I first started arranging for students in 1993, when there were no music notation programmes widely available. Technology wasn't as advanced or cheap as it is today; many of us didn't even have our own computers or printers. We wrote for our students by hand, and then used the school or college photocopier to reproduce the scores for class. (There were no mobile phones or socials back then either, but that's another story.) I take real pleasure from looking at my finished scores today, because I remember how they compare to the old stuff, which had often been scrawled in a hurry the night before class. I wish I could say that it's been an easy journey to learn to input the tab and dots into Finale and Musescore; in truth, I've been pulling my hair out!
Around three years ago, I was lucky to have a short collection of O'Carolan arrangements (for guitar ensemble) published by Manley Mallard of the Guitar Chamber Music Press (USA). Manley told me that he couldn't accept Musescore files because they were full of bugs. He told me that he'd only take scores in Finale. Dutifully, I bought Finale and started to experiment.
Finale wasn't a particularly intuitive programme, but I battled my way through it by telling myself that if I took things slowly, and didn't get stressed no matter how long it took, then I'd be OK. It took a good while, and I was constantly typing questions into the internet, but there were plenty of internet discussion forums to help. I cracked it in the end. When I sent the Finale files to Manley Mallard, they didn't corrupt.
Around the same time, I was experimenting with Musescore (which I found slightly easier to work). I soon discovered that it was indeed full of bugs. I had notes leaping around the screen, deleting themselves randomly, changing their time values and whizzing about all over the place. I'd hit a key by mistake and an entire line of carefully-typed melody with immaculate counting and layout would suddenly twist itself into nonsense in a heartbeat. On bad days, I saved many of these without even realising they'd happened, overwriting my perfect original with something which would take hours to input again. So, I went back to Finale.
Then Finale was retired. Out of necessity I came back to Musescore, resplendent with all its bugs and foibles. Finally, after many months (if not a couple of years), I've learned for the most part to anticipate and dodge the problems it throws out. I'm always careful to ensure the note icon is changed to the arrow icon so that I don't go slipping unnecessary notes in by accident, and I always save the file regularly, often to two different locations.
I still can't understand the random pad feature which changes every bar in terms of note duration. Why this feature was invented in the first place, I'll never know. I haven't yet met a musician who would decide on a whim that every bar in a part needs rewriting simultaneously with a strange new rhythm - but, I'm quicker to spot it when it springs itself on me now. I just use the ‘undo’ function.
One of the complexities of writing for a harmony instrument (rather than a melody instrument) is the multiple voicing. I'm a bit of a notation nerd, puzzling endlessly over which voice should take which note, wondering how best to notate parts if they overlap or share notes (which isn't always easy to achieve with Musescore, even if you know exactly what you want). I confess I haven't yet cracked every permutation. Sometimes I have to settle for a compromise. One of my favourite notation tools in the programme is the ‘Linked Stave’ feature, with which you can write in either tab or conventional notation, and have the alternative spring up automatically. Another great tool is the string properties section, where you can change your guitar from conventional tuning into alternatives like DADGAD, ensuring the notation is accurate and that it will play back correctly. Finally there are the grace notes and slurs (which provide hammer-ons and pull-offs, vital for guitar arrangements) and slides. I daresay there are more sophisticated programmes out there with features even more exciting, but I have enough on my plate coping with this one!
When I've input and checked the score, I export and save it as a PDF file. The PDF file is completely stable - it can't be accidentally input with new errors. My teenage kids would be horrified I'm actually making a point of saying this, but honestly, this simple fact is still as exciting today as it was when I first discovered how to export a file. By way of explanation, I grew up in the 70's-80's and started teaching in the early 90's; home-printed properly typeset music was never a given. Today, I've successfully copied sixteen PDF files onto the Sheet Music page ready for download/sale. The earliest pieces date from 2001, the latest from this year, 2025. I'm still sorting through piles of my original arrangements dating from the 1990's, many of which were pop songs written in both notation and tablature. These were designed to keep early-to-mid teens interested in keeping on coming to Saturday morning guitar group (run by Rotherham Music Service and known as ‘Music Centre’). It's where I learned guitar; it was a privilege to run my own class there for several years, teaching in the same classroom I was taught in as a child and a teen. Lovely memories.
I now keep a file of commands in a desktop folder especially so that if I forget how to re-tune the virtual instrument settings in Musescore, or how to flip my note stems, or how to achieve triplet semi-quavers (I sometimes forget if I don't revisit the programme for a while), I have a document to hand, to help.
Here's a link to Musescore: https://musescore.org/en
Here's a link to Dorico (the official replacement for Finale): https://www.steinberg.net/dorico/
I now have Dorico Pro, although I've yet to steel myself to begin learning how to use it.