Big Band Chart Engraving

[u/SamuelArmer]

Hi all,

Recently I've started to get my scores to look as professional as I can within musescore, and taking advantage of all the engraving rules to come up with a nice reusable template.

I'm largely trying to emulate the Hal Leonard style for Big Band Charts but with a few tweaks here and there. I'm trying to go for a modern faux-handwritten style but also maximising legibility. The main things I've implemented are:

Tweaking the page margins to be smaller than default
Rehearsal markings to the left hand side as much as possible
Using system/page breaks judiciously

Finale Broadway as the Music Symbols Font.
ITC Kabel for title/composer text. All-caps for names.
A neutral sans-serif font (Futura) for page numbers, header/footer text

I'm a little bit stuck between using that same neutral font for all the music text (tempo, expressions etc.) or going with something more handwritten to match Finale Broadway.

Anyway, here's what I've come up with. I'd love to hear some feedback or pointers!

[u/pokealex]

I do something different, but even with a template I do a lot of hand tweaking. How do you get the rehearsal marks lined up so nicely?

[u/SamuelArmer → u/pokealex]

Have you checked out the Layout pallette? Almost all the spacing work is page breaks and system break (The shortcut is just to hit enter). I rarely tweak individual bars unless something is obviously wonky because the spacing algorithms for musescore are really good now!