Berklee Contemporary Music Notation A Comprehensive Guide to Music Scoring | Learn Notation for Staffs Lead Sheets Guitar Tabs and More | Create Professional Sheet Music

If you want the low-down on all aspects of music notation, this is the book. I love the layout -- nice big print, easy to read, gets right to the point, etc.. The book itself is large and the info is spread out smartly over the pages. Good use of tables, staves, etc. to get the points across in pictures. Really great insights into the best ways of creating useful musical notation in a variety of situations, along with plenty of examples of "OK" and "Bad" use of notation. The writing style is itself contemporary and conversational (that is, not overly formal and dry), which keeps the subject matter from being deathly boring. When reading the book, I feel like I am having a conversation with my music teacher. It has also made me rather critical of poorly laid out arrangements and horrible use (or lack of use) of proper notation. This matters, because I used to think I was the one with the problem when I found reading certain sheet music difficult. Since reading this book, I've become a more critical purchaser of sheet music just by seeing how much effort was put into the musical notation. I'd rather pay $10 for sheet music with great notation than paying $2 for sheet music with mistakes and confusing (or no) helpful notation.

This book is not only thorough, it’s more than thorough. I’ve been playing the piano for 70 years and, as my title here says, I discovered things in the book that we’re new to me. My advice is, if you’re on the fence about a purchase of this, go ahead with it.

Last year I took Mr. Feist's Notation and Score Preparation Class at Berklee Online and this book would have been a great companion work. I am currently taking some Orchestration courses and it is proving to be a very helpful handbook.

Esteemed musicologist and editor in chief of the Berklee Music publishing arm, Jonathan Feist writes a lovely book on how to read and some common conventions for scoring music from key signatures to the order and abbreviations for common instruments. If you did everything this book tells you too, it would meet 90% of the requirements for basic music publishing. I appreciated Jonathan's self-deprecating comments indicating past overreaches and the fleeting nature of musical publications conventions. The book is not only a decent reference for music scoring and publication, this would also be a useful middle grade or first high school music appreciation course, study guide. All in all, the book is well written covers the topic at just the right level for the beginner and has enough humor to keep it an interesting read. I highly recommend it.

Very informative book.easy to read and understand.great format .covers most important things.very well pleased.

I can not say enough great things about this book! It is even better if you take a Finale online course at Berklee, you get to speak in the computer classroom with the actual author! Even if you can not do that, it is all there in a very open, clearly laid out format. Even the paper size and paper weight and binding for orchestration, and other useful details that a less practical text might not mention, are included. I highly recommend it. It saved hours of scouring the web for info, as well.

This book was incredibly helpful, easy to follow along with, and thorough. A must for anyone looking to create professional songs and scores.

Learn notation

Cómo toda publicación de Berklee muy bueno solo que es para músicos de nivel teórico intermedio-avanzado

O livro é escrito de uma forma menos acadêmica, porém, contém todos os requisitos para se valer de uma referência bibliográfica. Seu conteúdo é objetivo, com exemplos claros do que se deve ou pode fazer (ou não). Eu recomendo para aqueles que procuram profissionalizar sua notação e edição.

Das Buch stellt eine breite Palette von Notationsstandards vor. Allerdings gerade zur Notation Neuer Musik enthält es erschreckend wenig. Schade. Warum gerade da aufhören, wo es spannend wird?

Più che leggerlo, l'ho subito sfogliato avidamente. Tutto quello che avrei voluto sapere sulla direzione delle gambette (stems) e non ho mai osato chiedere. La Berklee non si smentisce. Ottimo testo di consultazione, quando devi "mettere in bella" uno spartito. Ho trovato solo una grave mancanza: nel capitolo dedicato alla notazione specifica per i diversi strumenti, non si parla di fisarmonica (che ha un'importante notazione specifica). Possibile che alla Berklee non insegnino Jazz Accordion?

Highly recommend this excellent reference book for musicians of all abilities and irrespective of instrument. Good accurate, clear, Notation is such a crucial aspect of learning and performing music to a consistently high standard. In this respect, the text is very well laid out and informative. My only minor quibble is that it is not optimised for a Kindle device (e.g. it is not text to speech enabled) but that doesn't take away from the value of the contents.