A colleague sent me a batch of simple Musescore scores so I could convert them to XML and import into Dorico. I thought this would be a good chance to try out MS, especially version 4. I downloaded it in a very sanguine and supportive mood. A rising tide lifts all boats, that sort of thing.
Like many of you, I had watched That Video, so I was confident I wouldn’t need to know anything in advance; I’d just be able to click around and find my way. After all, Musescore was intuitive for new users. No elite knowledge required.
Installation was wonderfully simple. Launch was almost instantaneous. Early points to MS. So I switched off my Dorico brain (as best I could), embraced the click-and-drag, and poked around for about ten minutes. I tried about a number of simple operations: moving notes around, deleting a barline, that sort of thing.
…
I tried. I really did. But I was stymied at every turn. There were a couple “aha” moments, but they were the exception. The last straw was when I somehow spectacularly destroyed a barline with an accidental mouse drag and couldn’t even undo it. I did find you can drag anything basically anywhere, if you like that sort of ability.
I was disappointed. Yes, I know I could have spent time learning how it works first. I’m sure that would have helped. But I was told that wasn’t how notation software should work.
I’m genuinely happy for users that love Musescore. Really. Use whatever tools you like and don’t fight about it. But this “intuitive” demand is just not realistic. I agree that good software should not frustrate the well-meaning user. Every software has its flaws. But let’s just all admit that powerful programs require an investment of time, and you can’t just open up a new program and expect to intuit your way to a print-ready score.
It has long baffled me that people think and demand that complex, powerful software ought to be ‘intuitive’. Gosh how I loathe that word. Where did this meme come from? I don’t know. I have written about this at length in various places. People also want pro cameras to be ‘intuitive’. What is the problem with reading the manual and then learning and practicing something? Is it a form of intellectual and physical laziness? A desire for instant results? What happened to patience and deep understanding?
often the loudest complaints about notation software not being “intuitive” enough are from the same people who ask “why can’t I get the flute to play the A below middle C?”
Yes, I’ve similarly tried MuseScore, and had to look things up after spending time clicking around trying and failing to find out how to do things.
While I agree that “discoverability” is a good thing (and there are definitely places where Dorico could improve on this), it will only get you so far, and “learning is inevitable”, as the Borg might say.
Interestingly, Martin Keary has stepped down from working at MuseScore, though I’m sure his legacy will endure there.
I’ve messed around with it as most of my students use it. I find it really frustrating too. Obviously the frustration is just due to a lack of familiarity but I certainly wouldn’t call it “intuitive” for anyone already familiar with other notation software.
It has some really dumb defaults too. Putting Tenor Saxophone in an ottava treble clef in concert pitch drives me crazy and completely screws up my score reading. (For an AATTB sax section, I’d honestly rather just read transposed then ottava Tenors.) So I learned enough how to tell students to change that, change all chord symbols to left-aligned, and a few other miscellaneous pet peeves. This summer I’m gonna actually sit down and really learn the program I guess, sigh.
Was his position filled with someone? I remember some post, maybe on VI-Control, where he was talking about having a team in place, but am curious if there’s actually a lead designer there anymore. Justin’s position at Sibelius was eliminated and never filled either, was it? If neither were filled, that’s pretty interesting that both of Dorico’s main competitors are without a lead product designer right now.
Aside from the issues expressed in this thread, Musescore-even when you do come to some level of understanding it- is very lacking in score and part formatting capabilities. Plus, despite the relatively inexpensive ‘big name’ libraries available in Musescore, it’s playback engine makes using them problematic. I can’t believe that Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, VSL, etc. would deliberately release libraries with the playback issues one has with them in Musescore. It is best suited, I think for pop P/V/G scores.
If I may play some semblance of a Devil’s Advocate, I think for power users the intuitiveness of an application is going to be less important because we’re the ones who are going to be reading the manual or this forum and will be diving through all the menus to learn the inner workings of the program and customizing the output to what we desire. However, I do think intuitiveness and ease of use are important for people who are not trying to become professional copyists or engravers (the “knows enough to be dangerous” crowd) and are just trying to put notes on a page like composers or arrangers. That crowd is realistically looking more for the digital equivalent of a pen and paper that allows for instant playback, and for that person they want to spend the bulk of their time writing music rather than learning the software.
I’d also argue that the vast majority of people (including many who I would consider to be very intelligent) who use computers and smartphones on a daily basis largely don’t know how to use them the “correct” way and kind of just fumble their way through using them to do the things they need.
For me, the last straw, was trying to input a tuplet. It took over 5 minutes, before I was off to find the manual. This was where I realized that I was too busy to try and learn MuseScore.
Dorico is the total package for what I do and need, that dealing with MS is not really worth it for me.
Yes! That is *precisely* where I went from “MuseScore is kind of interesting” to “screw this.” I couldn’t believe how difficult and unintuitive it was to enter a tuplet. (I have to be in selector mode? I can’t start a tuplet in input mode?)
I’ve never thought that Dorico’s way of doing it was the best possible way, but at least with Dorico, I figured it out in less than a minute. Laying down a tuplet in MuseScore was a major struggle! I exited the application shortly afterward.
I think one problem is that people have different thinking styles.
So, developers create software that reflects their own ways of thinking, making it ‘intuitive’ based on those.
Some users will think in similar ways, but others won’t.
For me, the Dorico approach is quite similar to my own thinking style (quite analytic / looking for structure) but I’ve come across many people here for whom it’s not a good match. For them, the conceptual structures get in the way of doing what they want and I think that’s part of the reason for people saying ‘why is it so hard to do X?’.
I have tried Musescore and got on OK - but I wasn’t doing anything complicated.
Given the notation environment when it was developed, I don’t think Dorico was intended to be “intuitive” so much as logical, given its first (forward-thinking) precepts.
I’ve also tried Muse - I’d heard good things about its playback capabilities. Unfortunately that side of things didn’t live up to my expectations and that, coupled with the realisation that it wasn’t that simple and I’d have to learn a different way of notating things was enough to put me off.
