Choir Sheet Music: Top Design And Printing Tips
Printing your own choir sheet music makes performing simple. Whether you’re printing school or church choir sheet music, or even orchestra sheet music, follow the steps below to print custom music that’s both easy to produce and easy on your budget.
Why Print Your Own Choir Sheet Music?
The answer is simple: it’s easy and affordable!
Printing your own music allows you to distribute and sell your own music arrangements, and you can bring your own artistic vision into the world. When working with printing companies that offer handy online ordering, you can quickly and easily attach your file, choose your preferred print options, and receive your printed sheet music quickly.
By printing your own music with an affordable printing partner such as ZoePrint, you often save money over ordering music from major publishers. You can choose which papers, sizes, and quantities you prefer, all of which help you retain maximum control over your budget.
Choir Sheet Music Design
Designing your sheet music is composed–no pun intended–of just a few steps. Here are three steps for designing choir sheet music that looks great in print.
1. Consider length.
Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your arrangement, you should have a rough idea of how many pages your sheet music will be. This number of pages will inform the type of sheet music printing that will work best for your project.
If you’re printing very short scores, it might be possible to print on the front and back of one 8.5x11 piece of paper. Longer compositions frequently work well as either 5.5x8.5 or 8.5x11 booklets. You can choose either staple binding or no binding, as well as three-hole punching so that singers can easily organize their scores in binders.
If your score is longer than approximately 40 pages, you might want to ask your printing company about the possibility of printing your score as a perfect or spiral bound book. These binding options will provide the support that longer pieces of sheet music require. This option is perfect for orchestra sheet music and longer choral works.
2. Set your margins.
Various score sizes require a range of margins to ensure the best possible printed appearance. Here are some of the most common music score margin recommendations:
- Large scores: 0.7” margins on all sides
- Small scores: 0.35” top and bottom margins, 0.55” left and right margins
- Scores containing all parts: 0.35” top and bottom margins, 0.55” left and right margins
By including these margins in your score, you’ll maximize the usable space on each page without running the risk of any parts of the score accidentally getting cut off.
3. Save a high quality PDF.
The importance of high quality printing cannot be overstated when it comes to sheet music. One major step in creating great sheet music is sending your printing partner a high resolution PDF of your work. Printing high resolution sheet music makes your scores easy to read and therefore easy to perform.
Many sheet music software programs offer simple ways to save PDFs of your work. Make sure to save your file with the highest possible resolution. This makes it simple to send the highest quality files–and therefore receive the highest quality printed scores.
Choir Sheet Music Printing
Here are some of ZoePrint’s top printing tips for when it’s time to make your school, community, or church choir sheet music a reality.
1. Pick a sturdy paper.
Your scores have to last through many rehearsals and performances, hopefully for years. Therefore, printing your scores on paper that’s sturdy enough to endure repeated uses is worth the upgrade. The Major Orchestra Librarians Association suggests printing sheet music on 60# or 70# paper, which leads to sturdy scores that can hold up over time.
2. Upgrade your cover paper.
This is a particularly important option if you plan to use your sheet music more than once. A stronger cover means that your music will hold up to repeated uses. Some great cover papers include 80# uncoated cover stock and 100# gloss cover stock.
3. Consider color printing.
Black and white printing is usually sufficient for the scores themselves. However, printing score covers in color and including imagery, decorations, or a relevant photo helps singers find your specific score amongst the many that they bring to rehearsal.
Partner With The Music Printing Experts
When it’s time to print or publish your own sheet music, let ZoePrint take care of the job for you! We provide cheap choir sheet music printing that gives you full ability to customize your sheet music to fit your needs. We also print recital and performance playbills that will make your concert a success. We love to help all kinds of artists express their creativity!
To get started, order your sheet music now or ask ZoePrint for a custom quote.
