A journey through engraving the entirety of The Rite of Spring from scratch into Dorico, to learn more about both Stravinsky’s masterful composition and how to use the music notation software. Includes Dorico files.
musicxml
A review of optical music recognition software
A review of four leading optical music recognition, or “music scanning” apps, and how they work with music notation software: PlayScore 2, ScanScore, PhotoScore Ultimate, and SmartScore 64 Professional Edition. Plus links to sample files from each app that you can download and test yourself.
Daniel Spreadbury on music fonts: past, present, and future
Daniel Spreadbury returns to Scoring Notes to talk about the common set of font specifications known as the Standard Music Font Layout, or SMuFL. We get into the history of music fonts and how we got to where we are today with this essential component of music notation software technology.
Direct Sibelius file import headlines 2020.12 release
Sibelius 2020.12 is available. The new feature in this release is the long-awaited ability to import Sibelius files directly into an existing Sibelius file or template. There are other improvements in the areas of plug-ins and fonts.
Noteflight, education, innovation, and inspiration
Noteflight, the web-based music notation software that allows musicians to create, share, teach, sell, and purchase music, continues to innovate with updates and new product offerings, so that professionals and educators can take their inspirations and collaborate, no matter the circumstances.
Preparing music scores for screens — the challenges and opportunities
What are the best practices when preparing a score with the expectation that it will be read from a screen, not paper? This is an excellent question — one whose answer today may likely change in the coming years.
The focus is on staves with the Sibelius 2020.9 update
Sibelius 2020.9 is available with enhancements to the Focus on Staves feature, enabling new layout and formatting workflows for scores and parts. There are other improvements to MIDI and MusicXML importing, ManuScript, and accessibility.
Finale version 26.3 released [updated]
MakeMusic has released Finale version 26.3. In addition to a fully-translated Spanish version, this release brings support for Dark Mode on Mac, better performance while editing and scrolling, MusicXML improvements, and a handful of bug fixes.
Sibelius 2020.6 brings better MusicXML import, color options
Sibelius 2020.6 brings a more sophisticated method of importing MusicXML files directly into a pre-existing template. There are new options for changing the default colors, along with other updates in the areas of accessibility, ties, exporting, and more.
Dorico 3.5 review
Steinberg has released Dorico 3.5, a major upgrade to its scoring program. Pitch-before-duration note input, semantic figured bass, line style editors, and condensing for section players are among the dozens of new features and improvements.