Scoring Notes

Millions of people sing from church hymnals each week, and that means millions of people are looking at music notation all the time. Getting those notes onto the page in a form that is both flexible enough to suit the needs of a particular congregation, and yet have lasting permanence for generations of churchgoers is the job of our guest, Dan Kreider. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with...

We nerd out about the latest updates to Dorico and Sibelius. On the Dorico side, we see support for M1 Apple Silicon Macs for the first time. On the Sibelius side, we get an improved task bar called Command Search , along with new scripting and plug-in features that make it easier to automate hundreds of items with a single keystroke. These updates may be technical in nature, but never fear — that...

When preparing music, you always make sure what goes on the page is pitch-perfect. How about what goes on the bill? Should you charge hourly? By the bar? Some other way? Philip Rothman and David MacDonald break down the all the elements of a successful music preparation gig, from the initial conversations with the client, how to formulate the best approach to pricing the job, and finally, making s...

Nicole Jordan, the principal librarian of the Philadelphia Orchestra, makes sure that the right piece of music is with the right person at the right time, in the right place — a crucial function in the fast-paced world of concert production. Nicole tells David MacDonald and Philip Rothman about how she got started as an orchestral librarian, from her early days as an intern to her current position...

Stephen Taylor is here to talk all about his adventure entering the entire score of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring into Dorico. Steve is a professor of composition and theory at University of Illinois School of Music and co-director of its modern ensemble. He’s had a long and varied history composing music and studying scores, and an almost equally long history using music notation software — sta...

Teaching paperless composition lessons using the iPad, Apple Pencil, and several apps like GoodNotes and PDF Expert is here to stay. We can all wax nostalgic for the days of pencil and paper or even printing out your entire composition each week. But with today’s technology and a little bit of planning, David MacDonald shows Philip Rothman how to create a process that works seamlessly for student...

Doug Gibson joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to discuss guitar notation. Doug is a Scoring Notes contributor who has reviewed the guitar features of Sibelius, Dorico and Guitar Pro, and he has a special perspective on this particular aspect of music notation software. As a guitarist, educator, composer, orchestrator, and music preparer, Doug has been on every side of the process of creatin...

We’re talking all about optical music recognition software, or what you might call “music scanning apps”. John Hinchey is back on the show, and he has written a review for the Scoring Notes blog that covers four of these leading apps: PlayScore 2, ScanScore, PhotoScore Ultimate, and SmartScore 64 Pro. On the podcast, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with John about his app...

Jason Loffredo is a composer, arranger, orchestrator, copyist, keyboard player, and music director. He’s an expert in all things musical theatre and has worked on some of Broadway’s top productions. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with Jason about the ins and outs of the musical theatre world as it pertains to preparing music for those shows and the special circumstances that arise when he...

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss the essential elements of score preparation and production that make a difference in not only the perception of your music, but how it gets rehearsed and, ultimately, performed. Everything from rehearsal marks, placing cues, laying out your music, and page layout can be expertly fine-tuned by music notation software — but only if you know what results you...

For decades, Emily Grishman has been one of Broadway’s most sought-after copyists, and her list of credits includes the most acclaimed music and theatrical productions. Philip Rothman talks with Emily about her career and how the means and manner of producing music has changed along with advancements in the music notation software she uses every day. Learn what Emily has to say about the world of...

Daniel Spreadbury returns to Scoring Notes for the final episode of the year. As one of the co-chairs of the W3C Music Notation Community Group, Daniel is responsible for maintaining and developing the Standard Music Font Layout, or SMuFL, an open-source common set of font specifications which he created. On today’s episode, Daniel talks with David MacDonald and Philip Rothman about the forthcomin...

We review the latest Sibelius update, 2020.12. This final Sibelius update of the year rounds out the importing feature with the ability to bring Sibelius files directly into a template. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk about why you would want to that, what the differences and similarities are to importing a MIDI or MusicXML file, and what it all means for scoring and arranging workflows. I...

Noteflight is the web-based music notation software that allows musicians to create, share, teach, sell, and purchase music. John Mlynczak is Noteflight’s managing director, and on today’s show, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with John about how Noteflight is used by musicians across the professional and education spectrum. If you see interactive music online that you can click and transp...

Sam Solomon joins David MacDonald and Philip Rothman to talk all about how to write for percussion. It’s a good thing, too, because Sam’s got a book with that same name: How to Write for Percussion: A Comprehensive Guide to Percussion Composition , published by Oxford University Press. Sam’s got a ton of experience as an active percussionist and collaborator with some of today’s top composers, and...

Whether you’re looking to score some notes or score some deals, we’ve got the podcast episode for you. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald kick off Black Friday, which has gone from being just one day to now encompassing Cyber Monday and many more days on either side of the calendar. We’ll share some of the items on each of our wish lists in the music notation and tech universe and which products w...

If you have trouble keeping up with all of your computer operating software updates, new hardware, and naming conventions, you’re not alone. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald will walk you through tips and best practices when it comes time to click that big button, whether it’s the one that says upgrade your operating system or the one that debits your bank account and results in a brand-new comp...

Whether it’s a squiggly line, a complex curve, or something that totally defies description, sometimes your music requires notation that’s more creative than the ordinary music symbols we’re accustomed to seeing. That’s when it comes time to dive into the use of graphics in music notation, and how to work with graphical files in the software. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk about how...

To celebrate Halloween, we’re looking at scary things we see in the music notation software and score preparation process, and see if we can sweeten the experience with some tricks and treats. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss the spookiness of using the mouse and how you can better become a jack-o-lantern of all trades by focusing more on keyboard commands and other shortcuts in Si...

Learn about several simple but incredibly useful applications that will help you be more productive with tasks related to managing music files on the computer. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss file renaming apps such as Renamer and Name Mangler, which perform the important function of quickly changing the filenames of many documents at once using various settings, saving you the tedium o...

In music scores, a house style is the collection of dozens or hundreds of rules and preferences governing the look of the music — everything from note spacing algorithms, to font choices, to the thickness of lines, and lots more. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss why these elements matter in the course of preparing a piece of music and talk about which types of text fonts pair well with m...

John Hinchey is one of the most experienced arrangers, orchestrators and professional music preparers working today. He’s created thousands of charts and shows for musicians, touring companies, theme parks and everything in between. On this episode, John relays his experience producing shows for cruise ships to Scoring Notes hosts Philip Rothman and David MacDonald. We’re expecting you to learn fr...

Many of us study and perform scores from our iPads on a regular basis and have prepared scores to be read from screens. Scoring Notes readers and listeners often ask us to provide recommendations for best practices when preparing a score with the expectation that it will be read from a screen and not paper. This is an excellent question, and one whose answer today may likely change in the coming y...

We have a special treat for podcast listeners. If you’ve listened to our podcast before, you’ll remember our interview with music education technology expert Katie Wardrobe. Well, Katie also interviewed Philip Rothman for her show called the Music Tech Teacher Podcast, and we’re including a version of that interview in the Scoring Notes feed. In our discussion, Philip talks with Katie about his wo...

Hosts Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss the Sibelius 2020.9 update — specifically the improvements to the Focus on Staves feature, which has the potential to unlock new workflow and layout capabilities for many users. We trace the history of the feature and cover the different ways of formatting your score to include or exclude staves. We also compare the similarities and differences of S...