Dorico is a Finalist in the Music Teacher Awards for Excellence!

The benefits of scoring software as an educational tool were never far from our mind when designing Dorico – it was important for it to be as useful in the classroom as it is in the hands of professional musicians. We are therefore delighted to announce that Dorico has been nominated as one of the finalists in 2018 Music Teacher Awards for Excellence. Here’s what you need to know about the awards, and how Dorico can be used as an educational tool.

What You Need to Know About the Awards

The Music Teacher Awards for Excellence were started in 2013, and have quickly established themselves as a leading annual celebration of excellence and outstanding performance in the field of music and performing arts education.

The award categories cover every aspect of music education, from new products and resources to individual contributions and school music departments. This year, Dorico is a finalist in the Best Digital/Technological Resource category.

You can find more information about the awards, including a full list of the 2018 finalists, here.

Dorico as an Educational Tool

One of the common difficulties faced by music teachers is in communicating their own knowledge and experience to their students. It’s therefore especially important that they are able to produce teaching materials and arrangements that reflect their level of musical clarity and understanding. Dorico makes it easier for teachers to produce these resources – so that even if the software itself isn’t being used as a classroom tool, it can still create the raw educational materials for engaging and informative lessons.

However, the teaching of any subject isn’t simply a question of resources – it’s also a matter of time. Teachers have a short, designated period of time with which to work, and that time needs to be allocated effectively. It’s therefore important for students to have access to learning tools that are simple, easy to get to grips with and even easier to carry on using as their musical awareness grows.

The straightforward, uncluttered way that Dorico is organised musically creates an ideal environment for students to explore music. They can begin to familiarise themselves with the basics of music notation, theory and the principles of composition simply by exploring the functions and user interface. Dorico reduces the amount of lesson time spent getting to grips with the tech side of things, allowing more time for students to get hands-on with music notation.

Dorico is also the best notation software for learning the fundamentals of music from scratch. Most other programs for composing music have default settings that make several key decisions for you, including the time signature and key of your project. Instead of taking these decisions out of the student’s hands, Dorico starts off from a completely empty stave – allowing them to explore musical possibilities without restrictions.

When we built Dorico, we knew that its application as an educational tool would be an important part of its use – that’s why we aimed to build something simpler, easier, and yet more powerful than other programs. It’s a great honour for us to have our efforts recognised by such an important body, and we’re very much looking forward to mingling with all the other nominees at the awards ceremony!