Black Friday is one of the best times of the year to get new stuff at low prices. But in the world of music notation software and related technology, it can also be a chance to reflect on the way you work and create, and to acquire the tools that will complement your skills.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald summarize the best deals we’ve found to that end, review some of the newest features that make spending holiday cash a worthwhile investment — and offer up a few of our favorite low- and hi-tech stocking stuffers.

Also: Check out Scoring Notes on Monday, November 20 for a comprehensive post with details on all the deals mentioned in this episode, and much more.

David MacDonald and Philip Rothman talk with David William Hearn, the co-founder and lead designer of StaffPad, about everything from product updates to what it was like making a live demo for Apple in 40 minutes, along with the implications of AI, industry changes, the Muse Group acquisition, and much more.

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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 Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico. We also look at a frightening situation that happens when laying out your music and investigate how to fix it. So don’t be afraid — we won’t ghost you as we lead you unscathed out of the haunted house of software skeletons and onto the pumpkin patch to score some tricks and treats.

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(Re)learning how to use music notation software

Finale:

Sibelius:

Dorico:

Notation Express:

Notion is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous music notation software products available today. With its roots stretching back to Musicprinter Plus, a program invented in the 1990s, to today, with native apps on virtually all major desktop and mobile operating systems, Notion has always been at the vanguard of music notation software. Notion was one of the first applications to include high-quality orchestral samples with their software, and appeared on the iPad more than a decade before we saw Dorico and Sibelius release iPad versions of their products.

Notion’s product manager Chris Swaffer has been there for most of those developments, and he joins Scoring Notes podcast co-hosts Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to tell us more about what Notion is, who it’s for, and where it’s headed — particularly in the aftermath of its acquisition by Fender, Notion’s second such move, after first being acquired by PreSonus. We first learn about Chris’s early days in the field and how he came to work on Notion, and how his experience as a composer and conductor informs his very important role. We also hear how Notion has been steadily upgrading its codebase to align with its Studio One DAW, and why its versatility is important for the product’s strategy in a very crowded marketplace.

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Listeners responded to our “call for calls” with some terrific questions about music notation software, related technology, the business of music preparation, and more.

On this episode, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald celebrate the beginning of the academic year by answering questions about the music notation software, tools, and services best suited for education. Whether you’re a student, educator, amateur, or professional musician, you’ll learn something about the wide variety of products we cover in response to the many terrific inquiries submitted by the Scoring Notes audience.

The third of a multi-part episode — because we got so many questions that we didn’t have enough time to fit them all into one sitting.

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For the first time ever, MOLA, An Association of Performance Librarians, devoted an entire day to technology that featured vendor exhibits, presentations, discussions, and meetings. Bookending the day were two panel discussions; one moderated by David MacDonald on the subject of music reader tablet experiences, and one moderated by Philip Rothman with representatives from the music notation software platforms.

The concluding discussion, heard here, is entitled “Music Notation Platforms: An Industry Perspective”. It brought together the representatives of a cross-section of notation software solutions: Adrian Holovaty of Soundslice; Bradley Kunda of MuseScore; Daniel Spreadbury of Steinberg (Dorico); and Chris Swaffer of PreSonus (Notion).

These “ABCD”s of the music notation software field engaged in a lively back-and-forth interchange about the philosophy behind their product development, their relationships with their user bases, and how their programs co-exist in a crowded space.

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If there is one book that anyone working with music notation needs to have, either on their desk, or on their device — or at least in a library within walking distance of their home — it’s Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation. Published in 2011 by Faber Music, Elaine Gould’s 700-page volume quickly became the preeminent reference for music engravers, providing an exhaustive collection of rules, traditions, suggestions, and conventions for how to set music in the clearest way possible.

It’s those “general” conventions that take up first third of the book — starting from what Elaine calls the “ground rules” such as the appearance of the staff, clefs, noteheads, and more — and continues on for another 200 pages or so, before the book moves onto the areas of instrumentation and layout. Elaine joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to tell us about the new publication of that first section, Behind Bars: General Conventions, as a stand-alone edition suitable for slipping into your bookbag, where it won’t break the bank, or your back.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Elaine talks with us about her early background and how she came to the profession of music preparation and editing. We uncover the seeds that eventually became Behind Bars, and the decades-long journey from meticulous refinements to its eventual publication and virtually overnight success.

Elaine gives us her practical tips for working with composers, performers, and publishers, the realities of time pressures and budget restrictions, and the inevitable revisions that occur with new music, and tells us how she’s navigated the often-conflicting goals of the  engraving ideal and the necessity of deadline-driven production.

She also has advice for those that are just starting out in the field, and naturally, given our focus on music notation software and technology, she opines on what the computer’s strengths and weaknesses, the crucial differences between looking at music on a screen and on a page, and the progress made since Behind Bars was first published in 2011.

For the first time ever, MOLA, An Association of Performance Librarians, devoted an entire day to technology that featured vendor exhibits, presentations, discussions, and meetings. Bookending the day were two panel discussions; one moderated by David MacDonald on the subject of music reader tablet experiences, and one moderated by Philip Rothman with representatives from the music notation software platforms.

We’ll bring Philip’s discussion to you later this summer, but first, we hope you enjoy the discussion that David had to kick off the tech fair, about the real-world challenges and benefits of using tablet readers in orchestral performances. His co-moderator was none other than Mark Fabulich, assistant librarian of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the co-chair of MOLA’s Technology Committee.

The distinguished panelists they spoke with were three librarians, each of whom primarily use different reader apps: Julia Pestke of the West German Radio Orchestra, who uses dimusco; Luke Speedy-Hutton of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, who uses Newzik; and Signe Marie Steensland of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, who uses forScore.

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Listeners responded to our “call for calls” with some terrific questions about music notation software, related technology, the business of music preparation, and more.

On this episode, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald take a variety of questions and dispense solicited (and unsolicited) advice. The topic at hand for this part: Using music notation software with — or as — a digital audio workstation (DAW).

The second of a multi-part episode — because we got so many questions that we didn’t have enough time to fit them all into one sitting.

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Listeners responded to our “call for calls” with some terrific questions about music notation software, related technology, the business of music preparation, and more.

On this episode, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald take a variety of questions and dispense solicited (and unsolicited) advice. Among the topics: the best way to switch among different platforms, how to set up condensed scores, what makes a good portfolio, what printer to use and where to get paper, and much more.

The first of a multi-part episode — because we got so many questions that we didn’t have enough time to fit them all into one sitting.

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