SK: What's your input method? Do you mouse around, use keyboard shortcuts, or do you play notes in through MIDI?ĪA: Definitely keyboard shortcuts and then copy and paste. I used to be terrified to figure stuff out on my computer, but I read enough forums and found there's always an answer out there, and if there isn't, I ask the people I follow on Twitter. I actually watched a tutorial in how to do it in Spanish (I don't speak Spanish), got the gist, then found a comment on a forum explaining it in English. How did you figure it out?ĪA: I learned using Google searches and by reading a number of forums. Since people immediately asked you for tutorials, I gather it's a fairly common puzzle. SK: The way I found out about your blog was a post you'd made online about how you'd figured out how to tie JACK, xjadeo, and MuseScore together. This hasn't been a problem, though, as once a rhythm pattern has been input I tend to copy and paste it anyway. Now I use MuseScore and with my students because they work across platforms.ĪA: No, most of the commands are the same as Sibelius, and the biggest difference is in not having the number pad to select rhythms. I also keep up to date with programs for composition through following what's going on with the guys at NYUMusEdLab. SK: How much previous experience with notation software had you had prior to MuseScore?ĪA: I've used Sibelius since 2000 as my go-to notation software and used GarageBand as my go-to DAW (digital audio workstation) for inputting MIDI both for myself and my students. But to be honest, it was seeing one of my students using it, of his own accord, in preparation for composition class that led me to actually download it and use it. It was a bonus, for me, that the musician in question was also involved in education, the one industry that truly puts software to the test.Īlison Armstrong: I completed a Coursera MOOC through the Sydney Conservatorium called The Place of Music in 21st Century Education that suggested a range of open source programs to use with students, and MuseScore came up. I'd written a tutorial for MuseScore last year, and I am working on an update to that now, so I thought an interview with a musician actively using it might prove to be enlightening. It shows, too, because she's been doing amazing work with her students.Īlison hosts a music blog, but I became aware of her when she started posting online that she'd recently discovered the excellent music notation software, MuseScore. Alison's main passion is providing her students with opportunities to compose new music and explore their identity through music. Alison Armstrong is a singer and high school music teacher at an international school in Laos, a developing country just between Thailand and Vietnam.
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