I’m just getting started with music notation and creating jazz lead sheets. Despite jazz friends recommending MuseScore, I opted for Dorico because of online reviews and a sense that if I was going to invest time in learning any program, Dorico might be the best bet.
I’m making headway with the excellent online help resources and YouTube videos, but, really, it’s a slog and I sometimes wonder, Would things have been easier with MuseScore and should I consider switching? Is Dorico is better for complicated things and MuseScore better for my simple scratchings?
Has anyone else faced this dilemma or have any perspective to share?
Better is, of course, ultimately a matter of individual perspective: better quality output? better sound/playback? more convenience? more flexibility? better price? better support?
For me, Dorico is “better,” but that is likely not the case for everyone.
@MiloBenn, do you mean is it “better” to work in or the visual results are better?
The first is, of course, just a matter of experience with using the tool. I don’t have MuseScore experience by which to compare, but having begun to learn my way around Dorico I really like the user experience and find it smooth-flowing. As for the second, I happen to like the visual results Dorico produces.
Here’s a snippet of a lead sheet (EDIT: well, strictly speaking a part with a countermelody in this section) I very hastily made earlier this year, with only the barest minimum of “massaging” (like casting off):
I don’t love a few user-fault things about it (like the odd match of fonts for the sharps in chord symbols), which I could have taken more time to improve if it mattered enough for my needs.
Looks like I was typing as Derrek asked similar questions, plus some really important other ones. Definitely don’t underestimate the value of Dorico’s excellent online user manual and YouTube repository of focused tutorial and in-depth live-stream videos, and this remarkably knowledgeable, active, and generous forum!
Coming from years and years of Finale, which was VERY good, I like Dorico for all notation projects no matter what style or genre. Recording? Not for me in Dorico - I use Cubase Pro - but for notation I find Dorico an excellent partner. This forum is a great resource as well.
Thank you for all these responses, which are very encouraging!
I can see that Dorico definitely gets the job done, in spades, and love the examples people have shared, particularly your impressive website, Nordine - thanks!
I think I was basically asking, Is all this effort going to be worth it in the end, or should I have opted for a program that might be easier to learn, given my inexperience with notation software?
Without learning both, I still have no way to compare the respective learning curves of Dorico vs. MuseScore, but feel encouraged, both by the lead-sheet examples and the responsiveness and friendliness of this board, to persevere with Dorico.
It’s very hard to say to be honest. I’ve used Musescore a bit, and it’s simple to use, but my feeling is I would soon hit limitations if I tried to write something complex.
Dorico has a bigger learning curve, more functionality and more flexibility. It will take you further, and the quality of the output is much higher. Musescore output never looks like something professionally engraved, whereas Dorico’s can do.
All music notation software has something of a learning curve, and I don’t think Dorico is inherently harder to learn than MuseScore Studio. On the contrary, I think the idioms in Dorico are very consistently applied, so as you learn how to do things in Dorico, you will find that the knowledge you gain can be easily applied in other places.
If you’ve not yet taken the time to work through the First Steps guide, I would recommend it, as a great many of the concepts you will need to get your head around are explained and presented in a very concise and digestible way:
Thank you for chiming in here @dspreadbury, I really appreciate it.
I’ve been watching MuseScore videos and come to a similar conclusion: that it’s the generic notation learning curve that I’m necessarily grappling with, not any special friction with Dorico. Also, I’ve started to glean that Dorico should reduce friction in various ways once I learn it.
I had just cued up that First Steps guide, so look forward to working through. Thank you again!
When I chose to go for Notation because some people began to perform my music I was totally App-agnostic and tried Musescore (free) and Sibelius (at that time the biggest player) and Dorico (already used Cubase). For me Dorico was the easiest and most logical to learn. The output of the scores look perfect without any additional effort. But still you can go far, the more you dive in. This forum and the videos help a lot.
Then fron musescore export to xml and open it in Dorico and change to finale jazz font.
I haven’t found the right combination to have the same look of the chords with the free fonts : “minuscule” m7 and the look of the triangle for Maj7 as above with jazz font
Thank you, @Dup, you just answered one of my questions, which was whether MuseScore might make sense in order to get access to the many scores people have done with the program. Looks like it’s a non-issue, based on your export/import example.
I realize now that what I was really asking at top was whether I should have gone for “good enough” with MuseScore, given my simple needs and inexperience, rather than a “Cadillac approach” with Dorico. Your comment and others suggest that Dorico isn’t much more, if any, more difficult to learn, while providing a lot of added benefits over time - a win-win!
Hi Nordine, would you mind sharing a template for that “Minor Blues in F” look? I’m struggling to make those types of chord charts for an upcomming concert.
Best
Tore
I would agree with that decision. I’d say there is more to learn with Dorico, simply because there is more it can do and it has a richer structure (players / instruments / flows / layouts / staves and all the relationships between them). And it’s more configurable. And it looks much better.
I’d also love to see a tutorial or similar on how to present lead sheets in that style using Dorico. Big fan of your work, Nordine, I bought a couple of your fonts some time ago.
… it looks so nice.
