battuta

Edit notation the way you edit text — a caret, a selection, undo that always lands, and an MEI file that stays yours.

Install battuta Your first score Every shortcut

battuta opens an MEI file, shows it as engraved notation, and lets you move a caret through it. Arrow keys walk the notes. i starts typing music. ctrl + z takes any of it back — byte for byte, down to the last attribute of the file on disk.

It is not an engraver. Verovio draws every note, and the document you opened is the thing you are editing — not a picture of it.

Page view: the whole document through Verovio's page layout, with the printed title — and the player controls in the header. — Page view with the player: Schumann's *Melodie*, engraved by Verovio, printed title and all.

Write music from the keyboard

Note input is an overwrite mode with the barline as its guard: what you type always adds up to a legal measure. Note entry →

Arrange in blocks

Select a rectangle of measures × staves, copy it, paste it into another staff — or another file. The duration checker vets every paste. Arranging →

Notate the form

Repeat barlines with a first and second ending

Repeats, voltas, segno and coda marks — and playback that actually takes the jumps you wrote. Repeats and form →

Hear the edit

Press play and the score plays with your ties held, your staccatos short and your repeats taken, highlighting the note that is sounding. Playback →

Check a take against the score

The same recording over the measures in edit view: the trace sits on the staff nearest its pitch, fitted through that measure's noteheads, with the written notes as faint bars for their length — a note held short stops early, a sharp one runs above its head.

Load a recording and its pitch is traced over the notes — sharp, flat, early or late, measure by measure — with a playhead that follows the caret and plays the take or the written notes. Pitch reference →

Correct against the source

Load a score’s PDF with its OMR annotations and each measure’s scan stands above its tile — scan on top, rendering below — with the caret’s system in a strip that follows it. PDF reference →

Work through a folder

The folder view on the left, the score pushed right to make room: the folder's name with + score, + folder and the … button to pick another; sub-folders that open in place — Schumann, expanded and last clicked, is marked with a blue bar as the folder new scores go into — and a row per .mei score, the one under the pointer offering its ✎ to rename.

Open a folder of scores in a panel on the left and click your way through it; the list follows the disk, and a score that changes under you is announced at once. Folder view →

Find your way around

Install and launchLinux deb and AppImage, macOS app, or straight from source.

A tour of the windowHeader, tabs, status bar, toasts — what every control does.

Your first scoreEight minutes: a blank score to a playable phrase.

How battuta thinksDocument as truth, tiles, commands, and why edits get refused.

Keyboard referenceEvery binding, QWERTY and AZERTY, generated from the app itself.

Known limitsWhat battuta deliberately does not do, and what is still coming.