Review of new online music scorewriter scorio

What is scorio?

A new online scorewriter has recently been started at scorio.com. It supports the expected music notation elements such as notes and rests of various lengths, triplets, keys, meters, articulation etc. For input, you can choose between mouse entry or using a piano keyboard which is displayed at the bottom of the editor. The score can be changed by dragging notes around or by selecting notes and changing their properties in the toolbar.

How does scorio work?

For easy input, the scorewriter offers a graphical user interface. At the same time, it uses LilyPond for typesetting, resulting in high quality print-outs. Since LilyPond is not obvious to install for the less computophile, scorio is a handy alternative for scores that do not require the full feature set (and tweaking capabilities) of LilyPond.

Features for singers

scorio provides templates for different combinations of voices. If some template is not available, it is possible to import it as MusicXML file (which you have to write yourself). Lyrics and articulation (such as staccato, portato, ...) are also supported. It is possible to publish scores on the scorio platform, for example if you want to make an arrangement available to your choir.

Restrictions

Since scorio is still young, not all basic features have been implemented yet. For example, breath signs, phrasing and polyphony within a line are missing. A group feature allowing to publish only to a group would also be nice. However, new features are regularly added to the editor, such that it seems only a matter of time until the missing features are addressed.

Conclusion

scorio is a new online scorewriter that is very accessible to the not so computophile user. It is already functional for simpler scores and promises to become really useful for the singers' community once the more basic restrictions have been addressed. Keep an eye on it!