Update: After working in my scores with these different chord fonts, I prefer Norfolk Chord ASL Standard for all layouts (Full Score, Piano/Vocal, and Parts)

Getting the right chord font for notation software is a big deal for the player that has to read the music on the fly. Often I’m orchestrating scores for shows that I am working on and I need the fonts to be intuitive. When a score is laid out well visually then it’s a pleasure to play through scores for rehearsals and performance. I can’t waste a split second trying to differentiate a chord marking. It needs to be crystal clear.

Here are three examples of chord text fonts. The first, Opus Chord Standard, is what I have used previously in most of my orchestrations. It’s very clear and visually intuitive to sight-read scores (and yes, I often have to sight-read my own scores).

The Norfolk fonts are a derivative of the Bravura fonts, but made specifically for compatibility with Sibelius notation software. The Norfolk fonts are available from New York City Music Services for an extremely reasonable price at: https://www.nycmusicservices.com/musicresources/

Here are three screen shots from a keyboard part in the most recent musical theatre show that I orchestrated. The first is Opus, and then two variations of Norfolk (ASL and ASC). The most striking difference in the three fonts is how they handle the slashes for chord with alternate bass notes (as seen in Db/F, Eb/F and F/A).

The Scoring Express templates for Sibelius use Norfolk ASC for all templates, except for Piano/Vocal which uses ASL.

I think these are excellent calls. I like the ASC slash for clarity in the main score, but also prefer the ASL version for the piano vocal because it takes up less vertical space. With piano/vocal scores the notation real estate is at a premium and that little nudge with Norfolk ASL creates a smoother vertical chord space that makes sight-reading a score a bit easier and more intuitive.

OPUS CHORD STANDARD

NORFOLK CHORD ASL STANDARD

NORFOLK CHORD ASC STANDARD

The endless debate on which notation software to use seems to now be centered on Finale vs. Sibelius vs. Dorico. I’ve been using Sibelius since 2007 and I love it, while at the same time I feel a little shame that I haven’t mastered Finale. Here are some of the reasons why I’m once again sticking with Sibelius (while also feeling ashamed).

My first notation software was back around 1989. I think it was called “Composer”. It was really tedious and buggy but I did manage to publish a book of piano pieces with that early software. For me, notation software was a game-changer even back then because my handwriting is illegible in both hand print and music scoring. I’m very fast at typing so notation software was an easy switch in that regard.

Fast forward to 2007 when I was commissioned to write a musical. I bought Finale notation software and started to learn it and score my new musical. After a full month I had written very little music. I was totally stymied by Finale and it destroyed my creative process to a standstill. I found Sibelius and bought a cross-grade from Finale. I completed three song sketches in just the FIRST DAY working with Sibelius. For my creative process the decision was clear that Sibelius was the clear winner if I wanted to get any work done at all.

Forward to 2021 and I’ve now scored four full-length musicals using Sibelius. All four musicals went to the stage and endured the critical crucible of endless score changes and song re-writes. Sibelius was wonderful to use during those rigorous rehearsal schedules. Not only practical, but Sibelius is even fun to use.

Now for the shame that I feel. I do realize that the industry standard in professional shows for notation is Finale. It seems every orchestrator uses Finale and also most of the Broadway composers (except Stephen Schwartz uses Sibelius and I also love his work). My “day job” is usually as music director for professional shows and my experience has been that all the composer assistants and orchestrators use Finale. But as music director I don’t have to create those scores, I just direct and play the music already engraved. So that is how I have worked in professional entertainment for so many years without mastering Finale.

Two weeks ago I decided to overcome my Finale shame and finally master the program. I did all the Finale tutorials that came with the program, imported my Sibelius XML files to re-do them in Finale. The experience has been painful. Working with Finale, for me, is not just “unfun”, it’s physically painful with the bizarre combination of shortcut keys. So just like back in 2007, I once again hold my head in shame that I just can’t use Finale as my main notation software.

In my experience, Finale is the industry standard and used by the vast majority (if not all) of professional music engravers. The bulk of Finale users also say that once you get past the steep learning curve that the software is ultimately fast and flexible. But for COMPOSERS, it seems that many prefer Sibelius for its ease of use.

Sibelius vs. Finale vs. Dorico

Is the final notation the main concern? Here are three samples of the same sheet music in Sibelius, Finale and Dorico:

DORICO

FINALE:

SIBELIUS:

In these examples, Finale is the clear winner to me. If I was just engraving the music I would choose Finale. But if I was COMPOSING this music from scratch, I would choose Sibelius. Because at the current time, I would never finish composing the piece in Finale, but composing this in Sibelius would be fun and efficient with my workflow.

DORICO

So why aren’t I switching to Dorico? The main reason is that I’m old enough to have burned too many times in the past by jumping into the “up and coming” software only to get burned later. I was using Steinberg-Jones products back in the 1990’s with physical dongles that served as copy-protection. Those products were eclipsed by other products and the time investment in learning those softwares was essentially wasted.

When it comes to software, I don’t buy products any more until they have already become one of the industry standards. In marketing terms, this makes me an “anti-new adopter”, or the last of the curve that will buy a product. This is not a slam on Dorico in any way. I actually have the demo downloaded and plan to take a look at it. I wish their team all the best in coming years as they jockey to become one of the industry standards.

MY ADVICE

Here’s my advice since you didn’t ask for it.

SIBELIUS

• If you have a new notation or chart project that you have to finish right away
• If you are a composer, who always needs to get projects done right away

FINALE

• If you’re ready to spend some time overcoming that steep learning curve
• You want to know that you’re using the industry standard, particularly if you are a college student with a long career ahead. Worth the time investment.

DORICO

• Check it out if you’re an “early adopter” type personality and it doesn’t bother you that you might have to learn a different notation software down the road

I wish I wish wish:

• that I could create as effortlessly in Finale as I do in Sibelius
• that Sibelius still had as active of a development team as back in the day
• that Sibelius did not switch to the horrible ribbon user interface in Sibelius 7 (Sibelius 6 was much easier to use for me)
• that an industry standard would prevail that was also intuitive to use without the steep learning curve

Problem:

Sitemap.xml page empty. Page only had header information without content. Showed as blank page.

Source of Problem:

I was using the WordPress plugin WPcache which was prevent three different sitemap generation plugins from working.

Solution:

I switched to the W3 Total Cache plugin and made these changes:

Prevent caching exception list:
sitemap(_index|[0-9]+)?\.xml

404 error exception list:
robots\.txt
sitemap(_index)?\.xml(\.gz)?
[a-z0-9_\-]+-sitemap([0-9]+)?\.xml(\.gz)?

Now I noticed that W3 Total Cache already one of these entries added as part of the default program, so maybe this has already been fixed internally. It’s also possible that WPcache works fine with another sitemap.xml program or that I needed to make a chance in the WPcache plugin, but I couldn’t easily find where to add that info to the WPcache plugin files.

Maybe having a sitemap.xml file isn’t that big of a deal but I wanted to be following best practices. I recently ran some of my websites through a “website grader” at https://website.grader.com and it said I needed a sitemap page. Other good info about your website from that free report too, check it out.

Most people that visit my website come here through the “back door” by going to a specific article I’ve written. So two things became very apparent:
1 – Most traffic comes to a specific article because they have interest in that particular content.
2 – Industry people (usually music, theatre and entertainment) come to the front page to check me out.

The first group of people don’t really care who I am (I think) because they are just interested in the niche information of the specific article. The second group doesn’t care about my blog (I think) because they want to see what I’ve done and how well I would fit into their team.

So with that in mind I’m making some fairly simple changes to improve traffic on the blog to lead it back toward my front page and to revamp the front of my website to appeal to entertainment industry people.

Part of all this is to disable sidebars on my blog. My blog sidebar is a messy jungle of unrelated categories that has taken over like a wild weed since 2006. I wanted to disable sidebars for ALL individual WordPress posts and keep it only on the front page of my blog. (To see how many unwieldy categories I have visit the front of this blog or my sitemap at http://conradaskland.com/blog/sitemap.xml

There are WP widgets that will allow you to disable sidebars on single pages or single posts but I wanted to disable on all posts at once. So, here is the code to hide/disable your WordPress sidebars on all posts:

Disable or hide your WordPress sidebar on your blog post pages editing the single.php file from your theme (or the index.php file if your theme doesn’t include the single.php file) and find this snippet of code:

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

and replace it with:

<?php if(!is_single()) {   get_sidebar(); } ?>

That’s it and your sidebar will now show on all blog pages except the single post pages.

As music producers we use a lot of different software formats. With my music libraries alone I counted 18 different companies that I’ve worked with in the last year. Most needing their own installation procedures and authorizations. It’s just part of the business and quickly leads to the no-fun zone.

Overall I think customer service across the board has improved greatly in the technology and music app sectors over the last ten years. There are three companies which have really stood out to me above all the rest in 2015 for outstanding customer service.

GoDaddy

GoDaddy had a bad rep many years ago for customer service. In my experience they are currently at the top of their game. I always get fast and friendly response to my sometimes not-so-smart questions. Customer service is never condescending and always helpful. In the last year they actually contacted me with a plan on how I could save over $10,000 over 5 years in hosting. Fantastic! Thank you GoDaddy!

Tunecore

I work with several different companies in releasing audio products online, with varying degrees of success. Tunecore is the best for fast and friendly response time. Not only that, but my distributions are much more successful with Tunecore than with other competitors (like a ratio of over 20-1 more successful). Bravo Tunecore for excellent customer support!

East-West (SoundsOnline)

I’ve been an East-West customer now for about 6 years. I have most of their sound libraries (which I love) and always check them out when their specials roll around. Installing new sound libraries is always a drag and often needs an email or two to tech support. East-West always has fast tech response and their licensing team is TOP NOTCH. A special nod to Joey Medina who has provided the most excellent technical support for many years with East-West. I’m one of those problem children that always email support a few more times than I probably should, and East-West and Joey Medina have always been right on top of it. (Which makes me want to buy more product down the road)

(Overture from Romeo and Juliet the musical by Conrad Askland – Sibelius screen shot)

Here it is late 2015 and there is still the grand debate of whether to use Sibelius or Finale as your main music notation software. You can read hundreds of technical break downs that compare the two. Here, I will give you a real-world breakdown of my experience with both programs.

My background: I started working (or “trying” to work) with notation programs back around 1992. I think back then it was “Personal Composer”. It was very difficult to use and I did write a music book which took me many, many hours. That same book today would take me about 15 hours to write.

There are still many notation software options, but the two that are at the forefront are Finale and Sibelius. Back in 2007 I had a group commission me to write a full length musical. I started working in Finale and after 10 days I had almost nothing to show. Not because I couldn’t compose at a steady rate, but because the software was not at all intuitive to me. I took advantage of the Sibelius trade-in offer, sent them my Finale discs, and got a good deal to switch over to Sibelius. Within 30 minutes of installing Sibelius I was composing quickly and intuitively.

But I am not telling you that you should pick Sibelius. Here is my experience over the last 10 years with software and I hope it helps your decision-making. Please feel free to leave comments here on this post of your own experiences.

SIBELIUS

If you need to start scoring right away with no previous experience, get Sibelius. It’s very intuitive to composers and keyboardists. There is not much of a learning curve and everything is laid out nicely and intuitive. “Intuitive” means when you need to do something, you’ll usually see right away how to do it.

Future support? Well, that’s another debatable issue. I’ve scored three full length musicals on Sibelius. I’ve scored recording sessions for Cirque Du Soleil and members of the Hong Kong Philharmonic on Sibelius. It works great.

FINALE

Everyone I know who does professional music engraving, they all use Finale. Every single one. They would not even consider using Sibelius for engraving. Not for a second. I’m sure there are some music engravers that use Sibelius, but I haven’t met one yet in person.

Finale is the only program that gives engravers the level of detail and precision they need for manuscripts that are to be published.

Does Finale have a steep learning curve? Yes! It takes quite a while to master Finale. I use many software programs in my internet and audio producing work. ProTools, Ableton Live, WordPress, Numbers, FileMaker Pro, etc. – I have rarely had a software program with such a steep learning curve as Finale. That’s just my experience.

That being said, the product support for Finale is strong and will probably be strong in the long term future. Music engravers use it. The reason it has a steep learning curve is that it does a lot. So, if you are going to do music notation long term for many years, then I would recommend you just buckle down and learn Finale. In the long term you’ll be way ahead of the game.

In short:

SIBELIUS

• Start using it right away. Fast intuitive.
• Long term support not guaranteed

FINALE

• It’s the industry standard for music engravers (in my experience)
• Great history of product support that will probably continue long term
• Steep learning curve – You will likely have to put in quite a bit of time to get a handle on it’s features.

In closing: Many years ago Sibelius and Finale were very different animals. Over the years they have each adapted some of the strong points of each other’s software that has improved their own. Finale is more user friendly than it was years ago, and Sibelius has more robust features.

Price difference? I don’t really think that should be an issue. If you are going to invest the many hours to master a notation software at a professional level then the price is kind of a small consideration. And if you just need to do a lead sheet, you don’t need the robust features that these software platforms contain.

If you are deep into using either of Sibelius or Finale, let me know your insights and thoughts.

Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for the 2015 movie “Steve Jobs”. I just saw the film and absolutely loved it. It has had disappointing ticket sales so far but has a very respectable 85% review rate from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

One of the complaints from tech heads is that some of the true facts have been adjusted for the screenplay to make it a better film. In the link below, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin explains the difference between “subjective” and “objective”; or in other words that some have said, “this is not a documentary, this is a painting.”

Here, Aaron Sorkin explains, “it’s not a photograph, it’s a painting”:

What’s interesting to me, is I keep reading about the Steve Jobs movie “controversy” of this painting vs photograph approach, or “subjective” vs. “objective”. Aaron Sorkin understands fully that his approach as a screenwriter is to create a new painting. Documentaries are for the History Channel (or at least used to be for History Channel, but that’s another subject). In the world of entertainment it’s all about the story.

Aaron Sorkin has created a new work of art based on facts. He has created (to me) a gripping story that is very satisfying to tech heads and anyone interested in stories of the creators of Apple. I’ve watched many videos of Steve Wozniak, John Sculley and others on YouTube just as part of my fascination with these personalities. (On a side note, I grew up just miles from the Microsoft campus, which may account for some of my fascination with early Apple and Microsoft stories).

Here is a detailed story on reactions from early Apple employees on the “Steve Jobs” 2015 movies:

http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/steve-jobs-movie-reaction-reviews-sorkin-boyle-fassbender-rogan-trailer-uk-release-date-3584183/

To make a good story, whether a movie or stage play, there are numerous tough decisions to make between historical fact and what serves the story. I have been through this process myself and made the mistake of wanting absolute historical accuracy. The price I paid is that I ended up with a storyline that had problems with character arc and problems with guiding the audience through a fulfilling journey and end destination. Sorkin knows that of course you do all the research you can, but there’s a point where you have to stop the research and write the compelling story (your best “vision” of a complete story within itself). So my hat is off to Sorkin for understanding this, for create a new true work of art (that I thought was AWESOME!!!) and for ignoring critics and sticking to his vision.

For screenwriters, make a conscious decision whether you are creating a documentary (a photograph) or a work of art (a painting). If we had more Aaron Sorkin’s in the world, I believe we would have more beautiful works of art. Thank God we do have Aaron Sorkin following his vision.

Controversy? There is none. Go forth Mr. Sorkin and create new works of art.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/25/media/steve-jobs-box-office/index.html

I loved the portrayal of Steve Wozniak in the film. According to this article, Wozniak himself also approved of the film.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/7/9272963/steve-jobs-movie-wozniak-likes-sorkin-boyle-fassbender

Excerpt:

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was impressed by Aaron Sorkin’s and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, a biopic. “I saw a rough cut and I felt like I was actually watching Steve Jobs,” Woz told Deadline Hollywood, “I give full credit to Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin for getting it so right.” The script is 200 pages long, and filled with Sorkin’s voluminous dialogue.

(Score sample of Keyboard Two part from Conrad Askland’s “Romeo and Juliet – the musical”, July 2014)

As I’m working on orchestrations for my third full length musical, “Romeo and Juliet” (http://www.RJmusical.com), I realize the need for a particular scoring approach for the Keyboard Two part. Here is the solution I came up with to incorporate Apple’s MainStage with Sibelius for use in orchestrations and creating the final Keyboard Two patch setup.

I have a 10 piece chamber ensemble. Keyboard One/Conductor will only play piano so the conductor can focus on the intricate entrances for the vocalists, changing meters and performing what some conductors refer to as “traffic cop” (i.e.: making sure everything doesn’t fall apart!)

So Keyboard Two is responsible for the musical colors and textures the chamber ensemble cannot provide, which in my classic styled score is Strings (arco, tremolo, pizzicato and maracato), glockenspiel, sparse timpani hits, harp, sparse recorder, lute to accompany guitar, etc. In other words, Keyboard Two is my jack of all trades.

I want the Keyboard Two part of be fool proof, where a player who knows the notes can just sit down and play. Because of the intricate orchestration I won’t have time in rehearsal to fix technical surprises or glitches. So, I want to set up the patch banks for Keyboard Two in Apple’s MainStage software and here the actual patches they will be playing while I am composing and orchestrating, but I also need to be able to output the full orchestration audio quickly to create audio files for practice tracks and subsequent revisions.

Here is the solution I’ve come up with for all of the that. Once setup, I think it’s fairly simple and doesn’t get in the way of my orchestration and composing process.

Now, I do adhere to the rule that while scoring in a notation program (like Sibelius or Finale), you should NOT waste time on perfecting the audio output. Otherwise, you will waste countless hours making your score audio output sound good, when your time is better spent focusing on making the live playing of your score sound good. I spend a lot of money on sound libraries. I have a dozen libraries from East West, most of the Garritan libraries, Native Instruments and many others with legal licenses. I find that when I’m scoring for live instruments, the Garritan libraries work great, have an easy computer load and let me focus on scoring.

The exception is Keyboard Two. I want to hear exactly what Keyboard Two will be playing. If I program my Keyboard Two parts with expensive libraries from East West or Native Instruments, the reality is that when a keyboard two player sets up their patches in an amateur or even semi-pro environment, they are not going to have those libraries. So, I want to program all the Keyboard Two parts in MainStage so that any keyboard player can setup similar patches to what I am scoring for (MainStage 3 is around thirty dollars).

STEP ONE – SETUP IAC

To get Sibelius to play through MainStage, setup your IAC. (Mac: Applications > Utilities  > Audio Midi Setup). I named my IAC “Sibelius to MainStage” which is pretty fool-proof. In Sibelius > Play > Playback Devices, add your new IAC to your set. For those unfamiliar with IAC, think of it as an external midi cable that is virtual within your computer. MainStage acts as an external tone module and the IAC is a midi cable to that module. You can use the same approach for any virtual instrument such as Kontakt, or players like PLAY, ARIA, etc.

STEP TWO – PROGRAM CHANGES

Now your Keyboard Two part is playing through Sibelius, but you need to make automated program changes. For my setup, I am keeping my Keyboard Two part limited to a maximum of 16 patches (many programmed with splits within those patches on a full 88 key keyboard). In Sibelius, as an example to change to patch four, use this: ~p4

Make the “~p4” text hidden, it’s only needed for the software patch change automation. Then in visible text use a boxed text for you keyboard player, like “4 Tremolo Strings”. Now the software will change to the correct patch, and hopefully your keyboard two player does the same with your visible, manual patch change instruction for live play.

Now, the problem with all of this is when you want to output audio quickly from Sibelius. Sibelius will only do a quick virtual output of your virtual instruments, it will NOT include the MainStage sounds. One option is to output all audio to a third party software and record the input real-time, but this is time consuming and I don’t want to mess around with that. When I am in rehearsals and doing countless updates for the cast and musicians I need to work quickly and output audio on the fly.

STEP THREE – INCLUDE PROPRIETARY INSTRUMENT CHANGES

The solution I came up with is to simply also include the Sibelius patch change commands for internal virtual use, in addition to the patch changes for MainStage. In other words, I include patch changes for Garritan internal virtual instruments like I normally would as if I was not using MainStage. Then, make that text invisible. The text I keep VISIBLE is text that would be useful to the Keyboard Two player like string performance styles (tremolo, marcato, arco) and when part of a split patch is playing (Glockenspiel, Timpani, Hand Drum, etc.)

I hope the graphic at the top of the page can show you that although the setup may seem a little tedious, once it is in place I don’t find it much of a distraction while I am working on orchestrations. And in the end, that is most important.

And with this setup I get a Keyboard Two part where I can hear exactly how their patches will work with the score, and I can also output audio quickly with a reasonable duplication of the orchestration for musicians and cast to rehearse with.

If you have other ideas or solutions about using MainStage with notation software, please leave a comment and let me know about it.

So, here’s the way to fix it. First off, you may have put your title and subtitle for subsequent pages in by hand like I did, so delete that text AFTER the first page.

In the “View” tab, select “Hidden Objects”. Now on your first page, in full score view, you should see the text “Full Score” in the top middle of your SECOND page.

Double click on the “Full Score” text, then select “No”. Now you will see the code for the “Full Score” part name text which is: \$HEADERPARTNAME\

That code displays the part name. In Full Score View it will say “Full Score”. If viewing your Key 1 part it will say “Key 1”. If you extracted a Vocal/Key 1 part it will say “Vocal/Key1”, etc. It will display at the top of every subsequent page. Now you want to add code to display the Title of the song, and maybe the subtitle too.

For example, my current song name is “Some Place Just Like Here” and it’s part of my new musical called “PAN the musical”. I want the top of every page, after the first page, to display “Part” – “Title” – “Subtitle”. So I change the code to this:

\$HEADERPARTNAME\ – \$TITLE\ – \$SUBTITLE\

The top of every page, in full score view, now displays “Full Score – Some Place Just Like Here – PAN the musical”.

Make sure in “File” – “Score Info” that your title and subtitle are input as you want them. The tags pull the title and subtitle from your Score Info page, not from what you wrote on the first page for your Title and Subtitle.

In the above code, the “$” sign calls each text. The hyphens I put in are just because I want a hyphen to display between part name, title and subtitle.

I hope this is ultra clear. I spent quite a bit of time looking up ways to keep the part name header text from clashing with the title and subtitle in Sibelius, but most of the answers I read were slightly cryptic. If this doesn’t work for you or you have a better solution, please leave a comment so future readers can make this a painless process.

BETA testing just opened for everyone that signed up early and opted in. See you soon in The Old Republic!

SWTOR.com is Star Wars the Old Republic – an new MMORPG game from Bioware, Electronic Arts and Lucas Arts. Video above are some of the design team stating their opinions of the Sith Inquisitor vs the Trooper. Mmmm……I think I’m sold on the Sith Inquisitor. For those of us playing SWTOR that used to play Warcraft (which is probably most everyone) this seems a little like the Orc Warrior vs. a Rogue with some Mage abilities.

BETA testing just opened for all of us that signed up early and opted in for the beta testing. So I’ll be out there somewhere with the rest of the geeks swinging my light saber and getting demolished.

Is this geeky – I pre-ordered 3 different versions just to make sure I have the right one when it goes live in December 2011. Oh, and for expats like me that live in Macau, Hong Kong and China – word on the street is we will be able to play when it goes live without spoofing through an IP proxy.

Geeks the world over have been salivating for literally YEARS for this game to go live. Geeks Unite – our time is at hand.