We love music notation software and related products and technology, so that’s what we cover here. You’ll find timely news, in-depth coverage about the field, a...
At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Martin Keary, the head of software for Muse Group. Martin spoke with me about the conversations he had at NAMM about some of the exciting possibilities for MuseScore collaborations and integrations with other app makers in the future. More practically, we also discussed recent MuseScore development efforts and some of the new features we can expect to see in upcoming releases, as well as the role that industry changes like the end of Finale played in the road map for the software.
Come back next week for more conversations from the NAMM Show. And as always, if you like this podcast episode, there’s plenty more for you from Scoring Notes — be sure to follow us right in your podcast player.
More about the 2025 NAMM Show from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2025: On the scene
NAMM 2025: Decondensing Sibelius with Avid’s Sam Butler
NAMM 2025: Imbibing transcribing with Oriol López Calle
NAMM 2025: Musing on software and design with Martin Keary
NAMM 2025: On with the show with Steinberg’s John Barron
NAMM 2025: An interview with Avid’s Sam Butler
NAMM 2025: An interview with Oriol López Calle
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35:23
NAMM 2025: An interview with Oriol López Calle
At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Oriol López Calle from My Sheet Music Transcriptions, a service that he founded in 2011 that has since grown to employ dozens of people and serve tens of thousands of customers. Oriol told us about his company’s approach to their work, which includes not only transcribing but a full range of music preparation tasks. We also discussed technological innovations that have already transformed the business and those that we expect to do so in the future.
Come back the next couple of weeks for more conversations from the NAMM Show. And as always, if you like this podcast episode, there’s plenty more for you from Scoring Notes — be sure to follow us right in your podcast player.
More about the 2025 NAMM Show from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2025: On the scene
NAMM 2025: Decondensing Sibelius with Avid’s Sam Butler
NAMM 2025: Imbibing transcribing with Oriol López Calle
NAMM 2025: Musing on software and design with Martin Keary
NAMM 2025: On with the show with Steinberg’s John Barron
NAMM 2025: An interview with Avid’s Sam Butler
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32:30
NAMM 2025: An interview with Avid’s Sam Butler
At the 2025 NAMM Show, we interviewed representatives from the businesses in our field of music notation software and related technology.
This podcast episode is a conversation Philip Rothman had with Sam Butler, Avid’s director of product management. Sam talked with us about the new decondensing parts feature in Sibelius that Avid previewed at NAMM, and he celebrated the award that his team received for last year’s release of the Android app. He also shared his thoughts on the industry’s developments over the past year, the direction that he anticipates for the future, and what it all means for Sibelius customers.
Come back the next few weeks for more conversations from the NAMM Show. And as always, if you like this podcast episode, there’s plenty more for you from Scoring Notes — be sure to follow us right in your podcast player.
More about the 2025 NAMM Show from Scoring Notes:
NAMM 2025: On the scene
NAMM 2025: Decondensing Sibelius with Avid’s Sam Butler
NAMM 2025: Imbibing transcribing with Oriol López Calle
NAMM 2025: Musing on software and design with Martin Keary
NAMM 2025: On with the show with Steinberg’s John Barron
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25:55
From cylinders to streaming
This episode was written by Andrew Anderson.
We’re very pleased to bring you this episode, and more to come in the future, thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.
The history of recorded sound stretches back over a hundred and fifty years, starting with a device that could “record” a voice on a piece of paper. Today, we can enjoy lossless streaming anywhere we go… but getting here wasn’t easy. In this episode, our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz worked with Qobuz, the high quality music platform, to chart the history of audio mediums, from cylinders made of tin foil and wax, to vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CDs, and mp3s. Along the way, they explore the innovations and quirks of each format, with memories sent in from their listeners and the 20K team. Featuring Adam Tovell from the British Library Sound Archive.
Then, stay tuned afterwards as David MacDonald and Philip Rothman tie all of this “related technology” back to the “music notation” portion of the Scoring Notes mission, and explore how music notation and recorded sound are complementary sides of what makes a song a song.
Further reading:
What Is a Song?, by Ben Sisario from The New York Times, about the copyright questions raised in the lawsuit involving Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Ed Sheeran’s song “Thinking Out Loud”.
Further listening:
The [COMPRESSED] history of mastering
Music featured in this episode:
Original music by Wesley Slover
Steppin Intro by Sound of Picture
Paraphrase on Sleeping Beauty by Paul Pabst
Greylock by Skittle
Lonely Summertime by The Rockin’ Berries
Ding Dong by Niklas Gabrielsson
Bebop Blues by Vendla
Living Memories by Golden Age Radio
Gin Boheme by Vermouth
Forever in Love With a Ghost by PÄR
You Oughta Know by Rockin’ For Decades
Back in Time by They Fall
Pink Gloves by J.F. Gloss
Dreamweavers by Sven Lindvall & Daniel Fridell
No One Knows But Me by Torii Wolf
Tour 505 by Epocha
Blipper by Sound of Picture
October by UTAH
Do You by KENA
Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, and hosted by Dallas Taylor.
Art by Divya Tak.
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40:38
A snapshot of music scanning apps, and picturing the future
Music scanning technology, or optical music recognition (OMR) if you like, has been around for decades, and yet in many ways is still barely out of infancy. But that could soon change as classic algorithm-based desktop programs converge with newer mobile apps and web-based machine learning tools.
Steve Morell joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to discuss his review of six of those products that run the gamut of those technologies: Newzik, Soundslice, PlayScore 2, Sheet Music Scanner, SmartScore 64 Pro 64 NE, and ScanScore Professional. He takes on through his process of testing each of them from the common perspective of a user wanting to get a quick and accurate scan for exporting via MusicXML to other software such as Sibelius, Dorico, or MuseScore.
However, those applications have many other use cases. We explore those as well, and how each of the products may be suited to one particular use or another in their own way. We also envision where the industry is headed and how these technologies could potentially evolve in the future.
Read the full Scoring Notes review: Scanning the current OMR landscape
We love music notation software and related products and technology, so that’s what we cover here. You’ll find timely news, in-depth coverage about the field, and honest reviews about products you use every day. You’ll learn about the interesting people in our field and find out our opinions on ever-changing developments in the industry.