How we don’t use music notation software (but do use related technology)

Scoring Notes

Sometimes music notation software is perfect for the job, but other times, it’s the related technology that’s better suited to the task. Fortunately, we cover both sides of the equation on Scoring Notes — and it’s the latter part that Philip Rothman and David MacDonald discuss on this podcast episode.

When creating scores and parts, music notation software is clearly the choice. But what about front matter — the pages of text and sometimes other markings and symbols that preface the music? For that, better options may exist. We look at the pros and cons of making that material directly in music notation software, and suggest apps for when it’s helpful to split the job.

We talk about some of our favorite apps specifically for working with PDFs and the surprising number of ways that you can edit a file using those apps — and may need to do so — without actually having access to the music notation files or the software.

What about when you need to make music notation outside of notation software? For that, there is a whole suite of fonts designed to create music notation within non-music apps. They’re called MusFonts, and Dan Kreider created them to fill this niche.

For many users, creating audio is an essential component of music notation software, and we outline ways to complement the built-in process of making MIDI mockups with other software without getting too complicated.

Finally, we give a shout-out to our favorite piece of related technology.

More from Scoring Notes:

• Export PDF to true black in Finale, and a macro for all parts
• Fix printing problems with Sibelius, PDFs, and Acrobat
• Quickly scale many PDFs with PDF-BatchScale
• Make booklets and 2-ups with PDF-BatchBooklet
• PDF-MusicBinder and PDF-BatchStitch utilities for music printing
• File renaming and PDF batch utilities
• MusGlyphs, an advanced music text font
• MusGlyphs updated to 2.1; text version added
• MusAnalysis, an advanced font for musical analysis
• MusFrets, a font for chord diagrams
• Introducing Ambitus, a new font for pitch incipits, scales, and range diagrams
• Preparing teaching materials in music notation software
• “Playing” with notation software, part 1 of 2
• “Playing” with notation software, part 2 of 2

Apps and fonts we talk about:

• Microsoft Word
• Apple Pages
• Affinity
• Adobe Acrobat
• PDF-BatchScale
• PDF-BatchStitch
• PDF-BatchBooklet
• PDF-MusicBinder
• PDF Squeezer
• PDF Expert
• MusGlyphs
• MusAnalysis
• MusFrets
• Ambitus