Tip #44 - Make two versions of a score: with repeat notation and fully drawn out

I don't know about you, but I really dislike playing music with complicated repeat directives -especially if the repeats span several pages. Here you are, playing along, and then you suddenly have to search for some Coda symbol two pages from the last note you played.

Well, don't forget that hard disk space and paper is cheap these days, so you might as well make two versions of a score: a compact one with all the correct repeat notation, and another with all the repeated sections copied and pasted to make one long, continuous score. Then if you are playing from music scrolling on the screen you don't have to worry about sudden jumps (and sometimes MusEdit doesn't know where to jump to anyway, as in "D.C. al Coda"), or if you print your score out you can have one long series of pages which you can play through without complicated backtracking.

By the way, I built something that helps with this kind of score: a wooden music stand with long extensions on both sides of the typically 2-3 page wide paper platform. With my long extensions and a few clothes pins I can sprawl out six or seven pages and I never have to stop playing in order to turn a page!

  Yowza Software, P.O. Box 4275, Berkeley  CA  94704  USA 800-234-0427