As much as I enjoy keeping up this blog, like most folks, I have a day job to attend to, which will probably prevent me from ascending into the hallowed sphere of the blogerati anytime soon. Yet even when I can’t get to the blog for a few days, I’m usually thinking about new topics or ways to improve it for readers.
The blog is approaching 600 articles about Sibelius, simliar products, and the fields of music notation and music technology. Some are in-depth features and some are quick tips, but all told they cover an incredible variety of topics. One improvement I’ve been wanting to make was to have more of these articles be readily available, because once an article would roll off of the home page, it was difficult to find it unless you happened upon it from a search or related post.
The wet early-spring weather in New York over this past weekend afforded me the perfect opportunity to remedy this issue. Beginning today, you’ll notice an improved navigation menu at the top of every page, with links to the blog’s categories:
Click on, say, Tutorials, and you’ll find a nice list of the most recent articles in that category, complete with a concise summary and thumbnail image. Perfect reading to catch up on for the next rainy weekend in your corner of the world:
This way, even if you miss a week or a whole month or two, you’ll hopefully find this an easier way of finding more of the content you like.
I also made some changes to the site’s fonts to improve readability, added some social media icons at the top right, and tidied up a few odds and ends as best I could.
It’s my hope that a spring cleaning, a few new coats of paint, and the other recent changes to this blog result in a more satisfying experience for loyal and casual readers alike. Love it? Hate it? Didn’t notice? Don’t care? Let me know! And, as always, thanks for reading.
Stephen Begley
Great idea! The tips and tutorials are a welcome component of this site. Anything that makes it easier to locate these – sometimes months after we first read them – can only be a good thing.
Randall Mauger
Always interesting, informative, and helpful. I greatly appreciate the effort you always put into these posts. I particularly like your added context to notation software in general. While Sibelius is my personal favorite, I also use to a lesser degree Finale, and Notion 3 and when Steinberg rolls their program out I’ll likely invest in that too.
Randall Mauger
Steve
Looks great – keep up the good work.
Bob Zawalich
I do like the easier access to the topics. Thanks for keeping this going, even with your day job, and I hope that’s going well too!
Philip Rothman
Thanks, everyone, for the nice comments. Yes, the day job is keeping the various projects humming along at NYC Music Services. Things are going well!
Alexander Plötz
Since plug-ins have been covered a lot recently and since they are kind of their own special category, how about adding a tab for those posts?
Philip Rothman
Alex: Perhaps. Good suggestion! I’ve been pretty good about tagging posts about plug-ins as such, so, for the moment, you could go here: https://www.scoringnotes.com/tag/plug-in/
Jenny Amaya
Philip – I love the new blog website. It is definitely easier to navigate and to enjoy. Thank you so much for all of your hard work!
Philip Rothman
Thanks, Jenny. I’m glad you like it. I appreciate it!