two things,
does csoundVST use the .csd format? that is a bundle of an .orc and a
.sco file, which might ease the confusion if you use those. (I'm a mac
user and all my MacCsound files are .csd)

as far as the score writing goes, the look and feel of your score
completely depends on how you have constructed your instrument. For
example, you could have a pfield designate pitch in hz, or pitch as a
midi number, or as a ratio of a base frequency. Pretty much any
parameter can be whatever you design it to be, so there's no real
'system' of scores to get used to.
you can easily set up Csound to use your existing scores if you make
.orc's as midi instruments. You could just send midi to Csound and use
any sequencer you are comfortable with and play it directly from
there. (does sibelius play scores like that?) personally, I send midi
to Csound from Max/MSP all the time.
However, making Csound midi takes a little getting used to, but I'm
sure you can get plenty of pointers on the list.

On 3/2/06, Christine L. Myers <levite247@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello!
>
>  First, I want to thank you all so much for giving me some great places to
> start!  I'm kinda just plunging in, looking at all the various aspects of
> creating music on a computer and you guys are helping me to know what a
> great pool it is to be in.  The command line thing was what was hanging me
> up before with cSoundVST, so now I'll study up on how to do that.  Which is
> the flag for real-time output?  I'd like to hear it right away, instead of
> having to go find the resultant wav file and play it in a seperate program -
> if it is possible.
>
>  Quick question - is there anything I can do to keep my computer from being
> confused about the sco files?  I have Sibelius, and it sometimes knows that
> they are cSound score files, and other times it thinks they are Sibelius
> Scorch files.  It looks like .sco is the same extension for both...maybe
> there is nothing I can do, except open whichever program first and then open
> the actual file I want instead of double clicking on the file in My
> Documents.
>
>  Do you all think it might be helpful for me to take my understanding of
> written musical notation to score files by writing out in csound some
> well-known public domain melodies (I'll probably use church hymns), using
> whatever basic sine wave I make in an orchestra file?   Or would that be
> counter-productive?
>
>  Thanks again for your help!
>  Christine
>