Course

Professional Score Production

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
Music
Course code
MUSC 1172
Credits
1.50
Semester length
15 weeks
Max class size
26
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Course designation
None
Industry designation
None
Typically offered
To be determined

Overview

Course description
Through lecture/demonstrations and hands-on lab work students will create professional musical scores and parts. Topics include score and part formats, data entry, notated and graphic representations, proofing, playback, part extraction, instructions and diagrams, score aesthetics, publisher formats, and binding and presentation.
Course content
  1. Standard score formats and representations
  2. Score layout and considerations
  3. Manual score preparation
  4. Graphic-based vs. rule-based representation
  5. Entry and/or importing data
  6. Transposition and Ranges
  7. Scanning and data conversion
  8. Local and global score data
  9. Notational practices for rhythm, clusters, accidentals
  10. Complex and graphic notation, tab, chord symbols
  11. Score instructions/graphics
  12. Part extraction
  13. Part preparation and score binding
  14. Publication formats
Learning activities

Lecture/demonstration. Students will work on in-class exercises in the Technology Lab, and will complete regular exercises and assignments outside of class time.

Means of assessment

Assessment will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. 

The following is an example evaluation scheme: 

Assignment #1    25%
Assignment #2 25%
Quizzes 15%
Midterm Exam 10%
Final Exam 15%
Professionalism 10%
Total 100%

Professionalism is assessed on consistent attendance, punctuality, taking responsibility for deadlines, constructive and considerate inter-personal communication and contribution to class discussion and group work. 

Learning outcomes

Through lecture/demonstrations and hands-on work students will learn to produce professional quality scores and parts. A variety of software packages will be examined and used as part of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to music representation.

Upon the successful completion of this course, students will be able take hand-written scores or sequenced data and quickly create scores and parts useable by professionals in situations ranging from studio recording sessions to symphony orchestra performances. Students will be able to provide score and part excerpts for the publishing industry, including lead sheets, children’s books, and academic journals.

Textbook materials

Heussenstamm, George. The Norton Manual of Music Notation. W.W. Norton & Co. New York, New York. (current edition)

 

Requisites

Prerequisites

No prerequisite courses.

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

MUSC 3183

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer details for MUSC 1172
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) KPU MUSI 3XXX (1.5)
Simon Fraser University (SFU) SFU CA 1XX (1)
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) No credit
University Canada West (UCW) No credit
University of British Columbia - Okanagan (UBCO) No credit
University of British Columbia - Vancouver (UBCV) No credit
University of Northern BC (UNBC) No credit
University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) UFV GE 1XX (2)
University of Victoria (UVIC) UVIC MUS 1XX (0.5)

Course Offerings

Winter 2025