The Society of Composers and Lyricists in New York is presenting a seminar entitled “Music Notation Tools and Tactics” on Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 7 pm. We have a free discount code for Scoring Notes readers.
music preparation
Printing music for The Tonight Show in Central Park
Jimmy Fallon brought The Tonight Show outdoors to the Summer Stage at Central Park. Joining the show’s house band The Roots were musicians from the New York Philharmonic, making for a unique 20-piece ensemble. NYC Music Services played a small but important role in printing the music that got on the stands.
Road report: London diary
While I had the chance, I decided to take a few days to visit colleagues in London to catch up on all the latest. Fortunately (for me) they were working hard during the summer and hadn’t skipped town. Enjoy this virtual travelog!
When preparing Stravinsky for Link Up, the engraver is also a student
We prepare all of the orchestral music for Carnegie Hall’s Link Up educational program, for students in grades 3 through 5. It’s deeply satisfying taking a masterwork by a great composer like Stravinsky and revisiting it by setting the notes anew. It wasn’t just the grade school students who were educated during this process!
DJA’s Notes: Do not abuse one-bar and two-bar repeats
In this installment of DJA’s Notes by Darcy James Argue, we learn the dos and donts of one- and two-bar repeats, numbering repeated bars, and how to lay out the music correctly so that the intent is clearly conveyed.
An interview with librarian Paul Beck
In anticipation of the 2018 Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association (MOLA) conference, an interview with librarian Paul Beck about his life and work, and to hear in his own words what it means to perform the essential function of the librarian in today’s musical world.
Score preparation and production notes
Originally appearing as a document that composer David MacDonald created for his weekly master class, this bullet-list of score preparation and production notes will improve the quality of your performance materials in no time. To it we have added relevant links from Scoring Notes and other sources.
DJA’s Notes: Left-align chord symbols
In this installment of DJA’s Notes by Darcy James Argue, learn how to left-align chord symbols in all three major commercial music notation software programs, in order to avoid confusion on the stand.
DJA’s Notes: Group instruments correctly
DJA’s Notes is a new series inspired by Darcy James Argue’s Facebook posts, which offer some quick, basic steps to improve the appearance of notated music, especially from a jazz/big band perspective. In this post, learn how to group instruments correctly and change what the notation software may do by default.
A few brief thoughts about the size of music paper
I often receive inquiries wondering if 9” x 12” paper was acceptable for orchestral use, or if 10” x 13” is necessary. Here are my thoughts based on experience preparing music for hundreds of orchestral projects.