We’ve spoken about opera occasionally on a few Scoring Notes episodes — like in the 2-parter we did on lyrics, for instance. But a genre as big and complex as opera deserves our uninterrupted focus. Around for centuries as an art form, opera continues its appeal through the present day, with many contemporary composers working in this area, including a few that have made it their specialty.

Due to its length, large forces and form, multiple movements, revisions, vocal elements, piano reductions, and more, if you’re working with opera, you stand to benefit from a strong knowledge of different areas of music notation software.

Joshua Luty joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to talk all about the intersection of the timeless art form of opera and the use of technology to help prepare it. Joshua is the music librarian for the Houston Grand Opera and serves with Philip on the MOLA Technology Committee. You won’t have to search too hard to find his expert advice on the some of the Dorico and engraving forums on the socials.

In addition to those credentials, Joshua’s the editor and rental librarian for the composer Joel Thompson, and the Former Lead Editorial Assistant for the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition at the University of Michigan’s Gershwin Initiative, and has had other notable positions in the music field.

Joshua takes us behind the curtain and into the dungeon of the opera music library, preparing a new opera from conception to workshop to revisions and finally performance. We discuss the mix of old-fashioned and new technology that Joshua and his colleagues use to make it all happen, and learn some surprising facts about the process.

We also get essential advice about the importance of vocal scores, preparing parts, how to label inserts, cueing, and printing. Whether or not you work on opera, this podcast episode “sets the scene” with practical advice that you can “act” on when using music notation software and related technology to produce your next creation.

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Garrett Breeze’s podcast, called Selling Sheet Music, features practical advice about the art and the business of getting scores from your head to the music stand. Garrett invited Scoring Notes co-host Philip Rothman to be a guest on his show, and it was fun having someone ask Philip the questions for a change instead of the other way around.

We discussed thoughts on preparing music and the tech that’s used in everyday work. Philip talks about his business, NYC Music Services, how he got started, and how the tasks have evolved over time in response to changing needs and technological progress. We also talk about some essential elements of preparing your music for publication and how to go about choosing software that fits your workflow.

Garrett even got into the Scoring Notes spirit and titled this episode “Setting a High Bar” — that definitely ‘measures’ up to our standard of making terrible musical puns around here.

Enjoy this episode, courtesy of Garrett Breeze and Selling Sheet Music.

If you’re not up to date, then you’re missing out on the latest features. That’s always been true, but perhaps never more so than now, with regular updates being the norm for music notation software.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald review the latest updates to Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, and MuseScore, and highlight the most useful new features — and what’s in those updates that may portend well for the future.

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Tim Davies calls himself “really an arranger that fell into orchestrating,” but that barely begins to describe the active and successful musical life that he leads. Born and educated in Australia, now based in Los Angeles, the Grammy-nominated and Annie-winning musician splits his time between orchestrating for features, television, and video games; composing his own scores; and conducting and arranging for orchestras all around the globe.

Tim’s film and TV credits as lead orchestrator and/or conductor include Frozen and Frozen 2, both Ant-Man movies, The Lego Movie 2, La La Land, Trolls, and The Peanuts Movie. He’s prolific in the world of video games, including God of War, Infamous, Sims, the Resistance and Batman franchises, Spider-man, and Halo: Infinite. He’s a busy conductor in concert halls and other live venues specializing in live to picture scores, and we haven’t even mentioned all the special projects he’s arranged for productions like the BBC Proms and Academy Awards. And if that wasn’t enough, that pair of Grammy nominations were for his own big band recordings, where he not only composed the music, but played the drums, as well.

Despite his busy schedule, Tim not only finds time to write extensively about his experience and approaches on his web site, timusic.net, but counts it as one of the most important things that he does. The series of articles about the craft of orchestration — complete with illustrated examples — numbers well into the dozens, and explores related subjects like conducting, jazz voicing, and — our favorite — music notation software.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald have a wide-ranging conversation with Tim in which all of those topics are explored. We start with Tim’s early days as a student, where he made his own opportunities, and how his initiative and innate musicality combined with a relentless pursuit of practicality — along with a healthy dose of keyboard macros — has served him well as he worked his way to being one of the most sought-after professionals in the business.

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We continue our interviews with members of MOLA, An Association of Performance Librarians, at their annual conference in June. We’re calling these brief conversations “Scoring Half Notes”

In this segment, we revisit with our good friend Nicole Jordan, the principal librarian of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Nicole hosted the 2022 MOLA conference in her capacity in Philadelphia, and by sheer coincidence, she was the host of the last in-person MOLA conference in 2019 when she was principal librarian at the Atlanta Symphony.

We caught up with Nicole during the closing banquet and look back at both conferences. At the 2022 conference, Nicole delivered a presentation about recording Florence Price’s music. We learn what it was like making that composer’s voice come alive in the course of this very successful project, and  some of the similarities and differences of working with contemporary music composers.

By the way, you’ll definitely want to listen to our full interview with Nicole from an earlier episode, if you haven’t heard it already, where Nicole quizzes us about our software recommendations and gets our advice for people who are just beginning their technological journey.

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We continue to share some interviews that we did with members of MOLA, An Association of Performance Librarians, at their annual conference in June. We’re calling these brief conversations “Scoring Half Notes”.

In this segment, we talk with Mark Fabulich, an assistant librarian at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mark is the chair of MOLA’s Technology Committee. In that role, he guides its members as they stay on top of the latest digital developments and disseminate that information to the general MOLA membership.

At the MOLA conference, Mark co-delivered a presentation entitled “(Y)Our Future with Digital Sheet Music” with Georgina Govier, head of music library at the Welsh National Opera, as well as with none other than Scoring Notes podcast co-host David MacDonald. We talk about the content of that presentation, as well as other technologies like Photoshop, spreadsheets, and, of course, music notation software — all of which today’s performance librarian needs to have at their disposal in their modern digital toolbox.

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For the next few weeks we’ll be sharing some interviews that we did with members of MOLA, An Association of Performance Librarians, at their annual conference in June. We’re calling these brief conversations “Scoring Half Notes”.

In today’s segment, we talk with Jane Cross, a music archivist at the Library of Congress. She’s been in that position nearly three years, and before that, was a librarian with the prestigious United States Marine Band for 22 years; 11 of those as chief librarian.

At the MOLA conference, Jane delivered a presentation entitled “Bits and Bytes: Managing All Those Digital Music Files”. It’s a topic we turn to from time to time here on Scoring Notes, and we loved catching up with an actual archivist to tell us how to be our best selves in this area. Even if you weren’t present for Jane’s discussion, we’ve included a link to her presentation and a very helpful risk mitigation worksheet. You’ll want to remember the acronym LOCKSS: “Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe”.

Bits and Bytes: Managing All Those Digital Music Files:

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At the 2022 MOLA conference, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald jointly presented a session called “Advancements in Music Notation Software”. It’s a summary of the developments from the past year or so in the world of music notation software and related technology, and we thought it made for a great podcast episode if you’re looking to get caught up on what’s new or just refresh your memory. We took some questions from the audience, too, and put it all together for you here on Scoring Notes.

Later this month, we’ll release some brief bonus segments featuring conversations we had with our librarian colleagues, so look for those in your Scoring Notes podcast feed.

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What happens when you combine custom fonts, fine-tuned engraving settings, and decades of collective music preparation expertise? The Scoring Express templates for Sibelius, Dorico, and Finale.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with Joseph Trefler and Leo Nicholson about the creation of new template suites for Finale and Dorico, along with an update to the Sibelius version. We discuss the catalysts for creating professional, easy-to-use solutions for each application, and explore the high-level concepts of using Scoring Express along with the nerdy minutiae.

More on Scoring Notes: Scoring Express for Dorico and Finale released; Sibelius templates updated

Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim are distinguished flutists and composers, and Flutronix, the name of their duo, says it all. Known for their unique blend of classical, hip hop, electronic programming and soulful vocals, music and technology intersect constantly in their work and music. They’re active in all of those genres and more, and yet somehow they found time to talk to Philip Rothman and David MacDonald about all of it.

We first learn about how Allison and Nathalie met and began their collaboration, and the process of creating brand new repertoire for their unique combination of two flutes and electronica. They tell us about their influences and process of composition, and how, despite various labels being applied to their music, they aim to defy genre classification and instead simply create music that they want to play and hear.

We then get into the tech, starting with, what else: music notation software. Allison and Nathalie use Sibelius and they talk about how it helps them visualize their music, both at a macro level as well as with respect to the finer details of harmony and chord structure. Their use of digital audio workstations as well as hardware and software synths play a crucial role in creating and developing their sounds, and we find our what they’re currently using and how they use it with music notation software.

Finally, we discuss the importance of music preparation and how essential well-prepared scores and parts are in rehearsal, especially when other elements like electronics are literally in the mix.

Heard on this episode: