Scoring Notes

When Dorico arrived ten years ago, a hot topic around here was whether there was room for a third professional notation program. These days new music apps turn up in our inbox almost daily, and the prospect of asking an AI to build one to your own specifications seems considerably less far-fetched than it did even a year ago.

For this Scoring Notes round table, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald are joined by Ben Byram-Wigfield and Jason Loffredo. If it gets easier to build your own tools, what makes it worth paying for a program that somebody...

Opening someone else’s notation file can take a little detective work. So can opening your own file from a year ago. After two 90-minute Q&A episodes, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald return for a (slightly) shorter conversation about figuring out what’s going on in a score before you start changing it.

David brings questions from helping his students; Philip brings his experience exchanging files with composers, clients, and colleagues. We start with the messages that appear when a file opens. There may be something useful in that dialog you just dismissed! Missing fonts, in part...

You sent more questions than one episode could hold, so we split them in two. Part one was brought to you by two letters: AI. This is everything else in the mailbag, from the practical side of the music notation software and technology world.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald work through the rest of the mailbag: an iPad that won’t behave like a desktop, an app that has gone quiet, a singing plug-in that is rapidly evolving, world instruments that have to be taught to a notation program, a page somebody has to read at tempo, or...

We asked for your questions, and you sent so many that one episode couldn’t hold them. This is part one of two — and part one is brought to you by two letters: A and I. That wasn’t the plan; it’s just where the mailbag pointed.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald take on the growing expectation that artificial intelligence should be able to turn a scan, recording, or generated track into finished, usable sheet music. Why is that still so difficult? And where can AI genuinely help musicians and music preparation professionals today?

The disc...

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald are back after a short break, and true to form, the conversation drifts from yard work and heat waves before landing on the actual business at hand: it’s time to open the phone lines again. For the third time — after 2023’s three-part marathon and last year’s round — Scoring Notes wants to hear directly from you, on any topic in the world of music notation software and related technology, or anywhere adjacent to it.

Send your question as an email to [email protected], or record it as a voice memo and send i...

Six years after our “Score preparation and production notes” episode — Episode No. 2 — essentially launched the podcast, 163 episodes later, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald return to the article that inspired the conversation: David’s score preparation checklist. The principles — respect for performers, readable parts, enough time for page turns — are as true as ever. But almost every specific tool reference in the original has a fuller story now.

The conversation moves section by section, serving as a reminder of the timeless principles and exploring all of the meaningful changes in the technology. Dorico’s live-reference cue system has become the stand...

What if your notation software could sing? At the top of this episode, we play a short clip, performed entirely in Dorico with NotePerformer handling the orchestra, and a plugin called Cantai rendering the baritone voice.

That voice is synthesized directly from the Dorico score with minimal configuration, and it marks the arrival of something the notation world has been waiting for for a long time. Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk with Richard deCosta, composer, software developer, and founder of Cantai and the Turing Opera Workshop, about what it took to build it.

The...

After a stretch away from the mic with NAMM coverage and a few product launches in the interim, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald return for an episode that, as David puts it, is “delightfully very nerdy.”

To kick things off, David turns the tables and puts Philip in the interview seat, asking him about two significant sets of releases from Notation Central and NYC Music Services. On the Notation Express side, the big news is two-way communication between Dorico and the Stream Deck: buttons now light up to reflect what Dorico is actually doing in real time — active...

At the 2026 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

In this interview, we talk with Sam Butler, Avid’s vice president of product management, and Joe Plazak, Sibelius product owner and senior principal software developer at Avid, to reflect on the philosophy behind Sibelius’s recent development approach, how user feedback shapes prioritization, and where they believe users should most clearly feel progress compared to a year ago. We also talk about automation and AI in notation, the realities of cross-platform and mobile workflows, and what Avid...

At the 2026 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

In this interview, we talk with Chris Swaffer, senior product manager of software at Fender, about how he thinks about Notion’s current phase in its lifecycle, what the Fender name signals to users today, and how decisions around refinement, continuity, and cross-platform consistency get made in practice. We also dig into under-the-radar improvements, accessibility as a core product principle, direct transfer between Notion and Fender Studio Pro, and how intelligent assistance can support — rather than replace — human...

At the 2026 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

In this conversation, we speak with Sebastian Murgul, co-founder and CEO of klang.io, to talk about a category that sits just adjacent to music notation — and yet increasingly intersects with it in practical, unavoidable ways: music transcription. Sebastian explains what klang.io’s tools are designed to do — and just as importantly, what they are not. We talk about why AI-based transcription has reached a point of practical usefulness now, where the hardest musical problems still lie, an...

At the 2026 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

In this conversation with John Barron, international product specialist at Steinberg, John reflects on Dorico’s current development phase, how its underlying design principles continue to guide day-to-day decisions, and where users should most clearly feel progress compared to a year ago. We also talk about under-the-radar features, user feedback, interoperability with broader music-production workflows, playback and realism, and how automation can support — rather than supplant — notational intent.

Come back the next few weeks for more c...

We’re very pleased to bring you this episode, and more to come in the future, thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.

People with perfect or “absolute” pitch hear every single sound as precise musical notes. Is this extraordinary talent a blessing or a curse? In this episode, our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz dive into the neuroscience, pluses, and pitfalls of absolute pitch. Featuring neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and Grammy-winning musician Jacob Collier.

Art by Mafalda Maia.

Music...

‘Tis the season to be thankful for all of the products and services in the world of music notation software and related technology, and for the Scoring Notes audience who tunes in to hear us opine on them! We show our appreciation by bearing good tidings and do a little shopping to find some Black Friday deals and make a few recommendations for fun and productivity.

Black Friday 2025 deals for music notation software and related tech post coming on Monday, November 24

Show notes:

Scoring Notes Product Guide, with links to posts about Dorico, Si...

We talk a lot about fonts on the Scoring Notes podcast. But there was a time when there were no music fonts. And then, there was one.

Cleo Huggins, on the staff of Adobe in 1986, designed Sonata, the very first music font. It’s hard to imagine today, but it was revolutionary at the time, and a leading industry publication called it the “Music Product of the Year”. Sonata provided the blueprint for the core music fonts later created for use in Finale and Sibelius, but it may surprise you to learn that Sonata was created without any on...

Recent updates abound in Dorico, MuseScore Studio, Sibelius, and across the Apple operating systems. Whether you use all of these products or just one of them, we help you get current with the latest features and improvements, so that you can make the most of the notation software and the operating systems they run on.

More from Scoring Notes:

File system tools mentioned:

Freelancing is a kind of freedom. Freedom from a regular schedule, an office, or a permanent boss. But with freelance work comes responsibility.

Part of your job as a freelancer is deciding what the work should be and finding the clients who are going pay you to do it. Not only are you responsible to them, but you’re responsible for yourself, your family, the tax man, and more.

In the music notation software and related technology world of Scoring Notes, it’s possible to have freelance work in which those tools are used regularly.

We open the Scoring Notes mailbag, contemplate the musings of our audience, and try to leave no question unanswered in this fun and informative podcast episode.

More from Scoring Notes, referenced in this episode:

Have you ever listened to an episode of the Scoring Notes podcast and wished you could ask a question directly on the show?

Two years ago, we opened up the phone lines directly, so to speak, and they were jam-packed! So much so, that we ended up devoting three episodes to answering those burning queries. You can find Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 in the podcast archives.

Well, time and technology moves fast, so it’s time we do it again. Whether you’re a “long-timer” or a “first-timer”, all are welcome to ask a question about anythin...

Hosted by The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the 43rd annual conference of MOLA: An Association of Performance Librarians ran from May 30 through June 2, 2025, and brought together music librarians, publishers, vendors, composers, performers, and technology enthusiasts.

The 2025 conference was the first one hosted by a university, reflecting the organization’s broader membership. It spotlighted the working environments of the academic performance librarian and offered opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas across ensemble tiers and types.

On the podcast, David MacDonald and Philip Rothman recap the 2025 MOLA Conference recorded in person fr...

Steinberg’s product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury returns to the podcast to discuss Dorico 6 and its bevy of features for music composers and preparers. Daniel talks in-depth with Philip Rothman and David MacDonald about a few of the headline items, especially those that are unique to Dorico. The new proofreading tool continuously scans a project looking for potential pitfalls, and the cutaway scores feature makes quick work of what was once a tedious effort. We explore those key elements of Dorico 6 along with cycle playback, grids, fill view, chord symbols, and more, learning more about their origins and what’s pl...

We’re very pleased to bring you this episode, and more to come in the future, thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.

From electric guitars to samplers to drum machines and beyond, the music we love is only possible thanks to the technology used to create it. In many ways, the history of popular music is really a history of technological innovation. In this episode, Twenty Thousand Hertz partnered with BandLab to unpack four inventions that changed music forever. Featuring auth...

If you hear the term “forensic musicologist” and conjure up detectives with fingerprint dusters and a magnifying glass, well, metaphorically you’re not far off. The job of a forensic musicologist is to  apply musical knowledge to questions around copyright, explain  musical facts, and put them into context so that a court can arrive at a decision with the best information available.

Brian McBrearty is a forensic musicologist, and he joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to discuss real-world cases of music infringement and the multi-dimensional approach that he takes in his analyses. We tackle the question of music n...

At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with John Barron, the international product specialist for Dorico. NAMM offers representatives like John the opportunity to meet with customers from both the notation and audio sides of the music community. We spoke about the new Dorico-powered score editor in Cubase that appeals to a large cross-section of users, and how Dorico fits into the wider world of Steinberg and Yamaha products. We also discussed industry developments and...

At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Martin Keary, the head of software for Muse Group. Martin spoke with me about the conversations he had at NAMM about some of the exciting possibilities for MuseScore collaborations and integrations with other app makers in the future. More practically, we also discussed recent MuseScore development efforts and some of the new features we can expect to see in upcoming releases, as well as the role that...

At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Oriol López Calle from My Sheet Music Transcriptions, a service that he founded in 2011 that has since grown to employ dozens of people and serve tens of thousands of customers. Oriol told us about his company’s approach to their work, which includes not only transcribing but a full range of music preparation tasks. We also discussed technological innovations that have already transformed the business and tho...

At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Sam Butler, Avid’s director of product management. Sam talked with us about the new decondensing parts feature in Sibelius that Avid previewed at NAMM, and he celebrated the award that his team received for last year’s release of the Android app. He also shared his thoughts on the industry’s developments over the past year, the direction that he anticipates for the future, and what it all...

This episode was written by Andrew Anderson.

We’re very pleased to bring you this episode, and more to come in the future, thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.

The history of recorded sound stretches back over a hundred and fifty years, starting with a device that could “record” a voice on a piece of paper. Today, we can enjoy lossless streaming anywhere we go… but getting here wasn’t easy. In this episode, our friends at Twenty Thousand Her...

Music scanning technology, or optical music recognition (OMR) if you like, has been around for decades, and yet in many ways is still barely out of infancy. But that could soon change as classic algorithm-based desktop programs converge with newer mobile apps and web-based machine learning tools.

Steve Morell joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to discuss his review of six of those products that run the gamut of those technologies: Newzik, Soundslice, PlayScore 2, Sheet Music Scanner, SmartScore 64 Pro 64 NE, and ScanScore Professional. He takes on through his process of testing each of them from the common...

‘Tis the season to be thankful for all of the products and services in the world of music notation software and related technology, and for the Scoring Notes audience who tunes in to hear us opine on them! We show our appreciation by bearing good tidings in the form of a summary of all of the updates to MuseScore, Dorico, and Sibelius over the past year. Then, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald do a little shopping to find some Black Friday deals and make a few recommendations for fun and productivity.

Black Friday 2024 deals for music notation so...

Music education isn’t just learning how to read alto clef and knowing your intervals anymore. The evolution of music technology education, the changing attitudes of students towards music production, and the importance of teaching foundational skills alongside technology have made the collegiate experience in music more diverse than ever. In this episode, Philip Rothman and David MacDonald engage with guest Ben Fuhrman, a composer and music tech professor at Montana State University. They explore the preparation and skills students bring to music tech programs, focusing on music notation software, DAWs like FL Studio, Pro Tools, and Ableton Live, an...

Finale, the legendary music notation software program, has been discontinued 36 years after its groundbreaking release in 1988 from Coda Music Technologies. MakeMusic, the company that now owns Finale, has partnered with Steinberg to sell its Dorico application at a specially discounted price directly to Finale users. Jason Loffredo joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald in a comprehensive discussion about the facts, the business analysis, and the way forward for customers.

More on Scoring Notes:

The 2024 conference of MOLA: An Association of Performance Librarians recently concluded in Cleveland, Ohio, and by all accounts it was a rocking success.

The conference began with the second annual Tech Fair, a gathering of librarians, product specialists, and vendors, with demonstrations and exhibits bookended by panel discussions about technology as it relates to the performance librarian. The remainder of the four-day long conference featured plenary sessions, breakout groups, and lots of excellent spontaneous sharing of knowledge and experience about a crucial role in the music-making process.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald recap the conference...

Printing music is something that takes skill and attention to detail — both by the music preparer and the printer. When everything’s communicated well, it leads to print shop nirvana and the ideal result for everyone involved.

Philip Rothman and David MacDonald talk through a specific project and illustrate the various steps along the way to set it up for success. No detail is too small, from the page size, to the number of copies, to the shipping methods desired. Philip relays his tips and best practices from the perspective of a professional music printing service.

Th...

With music notation work often intersecting in some capacity with music production and scoring to video, it’s important to know when your software of choice is the best option for a particular need within a project, and when it’s not.

When it comes to fine-tuned formatting and engraving decisions, we can’t move from one notation software product to another without losing that important detail work. However, with the underlying composition itself, the information can be moved quite effectively with MusicXML or MIDI to and from to other software when a particular tool is needed elsewh...

We last visited with Steinberg’s product marketing manager Daniel Spreadbury on the podcast upon the release of Dorico 4 in January 2022, and more recently last summer in Berlin at the MOLA conference in a panel discussion with his colleagues and competitors in the music notation software industry.

Although Dorico didn’t have much of a presence at the 2024 NAMM Show, we welcome the opportunity to visit with Daniel here in a similar manner that we did with many of those colleagues and competitors at NAMM.

We start not by focusing on the latest Dorico features, alth...

At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Jack Sutton, Muse Group’s head of communications. Jack’s first visit to NAMM coincided with the company’s first official presence at the show as the parent company of Hal Leonard, which they recently acquired. We spoke about some early fruits of that deal and the longer-term plans that they have for the future of their combined business, which brings together cutting-edge digital products with a vast l...

At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Jason Wick, MakeMusic’s director of product development. Jason talked with me about their MakeMusic Cloud product, including their Practice tool, Sight Reading Studio, a free online composing application, and their classroom suite. We also discussed MakeMusic’s tight integration with the Alfred Publishing side of their company, the future of Finale, and more broadly considered the company’s values and strategies in today’s landscape of industr...

At the 2024 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.

Today’s podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Sam Butler, Avid’s director of product management. Sam talked with us about the new Sibelius features that Avid previewed at NAMM, the new Android application, and Sibelius Cloud publishing improvements.

Come back the next couple of weeks for more conversations from the NAMM Show. And if you didn’t hear our NAMM wrap-up episode, check that out in the podcast feed — David MacDonald and Phil...

The 2024 NAMM Show was full of exciting news, products — and, most of all, the interesting people that create the news and products. Especially as it pertains to the Scoring Notes beat of music notation software and related technology, there was a lot to cover, and many miles were logged in service of bringing as much of the experience back to our audience.

David MacDonald and Philip Rothman review each of the major interviews that took place for Scoring Notes during the show with representatives from Avid, MakeMusic, and Muse Group. We also more generally analyze the experience, th...