Tips

Score preparation and production notes

June 8, 2026 · 8 min read
Advertisement

Listen to the podcast episode

On the Scoring Notes podcast, David MacDonald and Philip Rothman revisit the checklist that launched the podcast. We work through it section by section — what the software has solved, what it hasn’t, and what wasn’t even on the original list. Listen now:

Podcast

Score preparation and production double-checklist

June 6, 2026 · 1:28:57 · with Philip Rothman and David MacDonald
0:00 / 1:28:57
View episode page →


This post originally appeared on David MacDonald’s blog, first appeared on Scoring Notes in 2018, and was updated in 2026.

Final pass

  • Rehearsal marks: My target is for the conductor to always be able to see one without turning more than a page in either direction.
  • Cues
  • Redundancies
    • dynamics
    • meter
    • key signatures
    • instrument changes/mutes
  • collisions and near-collisions
  • indicate transposed or sounding pitch in the score
Position Rehearsal Marks plug-in in Sibelius
Cues in Dorico
Check Redundancies plug-in in Sibelius
Check Open and Mute plug-in in Sibelius
Optimize Staff Spacing in Sibelius
Going keyless in your score in Finale, Sibelius, and MuseScore
Keyless instruments in a keyed score, in Finale, Sibelius, and MuseScore

Layout

  • Careful with page turns and system breaks. You may wish to adjust the page justification settings.
  • It’s usually better to have more page turns that are comfortable than fewer that are tricky.
  • Try to aim for some rest before and/or after a page turn. (Before is best, but after is ok too.)
    • In some cases, it may be useful to indicate to a player that there is a multirest immediately after a page turn to avoid a fast, noisy turn. Write “time” or use MusGlyphs to show the upcoming multirest in the bottom right corner of the page (off the staff).
  • Try to keep system and staff spacing consistent. If you find you’re having to make a lot of adjustments for extreme registers or intricate dynamics, just change the spacing universally.
  • Use running headers in your score and parts to identify the work in some way, and in a multi-movement/part work (esp. if there are many parts like opera, musical theatre, ballet, etc.) also indicate the movement/part at the top of each page.
Manually adjust staves and systems in Sibelius
Get Started Fast Video: Layout in Sibelius
Layout and formatting in Sibelius
Optimize Staff Spacing in Sibelius
Adding headers for multi-movement works in Sibelius
Working with master pages in Dorico, part 1

Parts

  • MOLA on parts: “Do not create wind parts with multiple instruments on a single staff; for instance, flutes 1 and 2 should be separate parts.”
  • Linked/Dynamic parts. Do not create a separate file for each part.
    • If you absolutely must, you may create a separate “parts score” file.
Don’t extract parts
Smarter title pages for parts in Sibelius
Smarter title pages for parts in Finale
Using the Open Selected Parts plug-in in Sibelius
Tacet parts in Finale and Sibelius
Page Numbers plug-in in Sibelius
Creating single parts from multiple staves in Sibelius

Front matter

  • Make front matter in a regular document editor or a desktop publishing program. Do not try to do this in your scoring app! It will almost certainly end in tears. I like the free(mium) Affinity by Canva for this, but your favorite, desktop word-processing software is more than up to the task.
  • Cover
    • minimum:
    • also consider
      • medium/genre (eg. “wind ensemble”, “percussion quartet”, or “piano”)
      • year of composition (in parens after the title)
  • Title page (right side page)
    • minimum:
      • title
      • composer name
      • medium/genre
    • also consider
      • instrumentation list (either here or on the info page)
      • year of composition
      • dedication
  • Info page (on the back of the title page)
    • instrumentation if not on the title page
      • for percussion, list each instrument played by each player
    • performance notes, if necessary
    • program note
    • approx. duration
    • if applicable, full text for vocal and choral works, printed as a poem
  • Combine all into a single PDF file with the frontmatter and score.
How to fix a common page numbering problem in Sibelius
Instrument List plug-in in Sibelius
Orchestra librarians want you to know about instrument names

Production and binding

  • Paper size
    • at least 9 x 12, up to 11 x 17 for scores, up to 11 x 14 for parts (though this is pretty big and should probably be avoided unless you have a really good reason)
    • common: 9 x 12, 9.5 x 12.5, and 10 x 13
    • set the documents up in Finale/Sibelius/Dorico at the final size, and export PDFs at the final size
    • margin hacking
      • If you are printing on larger paper and cutting after (common for working with local print shops who don’t have music-standard sizes), set the page up as 11×17 and adjust the margins accordingly.
      • Add the same amount to the bottom of every page and the left or right side (be sure to mirror these!) so that two cuts will get the final paper size after printing.
  • Staff size
    • min 4mm score, 7mm in parts (part size can fudge a little smaller)
    • Note that in many cases when scores and parts are delivered digitally, they may be printed on standard paper sizes, which are a bit smaller, and the staff size will shrink proportionally. Keep this in mind if you are delivering PDF files rather than printed copies.
  • Paper type
    • do not use 20lb copy paper!
    • For scores, 24–28lb bond (60–70lb offset). Go slightly heavier for parts, up to about 32lb bond/80lb offset. (This is also super weird and confusing. See below for a link to a guide by Robert Puff at Of Note.)
    • No shiny paper! Performers need to write in pencil and don’t want glare.
  • Binding
    • Short scores and parts may be tape bound
    • For 9 x 12, you can print two-ups on 12 x 18 and fold. Multiple sheets like this can be “saddle stitched” (stapled on the edge).
    • Longer scores should be coil bound when possible, comb bound if necessary
    • You may need to tell the copy shop it’s OK if the binding doesn’t go all the way to the edge of a large score. They can center the coil or comb. This may require them to use materials and equipment in ways they’re not used to. Be convincing, but always be nice. They’re not dumb; they just don’t see a lot of these kinds of documents.
  • Production
    • You may have to go to the copy shop in person rather than ordering online. Bring an example if you can.
    • If ordering online, go to a music specialist printer:
      • NYC Music Services (Disclosure: This company is owned and operated by Philip Rothman, editor of Scoring Notes)
      • Black Ribbon
On the margins: Headers, footers, and footnotes in Sibelius
Sibelius 8.5 introduces staff sizes on a per-system basis
How to tape and fold pages for parts: a video tutorial
A few brief thoughts about the size of music paper
Orchestra librarians want you to know about parts paper sizes
Calculate the weight, basis weight, or grammage of paper
PDF apps for batch scaling, stitching, and booklet making, available at Notation Central

Resources

Previous Scoring Notes posts and podcast episodes

Other references

Forums and groups

Tags
Advertisement

Related posts

5 Comments

  1. Rob

    This is very useful but is there any chance we could have a translation of the paper sizes and weights for those of us in the metric world? (i.e. A and B paper sizes and gsm for weight). There was an article that discussed sizes before but I don’t recall weights

  2. Avatar photo
    David MacDonald

    Thanks, Rob. Take a look at the links in the article. There’s a very handy in-depth article by Robert Puff about weights, which includes a comparison chart of all the different ways of measuring paper weight, including gsm.

    1. Rob

      Thanks David – missed the weight one, although the number of ways of saying the same thing is breathtaking. It seems very complicated. I just use A3 100gsm paper for scores and everyone is happy!

  3. Andrew Savage

    I’d argue that great-looking front matter is actually easily achievable in Dorico without the need for a separate file in Word or a publishing program.

    1. Avatar photo
      David MacDonald

      Thanks for reading, Andrew. I’m a big Dorico proponent as well, and I really do love the page layout features they have borrowed from the world of desktop publishing software. Having said that, I still think that most people (myself included) are better off preparing front matter in a word processor or desktop publisher for many small reasons, especially typography: Dorico doesn’t have any controls for substituting typographical quotes or ligatures; it won’t handle hyphenation; and it doesn’t follow standard keyboard shortcuts for text. (I grumble aloud every time I’m typing in a text box and get nothing when I press ⌘I or ⌘B.) There are also a lot of layout things that Word, Pages, or InDesign do better as well: bulleted lists and tables are useful for instrument listings and notation legends; floating an image in a text block with a caption; etc. These are all certainly _achievable_ in Dorico, which is something I love about the application; but, they are much more cumbersome to do there than in a text-focused app.

      I’ve been using Dorico since before launch day, and I still wouldn’t recommend it for anything beyond the absolute simplest front matter.

Join the conversation

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *