I am always searching for ways to improve my playing, and that includes buying books and software. Books often disappoint me because they fail to hold my attention (or maybe I have developed AADHD?) and software sometimes frustrates me because it doesn't work the way I do, or the way I want to.

Macintosh is my preferred platform, but since I'm in the computer business, I have Windows computers, also. Over the past few years I have collected a variety of software, either through purchasing hardware (Steinberg Cubase, Apogee Maestro), acquiring it with my computer (GarageBand), by purchasing a package (Songs Pro, Neck Diagrams), and most recently, by downloading an open source program called MuseScore.

Since it's open source, MuseScore (https://www.musescore.org) is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. And because it's cross-platform, it suffers from trying to be all things to all people. With that said, its features and capabilities are nothing short of awesome, and when you consider it's FREE, what's not to like?

Well, maybe the learning curve. There is both an online manual as well as a downloadable PDF version. At this point, just barely scraping the surface of the program, I find I can hardly do anything without referring to the documentation!

Since many of you know I have recently started guitar lessons, I find myself wanting to "transpose" my instructor's handwritten instructions onto something a little more legible. MuseScore has the ability to create a score that contains both notes on a stave with a linked TAB below. I can even add fingerings to the notes, giving me a full worksheet from which to practice.

But there are some things that aren't intuitive. For example, what if I want to add a note? Or what if I want to change a two 4/4 measures of quarter notes to a single measure of eighth notes? Neither the documentation nor the interface give me any clue as to how to do this. The program is so rich and feature-laden that there must be a way to accomplish this.

So, that's the basis of this question: Does anyone use MuseScore (on any platform) that can lend any assistance or tips? Or even just thoughts on the program?