Binding Solutions

One of the most frus­trat­ing aspects of print­ing your scores is: How to bind them?

First, if you are pre­sent­ing your scores to musi­cians for per­for­mance, you prob­a­bly already invest in a higher qual­ity paper. A heav­ier weight paper, for instance. The issue of paper color is a mat­ter of per­sonal taste, I think. I use super-white paper (bright­ness at least 97), but there are those who pre­fer cream and buff col­ors. If you use an ink jet or a laser jet, that’s a fac­tor, too.

But how to bind your sheets into a score? Using combs is easy (although qual­ity binders are quite expen­sive) but present prob­lems. Turn­ing pages is not always easy with bind­ing combs. And they don’t exactly go into the mail very eas­ily. Find­ing the right size comb for over­sized scores is a prob­lem, too. For now, though, it’s the best alter­na­tive I know.

What do you use for bind­ing your scores? Are there any solu­tions you can share?

About Richard D. Russell

This was written by Richard D. Russell, New York City based composer of fine music.