Are You Making These Common Notation Mistakes?

Everyone who studies music and understands pitch, rhythm, and meter can write out music themselves if they have to. But music notation penmanship receives very little emphasis in musical training, in my experience. Whether the music is written by hand or using notation software, it is easy to make mistakes that make reading your music harder than it needs to be. Here are some common mistakes that musicians make when writing music.

Inconsistent or incorrect beaming can cause the musician confusion as to where the notes lie in relation to the beat. For instance, beaming two eighth notes together in one measure and suddenly beaming four notes together can confuse the reader into thinking they are seeing sixteenth notes.

Parts that have collisions of notes, accidentals, dynamics, slurs, and tempo markings; note stems that are too close to bar lines; ledger lines that touch each other; and crowding of too many measures in a system—all can cause errors, confusion, and wasted rehearsal time.

Parts need clear indications of tempos and tempo changes. Dynamics are also critical. If any of these are missing, misplaced, or unclear, further chaos can unfold in rehearsals.

Poor results will be certain if the score and parts have missing or inconsistent articulations.

Poorly planned page turns will cause frustration and can lead to musicians getting lost.

Amateur composers and arrangers often write parts with transposition errors or parts written at the incorrect octave.

Music notation software can catch some of these errors, but certainly not all. The issues described above, and many other potential problems, can be avoided by working with a trained music editor. Music publishers like Ascenda Music have professionals who can turn any music into beautiful, clear, accurate, and user-friendly scores and parts. If you have a worthwhile piece of music that needs professional-looking scores and parts, consider hiring a professional music engraver!