David MacDonald and Philip Rothman talk about Zoom, and how this popular videoconferencing software that was originally intended for spoken word meetings has received some major updates that improves its audio quality in ways that make the platform work much better for musicians and for music educators — just in time for the start of the school year. David explains how data and audio compression work and what you need to do to get the most out of the new updates, whether you’re using Zoom to teach lessons, learn music, or share audio demos of scores that you create using music notation and scoring software.

More on Scoring Notes:

Better music experiences come to Zoom with high fidelity audio

Share video and audio of music notation software via Zoom

Stream Deck profile for Zoom

Christopher Willis joins us for the second of two episodes. Chris is the composer of the score to the film “The Personal History of David Copperfield.” If you haven’t yet heard the first part of our conversation, check it out as we talk about the score and its fresh take on familiar musical ideas to match the aesthetics of the picture, and hear excerpts of the music.

On this episode, we break down Chris’s music preparation process on a film, from orchestration to copying. Chris even turns the tables, interviewing host Philip Rothman about the history of music engraving and asks his thoughts on the latest developments in the world of music notation software. We cover established products like Sibelius, iPad readers like forScore and Newzik, and newer entries on the scene like Dorico and StaffPad, and discuss how we can expect to use them on the scoring stage in the future.

More on Scoring Notes: Christopher Willis on scoring “The Personal History of David Copperfield”

Christopher Willis joins us for the first of two episodes. Chris is the composer of the score to the film ”The Personal History of David Copperfield.” On this episode, we talk with Chris about that score and its fresh take on familiar musical ideas to match the aesthetics of the picture. We learn about juxtaposing traditionally notated music with the world of audio samples and the technology that’s used to achieve satisfying results. Chris traces his career with us from his days a pianist, doctoral student, and arrival in Los Angeles to his latest work scoring top movies and television shows. We’ll hear excerpts of the David Copperfield score and go behind the scenes to find out more.

Join us on our next episode for the second part of our discussion as we break down Chris’s music preparation process on a film, from orchestration to copying. Chris even turns the tables, interviewing host Philip Rothman about music engraving and asks him thoughts on the latest developments in the world of music notation software.

More on Scoring Notes: Christopher Willis on scoring “The Personal History of David Copperfield”

Adrian Holovaty is the founder of Soundslice, a service that syncs audio, video and music notation into a beautiful browser-based player. Adrian started Soundslice as a way to transcribe guitar excerpts for himself, and in the past decade it’s grown into a robust platform for music professionals, teachers, and students to learn any kind of music in a unique way. Adrian talks to us about their philosophy of music notation and how it intersects with both the challenges and opportunities presented by being a web-based service, including what it takes to make music notation interactive and foster an enthusiastic community of users to share and market their creations.

More on Scoring Notes:

NAMM 2018: Soundslice adds an editor, channels, and other new features

NAMM 2017: Soundslice, a web-based music education tool and player

Katie Wardrobe is the founder and director of Midnight Music, a thriving service which helps music educators integrate technology into their teaching. Katie provides workshops, presentations, online training courses and ebooks for her community, and on our show she tells us all about how she uses notation software and many other tools to achieve results. Katie shares with us her surprisingly low-tech but effective tips for staying organized, and we learn how she got started doing this important work, and how her business has changed over the years.

David William Hearn is the founder and lead designer of StaffPad, the revolutionary music composition app for pen-and-touch devices like Windows Surface and iPad. StaffPad automatically detects your musical handwriting and instantly converts it into music notation and plays it back using high-quality sound libraries. There’s a lot more to StaffPad, and David tells us all about it, including the StaffPad Reader, which instantly syncs tablets containing the parts to the score, allowing players to view and play changes in real-time. Many more advancements are on the way, and David gives us a few clues about what we can hope to see as StaffPad evolves on the cutting edge of music notation technology.

More on Scoring Notes: StaffPad wows with long-awaited iPad release and new free StaffPad Reader

StaffPad and Reader for iPad video review

An interview with David William Hearn, creator of StaffPad (from 2015)

Justin Tokke joins us on the show. Justin is the technical lead at the music publisher Carl Fischer, and you may also know him as the founder and admin of Music Engraving Tips, a web site and Facebook group with more than 20,000 members. Justin talks to us about his work in publishing, including everything from learning the ropes printing scores to the intricacies of digital distribution. We uncover the publishing mysteries of licenses, rights, and promotion, and what you should consider when publishing your music. We also learn about the origin of the Music Engraving Tips group and get Justin’s thoughts on where music notation software is headed.

Daniel Ray and Martin Keary from Musescore join the podcast. Martin tells us about making his popular Tantacrul videos and how those critiques of software programs eventually took him from Microsoft to being the head of design at Musescore. Daniel talks to us in his capacity as director of product strategy about the open-source community powering the product and the way Musescore aligns with the goals of Ultimate Guitar, which has acquired the software. Together we all have a collective nerd-out about the user experience, and find out the plan for what’s to come in Musescore 4.

Whether or not you’re a Musescore user, you’ll find this episode to be chock-full of discussion and opinions about how music notation software is designed, the quality of its output, and the trends in the industry.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald host.

More on Scoring Notes: NAMM 2020: An interview with Musescore’s Daniel Ray

Sam Butler is the senior principal product manager for Sibelius. We talk with Sam about the challenges and opportunities of keeping Sibelius running through the pandemic and what it means for both professional and educational users. Sam tells us about the strategy of releasing more frequent Sibelius updates, what some of his favorite features are, and what they’ve got cooking up for the future. We discuss the new MIDI and MusicXML importing features and the ongoing partnership with Berklee College of Music to make Sibelius more accessible to sight-impaired users, and how this initiative benefits everyone using the software.

Plus: Sam does Dad duty live on the show.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald host.

More on Scoring Notes: Sibelius development and accessibility, from the 2020 NAMM Show

Nicholas Buc is a composer, conductor, and arranger whose recent conducting engagements have taken him around the globe conducting live-to-picture concerts featuring the most beloved movie scores of our time. We discuss his career and the many ways that music preparation and technology can provide the score with the Midas touch in those high-stakes performances. Nick helps us avoid the phantom menace of notation pitfalls, giving us all a new hope in our quest for the holy grail of music engraving perfection. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald join Nick as we learn what it’s like to be part of his world.

Read more on Scoring Notes: Preparing David Newman’s Matilda score for live orchestra

Nick’s podcast: Art of the Score