TuxGuitar

If you are skilled at playing the guitar, then you probably want to compose your own tracks, instead of playing known songs. Composing music may involve a large quantity of paper, due to all the mistakes that you can make. TuxGuitar can be used to create compositions on musical staves. Besides the fact that you can undo any mistake with a single click, you can also export your work as MIDI audio files and other formats, such as PDF, Music XML and more.

TuxGuitar is free and it can be installed quite fast, without any difficulties. It provides support for Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems. You can also launch the application online, using a Java web starter.

You can start composing right away, by clicking a musical stave, in the main editing area. Each click will insert a musical note, higher or lower, depending on where you place the mouse cursor. After inserting a note, you can select various options, located on the program's toolbars, to make the note whole, half, quarter, dotted, double dotted, triplet and so on. It is also possible to insert chords, tie notes, change tempos or the time signature, open and close repeats and more. When inserting a chord, you can choose from a wide variety of notes and measurements, on a separate window.

The software allows you to work on multiple tracks, in parallel. Created tracks are listed in the lower region of the interface and you can double click their entries in order to bring up a series of configuration options on a separate window. You may select one of many instruments, for individual tracks, specify a number of strings and tune them.

TuxGuitar allows you to play your composition at any time, without exporting your work. You just need to hit the Play option located on a toolbar or bring up a small player, on a separate window, which comes with a metronome as well. While playing a composition, the software will take every notation and setting into account, from the note durations to the selected instrument.