# Where to buy manuscript paper?



## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

Everywhere I go they have standard A4 sized paper. What I'm looking for is super-A3 sized orchestral manuscript paper. Who sells them in Europe?


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## Hannes_F (Nov 25, 2009)

Perhaps this helps:

http://www.musikalienhandel.de/statisch/NEUNER+4010.htm


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## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

look right, Hannes! Although I cannot manage that well on German sites, but I'll take a closer look  Thank you


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## Nickie Fønshauge (Nov 25, 2009)

http://www.di-arezzo.co.uk/scores-from-CarlFischer-with-score+paper.html (di-Arezzo) has a number of different score papers, some with bar lines (like the one Hannes linked to) and some without. Unfortunately there isn't much info about numbers and sizes. Another possibility is this paper from SheetMusic+. It looks like it would fit your needs.


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## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

Tusind tak! I also remembered that Århus Noder in Esbjerg sells manuscript paper - I have sent an e-mail asking them. Thanks for the links - I'm sorry Hannes, but I can't maneuvre around in German. I'm more comfortable on the English sites


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## Hannes_F (Nov 25, 2009)

I remember buying in the simple normal paper shop in our small town as a kid and they had all sorts of score paper in stock, even big formats. This was just normal. Haha, times change, but you might be lucky by asking in a well sorted paper shop whether they can order for you.


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## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

of course that's a possibility Hannes  Every book/paper store I've been in in the entire Jutland gives you these weird eyes making me feel like an idiot when I just ask for normal manuscript paper! Wonder what it'll feel like when I ask for large orchestra manuscript paper


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## dadek (Nov 25, 2009)

http://www.judygreenmusic.com/

They used to have a brick and mortar right off hollywood blvd.


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## nikolas (Nov 25, 2009)

There is a Greek music store that sells larger size (with 24 staves, for example) portrait and landscape manuscripts...

http://www.nakas.gr/

You'll need to turn the english language on the top right corner and then towards the right, you'll see the menu "Books/DVDs" -> manuscript papers and it should take you there.

If they don't sell outside Greece, if you want I could go get a (big) bunch and send it over... Then again it might be rather expensive to do so... but up to you mate!


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## Frederick Russ (Nov 25, 2009)

http://www.blanksheetmusic.net/


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## leslieq (Nov 25, 2009)

Chappell sell a whole range of manuscript pads. 

This sounds like what you're looking for: http://www.chappellofbondstreet.co.uk/P~COBS012717051~Novello+Manuscript+Book+20+%28A3+Portrait+26+Stave+40+Pages%29 (Chappello of Bond Street)

The rest of their range: http://www.chappellofbondstreet.co.uk/C~1200~Manuscript+Paper (more...) 

Personally, I get my own short-scores printed and bound. The last print run, I had two bound pads made at a local printers. 100 double-sided A4 and 100 double-sided A3. That's 400 pages of manuscript. This all cost me £24 GBP. I made them especially for writing music to image. The layout has space at the top for Click, Reel, Title and Part information on each page; then the systems are designed as: 

Timecode: 1 x single-line stave
Woodwind: 3 x 5-line staves
Brass: 3 x 5-line staves
Perc: 2 x 5-line staves & 1 x single-line stave
Keys/Harp: 3 x 5-line staves
Strings: 3 x 5-line staves
Overall Dynamics: 1 x single-line stave


I find a bound short score more manageable to work with. I can plan whole full orchestral pieces on them. The A4 pad is great. It's portable so I can still sketch whilst out and about. By the time I'm ready to write the full score, it makes more sense putting it straight into Sibelius/Finale at this point. I guess it depends what you need the manuscript for and what software you have at your disposal.

Happy writing.


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## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

dadek: That looks awesome! However I think shipping will be expensive - and customs.

nikolas: only single pages?

Frederick: I'm not interested in self-printet. I seek quality paper, not my own crappy printer paper.

leslie: That looks really interesting! I'm often on Charing Cross Road, so I will definately drop by! The reason I'm looking for this, is that I want to do all the composition/orchestration of cues away from the computer - before sequencing. So I want to do it as detailed as possible


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## Nickie Fønshauge (Nov 25, 2009)

bryla @ 25th November 2009 said:


> I also remembered that Århus Noder in Esbjerg sells manuscript paper - I have sent an e-mail asking them.


If they are the same as Århus Musik (noder.dk) then you can probably get it from them. A long time ago I bought some manuscript paper "folio ark" from them; great quality. And if they don't have it in stock they can almost certainly order it for you.


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## bryla (Nov 25, 2009)

They just moved from Århus to Esbjerg  same people.


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## nikolas (Nov 25, 2009)

bryla @ Wed Nov 25 said:


> nikolas: only single pages?


yeah but you can grab hundreds of them... They are not bound (I'd hate to have orchestral manuscript bound), so it works better for me...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 25, 2009)

bryla, you can put high quality paper in your printer. The only question is whether it will accept big enough sheets.

A4 is 11" x 17"; I have a 13" x 19" printer (among way too many others), so I could print my own paper. It might even be cheaper getting one of them over the long run!

In practice, however, I just use this link to print out paper so I can scribble (when I'm too lazy to go to my closet and pull out some real paper):

http://www.musictheory.net/utilities/html/id96_en.html


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 25, 2009)

There used to be more than one music paper score in town here (Los Angeles), by the way, in fact Valle Music Reproduction is still three miles away from me:

http://www.vallemusic.com/


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## leslieq (Nov 26, 2009)

Synesthesia @ Thu Nov 26 said:


> Thats sounds incredibly cheap - are you getting them to laser print copies from your original finale file and then spiral binding them or something similar?
> 
> I have wondered a few times before about how much it would cost to get a pack of manuscript pads printed 'properly' (for want of a better word, I mean screen printed or however they do it) and glue bound..
> 
> ...



I actually printed one page on a laser printer then I took it to this company that just photocopied it double-sided on to 90GSM white paper. They then bound in with a ring on the left hand side and put two waterproof covers top and tail.

I only use manuscript as scrap/worksheets for sketches (i get through so much of it) so I'd probably never splash out to get glue bound versions made.

I'm happy to post my layout as PDFs if you'd find them useful.

L


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## nikolas (Nov 26, 2009)

When I make custom manuscript pages, I make them to fit the exact orchestration needed. For the instruments that won't have any clef changes I put the right clefs, otherwise I leave blank, and so on... I actually think it saves quite a bit of time like this.


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## Synesthesia (Nov 27, 2009)

leslieq @ Thu Nov 26 said:


> I actually printed one page on a laser printer then I took it to this company that just photocopied it double-sided on to 90GSM white paper. They then bound in with a ring on the left hand side and put two waterproof covers top and tail.
> 
> I only use manuscript as scrap/worksheets for sketches (i get through so much of it) so I'd probably never splash out to get glue bound versions made.
> 
> ...



That would be very interesting if you don't mind doing it!

I am in the middle of designing mine in Sibelius so seeing how others do it would be very helpful.

Thanks!


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## leslieq (Nov 27, 2009)

Synesthesia @ Fri Nov 27 said:


> That would be very interesting if you don't mind doing it!
> 
> I am in the middle of designing mine in Sibelius so seeing how others do it would be very helpful.
> 
> Thanks!



No, problem

A3 and A4 short score manuscript (no clefs), pre-barred: http://www.lesliequarcoopome.co.uk/dropbox/ 

Let me know what you think/anything you'd do different.

Thanks


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## synergy543 (Dec 21, 2009)

I found a site that sells paper in various heavy weights and sizes. 

http://www.graytex.com/inkjet-papers.htm

Might be a good source for score paper (although not sure if they offer manilla color). Its much cheaper to buy by the reams too. I haven't tried it yet as I couldn't decide which thickness (weight) to get. 

I'm thinking maybe 58 lb or 9 mils maybe?

Suggestions?


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## Rob (Dec 22, 2009)

BTW, if you have a musical font installed, just open a text editor, choose the musical font and type a series of "="... that would give you the staff, so you are free to choose the size, spacing and all.


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## synthetic (Dec 22, 2009)

Valle music paper is "70lb off-white."

I just got three pads of 50 printed at Kinkos on 80lb stock, plus another three pads of my custom 15-stave paper. Total cost $100.


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## synergy543 (Dec 23, 2009)

Synthetic, thanks for the tips. Valle looks like a good supplier.


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## Rob (Dec 23, 2009)

just out of curiosity, is anybody using a tablet pen for writing music on the pc? I'm doing it since a few years, and it has its advantages...


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## synthetic (Dec 25, 2009)

I've ben doing a lot of writing with my new pad (transcribing Ravel to short score.) I think 80lb stock is too thick, unfortunately that's all they had at Kinkos. I'm also wishing I had squeezed one more grand staff on my 15-staff paper, so I could do choir + harp each on a grand staff. 

I plan to visit Valle after the holidays to see what off-the-rack pads they have, and also to buy some of their Magic Pencils! 

"Pencil: Cellos, 8th notes: A, C, E..."


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