We’re very pleased to bring you this episode, and more to come in the future, thanks to our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz, a podcast that tells the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds.

People with perfect or “absolute” pitch hear every single sound as precise musical notes. Is this extraordinary talent a blessing or a curse? In this episode, our friends at Twenty Thousand Hertz dive into the neuroscience, pluses, and pitfalls of absolute pitch. Featuring neuroscientist Daniel Levitin and Grammy-winning musician Jacob Collier.

Art by Mafalda Maia.

Music featured in this episode:

Hide and Seek by Jacob Collier Light It Up On Me by Jacob Collier Down the Line by Jacob Collier To Sleep by Jacob Collier All I Need by Jacob Collier Bakumbe by Jacob Collier Hideaway by Jacob Collier Colrain by Marble Run Sky Above by Jacob Collier Moon River by Jacob Collier A Noite by Jacob Collier Connect by Steven Gutheinz Count the People by Jacob Collier

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound, and hosted by Dallas Taylor.

We talk a lot about fonts on the Scoring Notes podcast. But there was a time when there were no music fonts. And then, there was one.

Cleo Huggins, on the staff of Adobe in 1986, designed Sonata, the very first music font. It’s hard to imagine today, but it was revolutionary at the time, and a leading industry publication called it the “Music Product of the Year”. Sonata provided the blueprint for the core music fonts later created for use in Finale and Sibelius, but it may surprise you to learn that Sonata was created without any one particular music software product in mind.

Cleo tells Philip Rothman and David MacDonald about her early studies with some of the great typographic experts of the 1970 and 1980s, and how her work in graphic design, 3-D animation, background as a violinist, and a key meeting with Steve Jobs about the launch of the first Macintosh computer all led to her taking responsibility for creating Sonata. Cleo discusses the revolution in PostScript technology and the introduction of the laser printer, and how that made it possible for her to create a high quality music font that was unconstrained by limitations of bitmapping.

She recalls the various sources of inspiration and research she did — everything from Bach’s manuscript to the Music Writer, to Notaset dry transfer sheets — and the process of regularizing beautiful calligraphy without losing the distinctive elements of music notation. She also recalls thinking about all the minute details from careful placement to the key mapping of each character, and the feedback received from early music software pioneers eager to incorporate Sonata into their programs.

Cleo’s career moved on from Sonata to a variety of endeavors, all propelled by a deep curiosity and propensity to good, and we talk about that too — and ask her if she’d ever come back to the world of music fonts, with all of the progress that has taken place in the nearly four decades since her groundbreaking work transformed the history of music notation.

More on Scoring Notes:

• Music Type Foundry fonts newly revised and re-released
• Download and install all Finale fonts on Mac and Windows
• MuseScore Studio 4.6 adds full SMuFL support, other engraving and playback updates
• Cantorum, a plainchant font for Dorico
• Introducing Lelandia, a new suite of music fonts for Sibelius
• Daniel Spreadbury on music fonts: past, present, and future
• Music fonts and open standards with Daniel Spreadbury
• A brief history of music notation on computers
• Back to the future of music notation on computers
• How to make a SMuFL font
• A fount of fonts at Notation Central
• Introducing the Norfolk and Pori chord symbol fonts for Sibelius — and an angled slash variant

From the Finale Blog:

• Meet Steve Peha, creator of Petrucci, Finale’s first music font
• A brief history of Finale fonts

Recent updates abound in Dorico, MuseScore Studio, Sibelius, and across the Apple operating systems. Whether you use all of these products or just one of them, we help you get current with the latest features and improvements, so that you can make the most of the notation software and the operating systems they run on.

More from Scoring Notes:

• Music notation software and macOS Tahoe
• Dorico 6.1: Select more
• MuseScore Studio 4.6 adds full SMuFL support, other engraving and playback updates
• Sibelius 2025.7 brings note spacing control, UI updates
• Sibelius updated to 2025.8

File system tools mentioned:

• Onyx
• CleanMyMac

Freelancing is a kind of freedom. Freedom from a regular schedule, an office, or a permanent boss. But with freelance work comes responsibility.

Part of your job as a freelancer is deciding what the work should be and finding the clients who are going pay you to do it. Not only are you responsible to them, but you’re responsible for yourself, your family, the tax man, and more.

In the music notation software and related technology world of Scoring Notes, it’s possible to have freelance work in which those tools are used regularly.

Paul Beck is principal librarian of the Milwaukee Symphony, concert librarian for Renée Fleming, and formerly librarian at, among other institutions, The Metropolitan Opera, The Juilliard School, and the Aspen Music Festival & School. Paul joins Philip Rothman and David MacDonald to talk all about his decades of experience both as a freelance music preparer and salaried performance librarian, and to offer a wealth of insights and practical advice for anyone seeking freedom — and responsibility — as a freelancer.

This wide-ranging and detailed conversation explores the methods and manners of pursuing freelance work; the differences and similarities among being a freelancer, independent contractor, part-time employee, and full-time employee — and the benefits and drawbacks of each; managing your time and boundaries as a freelancer; the importance of mentors; essential tools; and specific advice about finances, invoices, and payment processing options.

More from Scoring Notes:

• An interview with librarian Paul Beck
• Road report: Copland’s Rodeo in Milwaukee
• How to charge for music preparation
• Chronology of a perfect music printing job
• The tale of the tape
• The staples of printing self-published music

We open the Scoring Notes mailbag, contemplate the musings of our audience, and try to leave no question unanswered in this fun and informative podcast episode.

More from Scoring Notes, referenced in this episode:

• Finale’s twilight zone: Ensuring a smooth ride into the sunset
• Using Finale in the unsupported era
• Leaving Finale behind
• The rights stuff, with Jim Kendrick
• Scanning the current OMR landscape
• Partying with parts, part 1
• Partying with parts, part 2
• Working with page numbers in Sibelius
• Better Sibelius slurs for opposite stem direction on outer notes
• Marie Chupeau and the human side of Newzik’s artificial intelligence
• From “zero to slice”: Soundslice takes on optical music recognition with AI
• Sibelius 2022.5 brings multi-section headers, other workflow boosts

Hosted by The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the 43rd annual conference of MOLA: An Association of Performance Librarians ran from May 30 through June 2, 2025, and brought together music librarians, publishers, vendors, composers, performers, and technology enthusiasts.

The 2025 conference was the first one hosted by a university, reflecting the organization’s broader membership. It spotlighted the working environments of the academic performance librarian and offered opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas across ensemble tiers and types.

On the podcast, David MacDonald and Philip Rothman recap the 2025 MOLA Conference recorded in person from the University of Michigan, with a summary of the tech fair and conference sessions on broadening access, copyright, professional development, IMSLP, and much more.

And, if you like your podcasts in video format, we have a special treat for you: A video of this podcast episode, recorded live.

More from Scoring Notes: Road report: MOLA 2025 Conference