Co-Founders’ Zpace: MARTIN NG
BATTLE OF THE NOTATION SOFTWARE: DORICO vs SIBELIUS vs MUSCSCORE
Introduction: splashing shit on a page - notation
-every composer’s nightmare-
Ideas are fun, but somehow manifesting your ideas into the real physical world is somehow difficult. As a part-time composer, I would argue that notation is one of the biggest struggles in a composer’s creating process.
Notation is essentially a guide and record of the composer’s ideas, instructions and guidance on how to access/perform one’s piece. Notation can be a wonderful device to musical creation, but it can also be a restriction on how ideas can be presented with scores, text and graphics; among other stimuli.
To speak about notation, there are a million things to be said. Where there are a lot of ways to notate and record ideas, to how to practically notate. In western music tradition, music is notated on a score and passed on to a performer to perform the music. This started from writing to tablets, to plate engraving, to hand copying, and now - Engraving Softwares. This is a perfect segway to our topic :
BATTLE OF THE NOTATION SOFTWARE: Dorico VS Sibelius VS Musescore
The reason I choose these softwares to compare is because 1) I have used them for my own work and 2) they are (in my opinion) the front runners of the notation software world right now. I am ignoring a lot of other major software, if your favorite is not here do not be mad, it is not personal and simply, just drag.
*DISCLAIMER: the following are from my humble and limited opinion please listen at your own risk*
SIBELIUS: ⭐⭐⭐
One of the most popular notation software. First released in 1993 by Sibelius Software Limited, which was acquired by Avid in 2006. In 2012, Avid closed the London Sibelius Office and removed the original developers from the team. The software is being run by a new team of developers at the moment.
Sibelius has been best buddie from 2017-2020. Like every old couple, we fought (a lot). From the constant crashing, to the glitchy instrument names, to the weird auto-save bug, to the weird printing system. Sibelius is a very intuitive software, the ribbon design is very similar to word / google sheet. But the ribbon bar design does not necessarily match with music typesetting, resulting in the counter intuitiveness of the software.
I rate it 3 stars because it is a good software to start learning how to typeset with.
Pros:
- Flexibility with note typing and engraving
- Build in playback system
Cons:
- Intuitivity
- *SIBELIUS CRASH* (it crashes a LOT)
- Sibelius™️ Stupid functions
- Printing options
- Awkward/lack of short-cut
DORICO: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
One of the newer and leading notation software. Developed by Steinburg, who hired most of the original Sibelius developers after they got laid off in 2012. So in other words Dorico is the manifestation of what Sibelius wants to be, what the original Sibelius developers wanted to improve from Sibelius. It was released in 2016.
I am currently using Dorico, and I like it a lot. I switched from Sibelius in late 2020. I got to say it is not easy to learn at first, but once I got into it, my process has speed up a lot as the program saves you a lot of time fixing the nitty-gritty engraving problems (i.e. lining up the dynamics, condensing 2 parts into one line, the all-mighty filter function). In dorico the ‘popover’ function also allows you to input most things without touching your mouse, which speeds up the writing process a lot.
I also enjoy Dorico’s ‘writing’ and ‘engraving’ tabs, meaning you can’t write new notes when you are engraving, and you can’t engrave when you are writing notes. This saves a lot of frustrations on touching/moving the wrong things when you are doing either things. I remember when I was using Sibelius, there was always an underlying anxiety about messing up one thing and the entire engraved page will be ruined. This function gives me kind of a safety net to not worry about that.
Dorico also has a large online community which you can ask questions and sometimes Dorico Daniel (The Product Marketing Manager of Steinburg) will even answer your question himself !
I can go on and on about how I like Dorico, and if you are considering switching and want to ask more questions, my inbox are open ! And no, this is not a sponsored ad from Dorico. But hey, you will never know, maybe Daniel Spreadbury will be a SoundZpace sponsor one day.
Pros:
- Pop-overs
- Engraving options
- Advance printing option
- Default engraving setting follows the rule of our lord and savior Elaine Gould’s guide in her book Behind Bars
Cons:
- The default playback system needs improvement
- Not very intuitive to learn
- The strictness of its function leaves no room for flexibility
MUSESCORE: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Musescore is a free and open source notation software, originally released in 2011. It is released as free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License.
In the past couple of years Musescore has improved their design a lot, I would even say that it is coming up as the industrial standard software sometime soon. I have personally not used Musescore for a long time, but I have used it in emergency situations, when my laptop died / when my dorico decided to give up on me.
Musescore is definitely very intuitive, everything is very clearly listed on the pallet where you can drag your musical element (time signature / key signature) in. Musescore also has a large online community working together in their forums, making it better to ask questions /solve problems.
However, there are also a lot of things that Musescore needs to improve, i.e. flexibility to notate ‘non-conventional notation’. Also its problem of crashing and corruption when it faces complicated commands.
Here are some quotes from my Musescore using friends !
‘’At this point it's like a Panadol vs Generic paracetamol situation, they both do literally the same thing but one has brand recognition’’
‘’Sibelius is the boring heroic archetype of the storybook but Musescore is the hot queer-coded villain that everyone secretly loves’’
Pros:
- Open source
- Intuitive to learn
Cons:
- The default playback system needs improvement
- corruption and crashes problems
- lack flexibility for non-conventional notation
