I know what you mean, John. I had a music teacher who would make pretty little ovals instead of round music notes. It was much easier to read. When I've seen pictures of Beethoven's scribbling, it's much the same. But as best I remember he would even scratch the staff lines, usually unevenly, almost Picasso-like.

The reason I liked the manuscript paper better, as opposed to printouts on 8 1/2 by 11 paper or even little composition books -- you could get many more staves (or is the word staffs) on a page neatly, and the stiffness of the paper was more durable. I actually ended up keeping many of my scribblings. I also "inherited" a box of sheet music from a professional musician who had written several of his own arrangements on manuscript paper.

Several years ago I found a renegade site on the net that had arrangements of Enya's songs. I printed them on 8 1/2 X 11 paper, but they are difficult to keep up with. Another trick I used many years ago when I had to play Pomp and Circumstance for graduations was to tear all the pages out of the music book and glue (rubber cement) them to manilla folders for stiffness. I once saved a magazine printout of a song glued to construction paper, but it has become dog-eared over the years.