How to Write Sheet Music Faster: 6 Things That Slow Musicians Down (and the Fix for Each)
Writing sheet music is slow for six predictable reasons, and each one has a fix. Ask working musicians and you hear the same thing: for a quick chart, pencil and paper still beat notation software, and software only pays off later, when the chart has to be corrected, transposed or shared. The goal is to get both. Write at pencil speed, then let a tool do the dull parts.
Full disclosure: I play saxophone in working bands, and I make an iPad notation app, Band Session Note, around exactly these problems. Every fix below works on paper too. Where the app helps, I show its actual screen.
2. Rhythm is the slowest part
3. Chord symbols get squeezed in last
4. Transposing horn parts by hand
5. One mistake means rewriting the page
6. The chart falls apart on the gig
A five-step workflow · FAQ
1. The software is slower than the idea
Most notation programs want a pitch, then a duration, then a fix for the bar that breaks when you change your mind. One guitarist who blogs about note entry put it plainly: he finds it “infinitely faster to write music with pencil and paper.” By the time the menus are open, half the idea is gone.
In the app: you open a blank page, pick a note value and tap it onto the staff, or write with Apple Pencil or a finger. This four-bar chart was written that way: key, time signature, melody and chords.
2. Rhythm is the slowest part
Pitches are easy to picture. Note values are not: is that an eighth or a dotted eighth? Most score editors make you pick every value from a palette, so rhythm is where the minutes disappear, and where beginners give up.
In the app: Rhythm Tap lets you tap along with the metronome. A quick tap becomes a short note, a held tap a long one, and the result is written straight onto the staff. Drag the notes up or down to set the pitch and you have a melody. How Rhythm Tap works.
3. Chord symbols get squeezed in last
Chord symbols are the part of a chart the band reads most, yet they usually go in at the end, crammed between staves. Jazz composer Darcy James Argue’s music preparation guide warns against staff paper with staves packed too close, because you need room for chord symbols, ledger lines and repeat endings.
In the app: on iPad, Quick chords keeps up to twelve of the song’s chords in a strip above the bars. Tap one and it lands on the bar line and moves on to the next bar. You can also write a chord name with Apple Pencil and the app sets it in clean type.
4. Transposing horn parts by hand
This is where charts go wrong. A part for trumpet or alto sax needs every note moved, a new key signature and new chord names, and it is usually done the night before. Argue’s guide is clear that parts for transposing instruments must be transposed correctly, including key signatures and chord symbols. Miss one chord name and the rehearsal stops.
In the app: the score stays in concert key and you only change what you see. Here is the chart from above in the B♭ view, for trumpet and clarinet. Tenor sax reads the same key, an octave higher.
And the same chart in the E♭ view, for alto sax:
Notes, key signature and chord names change together. One flat (F major) becomes one sharp (G) for B♭ and two sharps (D) for E♭, and F△7 becomes G△7 and D△7. Switch back to C and nothing in the original has changed. This feature came from years of reading C charts on alto and tenor. More on the transposed view.
5. One mistake means rewriting the page
On paper, a wrong bar near the top, or a section that has to move up a step for the singer, means copying everything below it again.
In the app: undo anything, select an area to move it, or transpose just that selection by a step. On iPad you can also add or delete bars without redrawing the rest.
6. The chart falls apart on the gig
Loose pages, a page turn in the middle of a phrase, a sixteen-bar rest you lose count of. Argue’s guide even tells you where a page turn has to fall and how to tape multi-page parts so they stay together.
In the app: performance mode fills the screen with the score and turns pages with a tap, a swipe or a Bluetooth foot pedal. It can turn half a page at a time, so the next line shows up early, and it can count your rest bars for you. How performance mode works.
A five-step workflow that works anywhere
1. Chords first. One per bar, with room above the staff.
2. Rhythm next. Clap it, count it, then write it.
3. Pitches last. Fill the rhythm in with notes.
4. Make the parts. Concert, B♭ and E♭, from one master chart.
5. Check before you print. Key signature and chord names in every part.
Do it in that order and most charts take minutes, not an evening, whether you use paper, software or a tablet. If you want to know what belongs on a chart in the first place, read what a lead sheet is.
FAQ
Is it faster to write sheet music by hand or with software?
For a one-page lead sheet, usually by hand. Software, or a pen-based app, wins as soon as you need to correct, transpose or share the chart.
How much space do chord symbols need?
More than most staff paper gives you. Argue’s guide advises no more than ten staves per page, which is how our free blank lead sheet is laid out.
How do I transpose a C chart for alto sax?
Write every note a major sixth higher (or a minor third lower) and move the key signature three steps toward the sharp side. F major with one flat becomes D major with two sharps, as in the picture above. There is a full walkthrough in reading a C chart on alto sax.
Do I need to read music well to write a chart?
Not for a chord chart: you need the chord names and the bar count. For melodies, clapping the rhythm first gets you most of the way, and reading improves as you write.
Every example on this page was written in Band Session Note, the iPad notation app I make. The pictures are the app’s own screen.
Comments
Post a Comment