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 turns to music notation software. And speaking of software, Jason tells us all about his extensive video tutorial series called Conquering Finale, which we’ve started to cross-publish on the Scoring Notes blog. We discuss how Finale and how Jason’s video series is organized, what led to him creating it in the first place, and what you can expect to learn from it, whether you’re new to the program or you’re a long-time user.

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Conquering Finale tutorials:

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’re looking to achieve in the first place.

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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 music copying, the process of getting the music from the composer’s pen to the player’s stands, and the tools she uses to achieve superior results.

Plus: the secret to being an expert in your music notation software of choice, everything you ever wanted to know about bar numbering schemes… and what not to do when working on a horror film score.

Further reading: Women Who Wow Us: Emily Grishman

Emily Grishman profile on Maestra Music

On Scoring Notes: Scoring Express templates for Sibelius

Scoring Express Theatre & Studio templates at Notation Central

Photo credit: Jamie Maletz

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 forthcoming updates to that standard, which in less than a decade has been adopted by many diverse and robust music applications. Daniel takes us through a bit of music font history, from the early days of Adobe’s Sonata Font, first-generation implementations in Finale and Sibelius, and the sequence of events that ultimately led to the development of the SMuFL standard and the creation of its reference font, Bravura, for use in Steinberg’s scoring application, Dorico. We also get a look ahead to technical improvements in Dorico that will soon allow it to run on Apple’s newest M1-based computers.

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Music fonts on Notation Central

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 also talk with David about a brand-new product we’ve launched at NYC Music Services called Scoring Express. Scoring Express is a suite of templates, manuscript papers, fonts, and house styles, all designed with an eye towards getting professional-looking music quickly on the page, and optimized to take advantage of the latest Sibelius features.

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From Notation Central:

Scoring Express — Chamber

Scoring Express — Jazz

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 transpose, there’s a good chance it’s using Noteflight technology, thanks to its integration with the Hal Leonard catalog and wide acceptance on practically any desktop browser or mobile device. We discuss Noteflight’s other offerings, which encompass an arranging feature, allowing anyone to legally arrange and sell music through their platform, and we’ll also learn more about their new assessment tool called SoundCheck, where students can get instant feedback by directly playing along with any Noteflight score.

More on Scoring Notes: Noteflight, education, innovation, and inspiration

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 fortunately he decided to share his incredible knowledge in the form of this 300-page book and hours of accompanying videos. Composers and music preparers alike will enjoy what Sam has to say about percussion-centric topics like multi-stave parts, improvisation, unpitched music, instrument keys, and more — and because this is Scoring Notes, we explore the role the software has in achieving the results that he recommends.

More on Scoring Notes: Sam Solomon on writing for percussion

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 we’ve already stocked up on. More broadly, we’ll discuss why this time of year is a good time to think about upping your game when it comes to the tools you use, and how you can get the most out of the offers that are out there without breaking your budget.

More on Scoring Notes: Black Friday 2020 deals for music notation software and related tech

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 computer, and the steps you should take to ensure that everything goes as smoothly as possible. We talk about the newest macOS Big Sur and the change to their new M1 chip machines, but our advice extends to all our listeners — both those that have imbibed the Apple juice and those that are opening Microsoft Windows.

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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 create those graphical symbols and bring them into your notation software without sacrificing quality, as well as how to create complex graphics by just using the notation tools. We also cover exporting graphics out of notation software and into other programs, and discuss the “slices” feature in Dorico, which allows you to retain persistent score excerpts that you can export as graphics over and over again, changing them along the way.

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