Episodes
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The 2024 conference of MOLA: An Association of Performance Librarians recently concluded in Cleveland, Ohio, and by all accounts it was a rocking success.
The conference began with the second annual Tech Fair, a gathering of librarians, product specialists, and vendors, with demonstrations and exhibits bookended by panel discussions about technology as it relates to the performance librarian. The remainder of the four-day long conference featured plenary sessions, breakout groups, and lots of excellent spontaneous sharing of knowledge and experience about a crucial role in the music-making process.
Philip Rothman and David MacDonald recap the conference with a podcast episode recorded in person from Cleveland, with a summary of the tech fair and the rest of the event: from the intricacies of percussion setup to licensing, copyright, and commissioning agreements, and much more.
And, if you like your podcasts in video format, we have a special treat for you: A video of this podcast episode, recorded live.
More from Scoring Notes:
MOLA 2024: Cleveland rockedMOLA morsels: Conversations from the 2024 conferenceVideos from the MOLA 2024 Conference:
MOLA 2024: Welcome!MOLA 2024: Putting Technology Into Practice in the Music LibraryMOLA 2024: Notion’s Chris SwafferMOLA 2024: Avid’s Justin Tokke, product designer for SibeliusMOLA 2024: Steinberg’s John Barron, product specialist for DoricoMOLA 2024: The Cleveland Orchestra’s Michael FerragutoMOLA 2024: Alastair McKean, MOLA President 2023-2024MOLA 2024: Conference and Tech Fair Wrap-up -
Printing music is something that takes skill and attention to detail — both by the music preparer and the printer. When everything’s communicated well, it leads to print shop nirvana and the ideal result for everyone involved.
Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk through a specific project and illustrate the various steps along the way to set it up for success. No detail is too small, from the page size, to the number of copies, to the shipping methods desired. Philip relays his tips and best practices from the perspective of a professional music printing service.
Then, David gives advice for how to ensure good results if you need to take your project to a more general-service copy shop, or even if you are printing yourself, like some inventive ways to format the page size and convey the instructions to minimize the risk of errors that can be introduced and avoid miscommunication in what is one of the last, most critical steps in preparing a piece of music.
Also: A preview of the 2024 MOLA Conference and Tech Fair.
More on Scoring Notes and elsewhere:
Chronology of a perfect music printing jobCreating PDFs from Sibelius 7Export File Names Dialog in DoricoName Mangler and Moom productivity appsOn the margins: Headers, footers, and footnotes in SibeliusSmarter title pages for parts in SibeliusSmarter title pages for parts in FinaleWorking with master pages in Dorico, part 2How to fix a common page numbering problem in SibeliusPDF-MusicBinder and PDF-BatchStitch utilities for music printing -
Episodes manquant?
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With music notation work often intersecting in some capacity with music production and scoring to video, it’s important to know when your software of choice is the best option for a particular need within a project, and when it’s not.
When it comes to fine-tuned formatting and engraving decisions, we can’t move from one notation software product to another without losing that important detail work. However, with the underlying composition itself, the information can be moved quite effectively with MusicXML or MIDI to and from to other software when a particular tool is needed elsewhere.
Steve Morell joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to take a look at how video, tempo, and time are handled with the four most popular desktop music notation software options — Dorico, Finale, MuseScore, and Sibelius — and how they compare to the unique notation/DAW hybrid approach from the tablet app StaffPad, as well as other solutions available.
More from Scoring Notes:
Video, tempo, and time (oh my!)
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We last visited with Steinberg’s product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury on the podcast upon the release of Dorico 4 in January 2022, and more recently last summer in Berlin at the MOLA conference in a panel discussion with his colleagues and competitors in the music notation software industry.
Although Dorico didn’t have much of a presence at the 2024 NAMM Show, we welcome the opportunity to visit with Daniel here in a similar manner that we did with many of those colleagues and competitors at NAMM.
We start not by focusing on the latest Dorico features, although we do discuss those. Instead, we speak with Daniel about how the Dorico community influences product development, to what extent Steinberg prioritizes customer requests and specific features, and how they balance those with some of the more long-term vision that they may have for the product. He gives us a sense of Dorico’s role within these companies, from a strategic, philosophical, and technical perspective. We explore how much of what they’re doing is done with the other products and services in mind, how those decisions are made, and how Dorico users benefit.
We also talk about industry changes and how those philosophies end up shaping what customers see on their screens and even what kind of music they create.
If you didn’t hear our NAMM wrap-up episode, and interviews with NAMM CEO John Mlynczak, Avid’s Sam Butler, MakeMusic’s Jason Wick, and Muse Group’s Jack Sutton, check those out in the Scoring Notes podcast feed.
More from Scoring Notes:
Dorico 5 review: Moving the music forwardDorico 5.1: Filling the gapsDorico 5.1.10 update is availableDorico 5.1.21 update is availableNAMM 2024: An interview with Muse Group’s Jack SuttonNAMM 2024: An interview with MakeMusic’s Jason WickNAMM 2024: An interview with Avid’s Sam ButlerNAMM 2024: Wrap-up and interview with CEO John MlynczakNAMM 2024: John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEONAMM 2024: Muse Group’s Jack Sutton on Hal Leonard, MuseScore development and moreNAMM 2024: MakeMusic’s Jason Wick on MakeMusic Cloud, Finale, and moreNAMM 2024: Avid’s Sam Butler on upcoming Sibelius features, Android app, and moreNAMM 2024: Exhibition mission -
At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Jack Sutton, Muse Group’s head of communications. Jack’s first visit to NAMM coincided with the company’s first official presence at the show as the parent company of Hal Leonard, which they recently acquired. We spoke about some early fruits of that deal and the longer-term plans that they have for the future of their combined business, which brings together cutting-edge digital products with a vast library of published content.
We also discussed MuseScore and the latest developments with their flagship notation product, and specifically the improvements they’ve made, and plan to make, in the areas of guitar and percussion music, as well as the overall quality of output that they hope to achieve with MuseScore in the future.
If you didn’t hear our NAMM wrap-up episode, and interviews with NAMM CEO John Mlynczak, Avid’s Sam Butler, and MakeMusic’s Jason Wick, check those out in the Scoring Notes podcast feed.
More from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2024: An interview with MakeMusic’s Jason WickNAMM 2024: An interview with Avid’s Sam ButlerNAMM 2024: Wrap-up and interview with CEO John MlynczakNAMM 2024: John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEONAMM 2024: Muse Group’s Jack Sutton on Hal Leonard, MuseScore development and moreNAMM 2024: MakeMusic’s Jason Wick on MakeMusic Cloud, Finale, and moreNAMM 2024: Avid’s Sam Butler on upcoming Sibelius features, Android app, and moreNAMM 2024: Exhibition mission -
At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Jason Wick, MakeMusic’s director of product development. Jason talked with me about their MakeMusic Cloud product, including their Practice tool, Sight Reading Studio, a free online composing application, and their classroom suite. We also discussed MakeMusic’s tight integration with the Alfred Publishing side of their company, the future of Finale, and more broadly considered the company’s values and strategies in today’s landscape of industry consolidation.
Come back next week for another great conversation from the NAMM Show. And if you didn’t hear our NAMM wrap-up episode, and interviews with NAMM CEO John Mlynczak and Avid’s Sam Butler, check those out in the Scoring Notes podcast feed.
More from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2024: An interview with Avid’s Sam ButlerNAMM 2024: Wrap-up and interview with CEO John MlynczakNAMM 2024: John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEONAMM 2024: Muse Group’s Jack Sutton on Hal Leonard, MuseScore development and moreNAMM 2024: MakeMusic’s Jason Wick on MakeMusic Cloud, Finale, and moreNAMM 2024: Avid’s Sam Butler on upcoming Sibelius features, Android app, and moreNAMM 2024: Exhibition mission -
At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Sam Butler, Avid’s director of product management. Sam talked with us about the new Sibelius features that Avid previewed at NAMM, the new Android application, and Sibelius Cloud publishing improvements.
Come back the next couple of weeks for more conversations from the NAMM Show. And if you didn’t hear our NAMM wrap-up episode, check that out in the podcast feed — David MacDonald and Philip Rothman review all the industry news and analyze what it means for you.
More from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2024: Wrap-up and interview with CEO John MlynczakNAMM 2024: John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEONAMM 2024: Muse Group’s Jack Sutton on Hal Leonard, MuseScore development and moreNAMM 2024: MakeMusic’s Jason Wick on MakeMusic Cloud, Finale, and moreNAMM 2024: Avid’s Sam Butler on upcoming Sibelius features, Android app, and moreNAMM 2024: Exhibition mission -
The 2024 NAMM Show was full of exciting news, products — and, most of all, the interesting people that create the news and products. Especially as it pertains to the Scoring Notes beat of music notation software and related technology, there was a lot to cover, and many miles were logged in service of bringing as much of the experience back to our audience.
David MacDonald and Philip Rothman review each of the major interviews that took place for Scoring Notes during the show with representatives from Avid, MakeMusic, and Muse Group. We also more generally analyze the experience, the information, and what it means for the year ahead in the field.
Concluding this episode is a special interview with John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEO of NAMM in which we discuss his roots in the music notation field and its importance to the philosophy of the organization.
Stay tuned all this month to the Scoring Notes podcast feed, where each week we will bring special bonus coverage of interviews with Avid’s Sam Butler, MakeMusic’s Jason Wick, and Muse Group’s Jack Sutton, as they each talk about their respective products and companies, and discuss their strategies and approaches to their business.
More on Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2024: John Mlynczak on his first show as president and CEONAMM 2024: Muse Group’s Jack Sutton on Hal Leonard, MuseScore development and moreNAMM 2024: MakeMusic’s Jason Wick on MakeMusic Cloud, Finale, and moreNAMM 2024: Avid’s Sam Butler on upcoming Sibelius features, Android app, and moreNAMM 2024: Exhibition mission -
It’s easier than ever to publish your own music — but that doesn’t mean it’s a simple proposition. Even though a lot of music is made available digitally, there is still a significant demand for printed material. The logistics of printing physical copies and shipping them to customers can be tricky to navigate. It’s important to not be “toner-deaf” to the challenges that come along with the opportunities you “drum” up by making your music available.
In this conversation with Garrett Breeze of the Selling Sheet Music podcast, Philip Rothman and Garrett first discuss the ways in which you can work with services that will handle the printing and fulfillment for you. We also talk about what’s needed if you want to actually set up your own operation, and finally review some tools that can help you prepare your music for both specialty print services and conventional copy shops, so that you can find a smooth path towards getting the material out and avoid any paper jams along the way.
More from Scoring Notes:
Muse Group acquires Hal LeonardChronology of a perfect music printing jobPrint perfectName Mangler and Moom productivity appsOn the margins: Headers, footers, and footnotes in SibeliusSmarter title pages for parts in SibeliusSmarter title pages for parts in FinaleWorking with master pages in Dorico, part 2How to fix a common page numbering problem in SibeliusPDF-MusicBinder and PDF-BatchStitch utilities for music printingQuickly scale many PDFs with PDF-BatchScaleMake booklets and 2-ups with PDF-BatchBookletFile renaming and PDF batch utilities -
With the Muse Group acquisition of Hal Leonard, and Dorico, MuseScore, Sibelius, and Finale all freshly updated, 2023 is going out with a bang. We gather round the fire and discuss all the news, as we get ready for the year ahead in music notation software and related technology.
More on Scoring Notes:
Muse Group acquires Hal LeonardDorico 5.1: Filling the gapsMuseScore 4.2 adds more guitar features and improves scores with partsSibelius 2023.11: Sonoma support, more system object positions, better KeypadFinale version 27.4 supports macOS Sonoma, true black printing, other fixes -
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.
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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.
More on Scoring Notes:
StaffPad “captures” the imagination — and your piano performanceStaffPad audio update, Graphical MIDI Tools, and software licensingStaffPad brings live recordings into your scores with Audio UpdateDaniel Ray “muses” about Audacity and StaffPadStaffPad acquired by Muse Group; audio support plannedDavid William Hearn and StaffPadStaffPad wows with long-awaited iPad release and new free StaffPad Reader -
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:
Quick tip: Dismiss all open dialog boxes in FinaleSupercharge your Finale workflow on Mac with Keyboard MaestroFinaleScripts for faster scoring in FinaleArticulation metatools in FinaleSibelius:
Using Sibelius Effectively: a guide to Sibelius UltimateSibelius from A to ZUse keyboard shortcuts to apply text expressions in SibeliusQuick keyboard access to your Sibelius plug-insAdd custom shortcuts for Keypad features in SibeliusDorico:
Dorico from A to ZCustomize keyboard shortcuts in Sibelius and DoricoAssigning MIDI commandsNotation Express:
Notation Express for Dorico 5 releasedStream Deck Mobile 2.0 brings native iPad support for the first time — and a whole lot moreNotation Express for Dorico 4 releasedNotation Express for Dorico 3Notation Express XL is available for Sibelius and DoricoNotation Express demo availableNotation Express is now on iOS with Stream Deck Mobile -
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
Music notation platforms: an industry perspectiveA Notion of the futureNotion iOS 2.5 and Notion 6.6 desktop updates releasedNAMM 2019: A “Notion” of music with the 6.5 update and moreNotion 6.2 released with more integration with Studio OneNotion 6 released -
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
Asked and answered, part 1Asked and answered, part 2: In awe of the DAWHigh fidelity audio comes to ZoomBetter music experiences come to Zoom with high fidelity audioShare video and audio of music notation software via ZoomNoteflight, education, innovation, and inspirationPaperless composition lessons with iPad Pro and Apple PencilTeaching and teaming up with tablets and techStaffPad acquired by Muse Group; audio support plannedDaniel Ray “muses” about Audacity and StaffPadDorico and Sibelius come to the iPad -
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
The tech trek to the 2023 MOLA conferenceHalf Notes: A comparison of tablet music reader technology experiences -
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.
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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.
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
The tech trek to the 2023 MOLA conferenceThe best iPad score reader for most people [2023 update]Justin Bianco, forScore, and more -
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
Asked and answered, part 1NotePerformer 4 connects your favorite notation software to your favorite sample librariesGraphical MIDI Tools 2.1 for Sibelius updated to add transport, more editing featuresGraphical MIDI Tools 2 is a major upgrade to the DAW-like plug-in for SibeliusGraphical MIDI Tools plug-in brings sequencer-like capabilities to SibeliusDorico 5 review: Moving the music forwardDorico 4.2 adds percussion to the Key Editor and improves linked modeStaffPad audio update, Graphical MIDI Tools, and software licensingStaffPad acquired by Muse Group; audio support planned“Playing” with notation software, part 1 of 2“Playing” with notation software, part 2 of 2Long-awaited MuseScore 4 release brings major improvements to engraving and audio -
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.
More from Scoring Notes:
Getting the notes inDon’t extract partsGet organized with music notation filesPrint perfectChronology of a perfect music printing job - Montre plus
