What is sheet music editing? It is the process of putting together a partiture or an orchestral voice – commonly referred to as notes – for publishing in print or digital form.
What I Do
I prepare musical and musicological publications as well as notation examples for books and academic papers. I cooperate with editorial staff of publishing houses during a complete editing process, beginning from inputting a music piece into the editing software, through rearranging a score or an orchestral voice to adjust it to a chosen format, all the way up to graphic design, and finishing with a complete layout of a publication prepared for transferring to paper at a printing house.
Editing a short musical notation excerpt or a simple music piece is not complicated and can be done on one’s own with the use of publicly available editing software, both free – such as MuseScore – as well as paid – such as Finale or Sibelius. Preparing a large publication or musical notation excerpt for publishing is time-consuming and requires a lot more experience and knowledge of editing rules.
Why It Is Worth It
Sheet music is aimed at a narrow consumer base and should mainly meet basic usability requirements, however – it is also worth making it leave an esthetical impression, and in case of musicological publications making it cohesive and readable. Properly prepared sheet music will significantly increase the quality and prestige of a publication.
Take a look at examples of scores and notation excerpts in the form in which they are submitted to editors, compared to post-edit designs prepared to fit a chosen format.
Before and after editing
Preparing For Publication
How do the preparations look like? Take a glimpse at examples of source materials, ready-for-print layouts, transcriptions of musical work and different kinds of notation put side-by-side with original handwritings or other printed editions.
