Scoring Notes

You may know all about writing music. But what about your rights and music? That’s what Philip Rothman and David MacDonald unpack on this episode with Jim Kendrick, one of the industry’s foremost experts on the subject. As an attorney and music publisher representing major composers and institutions, Jim has decades of experience navigating the often-complex world of intellectual property on behal...

If you’ve ever needed to open a Finale file in Sibelius, or a scan music in SmartScore and bring it into Dorico, or write something in StaffPad and upload it to MuseScore.com, you’ve relied on MusicXML to make it happen. MusicXML is the standard interchange format for music notation applications, and it’s what makes such robust interoperability possible between hundreds of programs. We might take...

Notation Express is a custom-designed profile for the Stream Deck console, Stream Deck XL console, and the Stream Deck Mobile app for iOS, that maps hundreds of notation features to a colorful push-button interface and makes the software fun to use in a unique way. For Dorico 4, Notation Express was been completely rebuilt — every button has been re-programmed to take advantage of Dorico 4’s new a...

Printing music is something that takes skill and attention to detail — both by the music preparer and the printer. When everything’s communicated well, it leads to print shop nirvana and the ideal result for everyone involved. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk through a specific project and illustrate the various steps along the way to set it up for success. No detail is too small, from the...

Before the personal computer revolution of the late 1970s, computers were so large and so expensive that they could only be found in universities and government departments. But almost as soon as there were computers, people were figuring out how to use them for creating and printing music. Ben Byram-Wigfield joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald on a journey back in time and again to the prese...

Daniel Spreadbury returns to Scoring Notes to talk with Philip Rothman and David MacDonald about Dorico 4 , the huge update to Steinberg’s scoring software. We learn about the development team’s approach to this update, the challenges an opportunities it presented for Dorico after its release on iPad, and bringing those features and much more to the desktop version as they aim to “supercharge your...

2021 finished strong. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald pick up the news you need to hit the score running in 2022. The StaffPad “audio update” brings new features like audio staves, tempo mapping, adaptive audio to keep your audio in sync with your score tempo, royalty-free production sounds and loops, and studio-quality effects, along with more improvements. A major upgrade is out for Graphical...

We wrap up 2021 with some new year’s resolutions in the form of tips and recommendations. We’re calling it 22 in ’22 in 22’: That’s 22 tips, for 2022, delivered to you in 22 minutes. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald spend a minute on each item, from our favorite apps, web sites, plug-ins, and techniques that we hope help with a “new you in ‘22” — at least when it comes to our favorite topic of m...

We party on in our second installment about part preparation. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald turn again to Elaine Gould’s music notation reference book Behind Bars to help guide the discussion. Last time we left off just when things got interesting , talking all about cues, so for today’s episode we pick up there. We review the different types of cues, what they do, when to put them in, and ho...

We have a party talking all about part preparation. This is one of our most requested topics from listeners, and we’re happy to oblige in this first of a two-part episode. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald use the parts preparation chapter from Elaine Gould’s music notation reference book Behind Bars as a framework for discussing this essential step in making the best performance materials possib...

Black Friday is upon us once again, and with it comes the annual post-Thanksgiving tradition of deals, discounts, and determination to make the most of your holiday spending budget. David MacDonald and Philip Rothman are here to help find the best offerings for the software most useful to you. We start with music notation software and talk not only about the sales that extend through the season, b...

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...

Marie Chupeau joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to discuss Maestria, the technology from Newzik that allows it to not just display a score, but also to understand it musically, resulting in what’s known as a LiveScore. Marie is the co-founder of Magic LEMP, the company that has worked for several years on the artificial intelligence technology that powers Maestria, and she is the head of th...

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk about the news that Fender has made plans to acquire PreSonus , and dig up an interview with Jim Boitnott from the Scoring Notes archive. Jim gave an interview to Scoring Notes in 2019 in which he presciently described both the importance of playback to music notation software as well as the future of those applications on iPad, and how Notion was early to m...

There are lots of ways you can manipulate a notation file for playback purposes. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald continue a two-part discussion about playback and music notation software, and share the tips and tricks we’ve learned over the years to make the most of the programs’ capabilities. We talk about general concepts common to many applications, like score setup with separate staves for...

The applications we talk about on Scoring Notes have had playback capabilities since their earliest days. But because these programs are so attuned to the visual elements of music notation, layout, and page formatting, their audio components can often be overlooked. Philip Rothman, and David MacDonald have the first of a two-part conversation about playback and music notation software. We first di...

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...

Jonathan Newman is back for the second part of his two-part conversation with Philip Rothman, discussing everything from the profession of music copying to the importance of education. If you didn’t hear the first part, have a listen as Jonathan recalls his early days coming out of school and making ends meet as a copyist, becoming an expert in music notation software. In this part, Jonathan emerg...

Jonathan Newman joins Philip Rothman for the first of a wide-ranging two-part conversation where we discuss everything from the profession of music copying to the importance of education. In this part, Jonathan, whose versatility and originality as a composer appeals to school wind ensembles and foremost professional ensembles alike, recalls his early days coming out of school and making ends meet...

Creating music assignments for students to complete directly in notation software can help students both learn about theoretical concepts like suspensions and appoggiaturas as well as the practical skills of manipulating music notation on the screen. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald start this discussion by identifying the outcomes to be achieved by this method. We then talk about some approache...

We’re headed back to school. Today professor David MacDonald and Philip Rothman work on worksheets, that quintessential element of music instruction that appears in everything from homework assignments and classroom activities to quizzes and final exams. Unlike the more conventional scores and parts you might create with music notation software, worksheets often encompass a combination of short mu...

You might remember our podcast episode where David MacDonald and Philip Rothman discussed the terms “sample rate”, “bit depth”, and “bit rate”, and what to make of them when you see them appear in your favorite music notation program. In this episode, we explore those concepts even further thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz , a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s mo...

We’re back with Darcy James Argue, the acclaimed jazz composer, educator, and bandleader of the 18-piece Secret Society. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald pick up with Darcy for the second part of our interview, and if you missed the first part where Darcy talked all about breaking into the jazz music scene and getting his first professional copying jobs, go back and have a listen. In this part w...

Darcy James Argue joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald for the first of a two-part interview. Darcy is a critically acclaimed jazz composer, educator, and bandleader of the 18-piece Secret Society, with whom he’s recorded multiple albums and led around the world performing his original compositions. Darcy’s also a top-flight music preparation expert, and in this first part of our discussion, w...

Sam Butler and Joe Plazak join Philip Rothman and David MacDonald on the podcast. Sam is Avid’s director of product management for audio software, and Joe is the product owner and principal software engineer for Sibelius. Together, they led the team that brought Sibelius to the iPad for the first time, and we hear all about their journey that began nearly a decade ago with the goal of making Sibel...