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.

More on Scoring Notes:

(Re)learning how to use music notation software

Finale:

Sibelius:

Dorico:

Notation Express: