VIRTUOSOWORKSNotion 1.0.6 (Win, $599.99)

This was a good year for notation software, with the release of MakeMusic Finale 2006, Sibelius 4, GenieSoft Overture4, and Adept Music Notation Solutions Nightingale X 5.1. Despite this daunting competition, our winner is VirtuosoWorks Notion, an entirely new program that combines a professional set of notation features with a built-in orchestral sample library featuring the London Symphony Orchestra. More>>>

Product Summary

VIRTUOSOWORKS
Notion 1.0.6
music notation software
$599.99
$399.99 (academic price)
$299.99 (competitive upgrade)

OVERALL RATING (1 THROUGH 5): 4

VirtuosoWorks, Inc.
www.notionmusic.com