In part one of this post, we identified some quick ways to make your charts more readable. We focused on beaming, rests, chord symbols, and comping notation.
Quick Fixes to Improve Your Music Notation: Part 1
Music notation plays a huge role in both sides of my double life. By day, I work at MakeMusic, where my primary tasks involve transferring published sheet music into SmartMusic.
Creating Music with a Handwritten Appearance
Hand-writing music has been a tradition in jazz for many, many years. Nowadays, most people use software like Finale to emulate a handwritten look using special fonts.
The Finale Copyist Font: A Hidden Treasure You Already Own
Today I’d like to highlight some of my favorite aspects of the Finale Copyist font. Designed by Mark Adler to fill the gap created by the lack of lowercase letters in other “handwritten” fonts, Finale Copyist also includes many hidden treasures.
Writing Chords in Jazz and Popular Music
Today I’d like to start a discussion on writing chords in jazz or contemporary music. In a way, chord charts are their own language, filled with hundreds of different systems and dialects.