music21 vs note-noodle

music21 is a free Python toolkit for computer-aided musicology, used to study music datasets, teach music theory, edit notation, analyze music, generate examples, and compose. It includes a corpus of thousands of encoded works, plus tools for searching that corpus, plotting pitch, and performing advanced analysis such as nPVI. The toolkit works with MIDI and MusicXML and can be extended to handle other formats. Its documentation recommends MuseScore for viewing and editing notation, and describes MusicXML readers including Finale, Sibelius, and Dorico. Optional integrations include LilyPond, Matplotlib, SciPy, PyAudio, and Pygame; music21 can also be used in web-based Jupyter Notebook. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with web use through Jupyter. The toolkit is BSD-licensed and costs nothing. Some corpus works have separate license restrictions. Users need some familiarity with Python, and music21 works primarily with symbolic music data rather than sound waves; it cannot read notation directly from images or PDFs.

note-noodle provides interactive music theory practice for fretboard work, staff notation, ear training, rhythm, and play-along, alongside a guided curriculum. Play Along grades pitch and timing while a user plays through a microphone, MIDI keyboard, or screen. It accepts MIDI and Guitar Pro files up to 5 MB; free accounts can upload three per month. The curriculum has 35 lessons, quizzes, unit exams, spaced repetition, and seven learning paths. Ear training spans eight categories and four difficulty tiers, with answers by ear, MIDI, or microphone. Four digital instruments send per-note bend, slide, and pressure across up to 15 member channels; hearing per-note bend requires an MPE host such as Live 11. A MIDI Bridge connects those instruments to a desktop DAW over the local network. Free access includes 10 ear-training sessions per day and the first four lessons without an account. Premium costs €7 a month. The service runs on Android, Linux, macOS, web, and Windows.