Thank you Finale

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thankfuldawg
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Post by thankfuldawg » Wed May 02, 2018 7:12 pm

I just need say that I am EXTREMELY grateful to have a program like Finale. I can't believe how fortunate we are to not have to write music out with a pencil let alone a quill pen. I use Finale every day and just think what would Mozart have been able to do with what we all take for granted?

THANK YOU FINALE!

Ed Cupman


BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu May 03, 2018 6:42 am

I concur. It's very easy to complain about things that don't work, because our expectations are so high, that we forget about why we use Finale. For me, it's still the fastest and most precise way of getting notation on the page.

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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Tue May 08, 2018 5:37 pm

I'm used to complain about a bought banana that doesn't taste like a banana and I do believe I have every right to do so. Don't expect me to thank the grocer for every banana I buy. In my world the grocer should thank me.

Finale may be "the fastest and most precise way of getting notation on the page" (I can't confirm since I don't know all of the competitors and never tried them all as extensively as I 'tried' Finale), but to be 'thankful' for software that I paid quite a large sum for over the last twenty-six years (including all of its updates/upgrades) is rather a bit over the top if you ask me.

And as a side note: don't you think the note that you have to write down with some effort is a note getting more attention than one written down with no effort at all?
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ebiggs1
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Post by ebiggs1 » Wed May 09, 2018 6:59 am

don't you think the note that you have to write down with some effort is a note getting more attention than one written down with no effort at all?
No not in the least. BTW, Mozart would still be Mozart with or without Finale.
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FwL
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Post by FwL » Wed May 09, 2018 12:15 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:
don't you think the note that you have to write down with some effort is a note getting more attention than one written down with no effort at all?
No not in the least. BTW, Mozart would still be Mozart with or without Finale.

Maybe. But the poor schmuck who had to turn his hand-written scrawl into legible manuscript sure would have been grateful.
A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules... often with the aid of unsuspecting musicians - Frank Zappa

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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Wed May 09, 2018 2:34 pm

ebiggs1 wrote:… BTW, Mozart would still be Mozart with or without Finale.
Sure, Mozart would be Mozart, with or without Finale. Whether his music would be the same remains to be seen, as none of us know Mozart.

— — —
FwL wrote:… But the poor schmuck who had to turn his hand-written scrawl into legible manuscript sure would have been grateful.
Printed music (and all text, for that matter) has spoiled our ability to read handwritings. Is the world of music better off now that every joker can deliver neatly printed parts of whatever tripe?
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BuonTempi
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Post by BuonTempi » Thu May 10, 2018 8:10 am

Jay Emmes wrote:Printed music (and all text, for that matter) has spoiled our ability to read handwritings. Is the world of music better off now that every joker can deliver neatly printed parts of whatever tripe?
Yeah, civilization really started going downhill after the 1480s. :roll:
Jay Emmes wrote:Don't expect me to thank the grocer for every banana I buy. In my world the grocer should thank me.
You've got to be trolling with all this. You don't think it's even basic courtesy to thank someone who provides you with things to buy? He gets your money, but you get a banana, which you would otherwise not have.

Zoots
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Post by Zoots » Thu May 10, 2018 1:37 pm

ebiggs1 wrote: ...
No not in the least. BTW, Mozart would still be Mozart with or without Finale.
No, his music would sound a lot edgier and angry brought about because he is composing on an old machine because his new one won't boot after an OS update. He just found out his expensive new 6-bit machine is going to be obsolete in a year because new machines are going to be 7-bit. Just when he had an inspiration he got distracted by 7 emails and a bunch of text messages coming in at the same time and forgot what he was going to do. To top it off, he found than his trusted MakeMusic Finale Forum is going to be shut-down and re-organized :)
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Post by Vaughan » Fri May 11, 2018 5:19 pm

Oh, Mozart had plenty of distractions. His consisted of billiards, wigs, flirting and farting.
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miker
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Post by miker » Fri May 11, 2018 6:05 pm

Vaughan wrote:Oh, Mozart had plenty of distractions. His consisted of billiards, wigs, flirting and farting.
You say that like there’s something wrong with it. :mrgreen:
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Post by Vaughan » Fri May 11, 2018 8:25 pm

What's wrong with a few distractions?!
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MikeHalloran
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Post by MikeHalloran » Sat May 12, 2018 1:11 am

Jay Emmes wrote: Printed music (and all text, for that matter) has spoiled our ability to read handwritings.
Nonsense.
Jay Emmes wrote: Is the world of music better off now that every joker can deliver neatly printed parts of whatever tripe?
Absolutely. No doubt in my mind whatsoever.

And this does not take into account the added benefit to handicapped persons such as myself. I lost the use of my dominant arm nine years ago but my notation is as clear as ever.

Speaking of nonsense, your false equivalency argument regarding bananas is bordering on idiocy. Someone expresses thanks for technology that didn’t exist in any form within my memory and you are pissing all over it.

Sarcasm masking as idiocy is sometimes exactly that.
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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Sat May 12, 2018 1:24 am

BuonTempi wrote:
Jay Emmes wrote:Printed music (and all text, for that matter) has spoiled our ability to read handwritings. Is the world of music better off now that every joker can deliver neatly printed parts of whatever tripe?
Yeah, civilization really started going downhill after the 1480s. :roll:
Jay Emmes wrote:Don't expect me to thank the grocer for every banana I buy. In my world the grocer should thank me.
You've got to be trolling with all this. You don't think it's even basic courtesy to thank someone who provides you with things to buy? He gets your money, but you get a banana, which you would otherwise not have.
The old hand writings may be hard for us to read, but that is mainly because we're not used to reading them anymore. Back in the days they read their parts without too many problems, since all music was written with very little means and in a great hurry (remember that most music was ordered and intended for use on a single event — who would print such music?). Very few musical illiterates would (not to mention: could) produce a fully written out set of score and parts of an opera or symphony back then, while these days anyone not necessarily in possession of the ability to read a single note can produce a neatly printed set of just anything his computer will spit out. I remember a score on the MakeMusic forum of a piece in B major without a single sharp, but loaded with e-flats, g-flats, d-flats and a-flats. Crisply printed, mind you.
Have you seen young kids writing legible cursive lately? What this has to do with the state of civilisation, though, is beyond me.

And do you really truly thank your grocer for every banana you buy?

Are you quite sure you're not the one trolling?

The words of mr. Halloran are not worthy of any response.
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat May 12, 2018 4:41 am

I'm thankful for Finale. I hated pen and ink. I complain a lot about Finale's bugs, but I actually find it a pleasure to use, and a couple of orders of magnitude faster than before. This matters if you're producing hundreds of pages a year.

Having dealt with 19th-century orchestral editions a lot, I'd say you have it backwards--music is much better off now that it's easy to fix mistakes. With engraved or handwritten parts, it was simply too hard to fix mistakes. As a consequence, orchestras have been playing the same parts with the same mistakes for 150 years.

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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Sat May 12, 2018 9:51 am

FWIW As a composer I usually (not always) like to work from freely expressive and often interweaving lines, out of which some (not too much!) rhythmic and harmonic discipline later grows. As a result, my preliminary work is usually done in manuscript: Finale ties one (or me at least) down to a prescribed order from which I like to believe I can escape. It is an immensely useful and welcome tool for fair-copy scores, parts and all the rest; but it is hugely frustrating (again, I'm talking personally) for sketching any but the most routine and formulaic musical ideas.

My analogy: I need to go up the mountain in wild weather, or out in the boat in stormy seas, before I appreciate the comfort and (relative) order by the fire at home. Others may not recognize such an analogy.
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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Sat May 12, 2018 4:21 pm

Wow!
I believe there has been some urinating in generic brand flaked cereals this week.
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John Ruggero
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Post by John Ruggero » Sat May 12, 2018 4:38 pm

I too give daily thanks for Finale and would never go back to hand copying. But for sketching, I agree with David Ward. While I do all my verbal writing with a computer and find it much better than handwriting because of the ease of revision, I don't find the same ease in sketching music. That may be because of the software, or at least my command of it. But somehow the computer gets in the way when it comes to sketching. Creating music and engraving it seem to be quite different things for me.
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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Sun May 13, 2018 4:31 pm

Never has reading been so hard for so many as in the 21st century, apparently.

Obviously, I too am a Finale user, otherwise I wouldn’t even be here at this forum nor would I have frequented the late MakeMusic forum. And, as I said, I’m a Finale user for over 26 years now. There evidently must be something to this piece of software that keeps me engaged.
Consequently, it’s not the software that I have been ‘pissing all over’, as someone so eloquently formulated. I’m rather baffled as to where or how anyone might even have been reading such. Please read carefully what exactly I wrote, not what you chose to read.
Motet said below: “I complain a lot about Finale's bugs, but I actually find it a pleasure to use” which translates my banana analogy to a teeth. If I hated bananas I wouldn’t buy them for 26 years in a row, but since I bought them (and keep buying them), I reserve the right to criticise everything that’s wrong with them, which I honestly think is not really all that farfetched, is it?

The benefits of digital music notation are obvious, but in what way does this contribute to the quality of composing or the quantity of quality music? And that’s the question I raised.

As for easily fixing mistakes, it will be interesting to follow this development:
https://newzik.com

Furthermore, I do not engage in a discussion that devaluates to non-argumentative and uncalled for negative qualifications. Anyone unable or unwilling to commit to a normal, decent exchange of argumented thoughts should realise that his or her contribution benefits no one, least of all the ongoing discussion. Please refrain from such destructive behaviour.
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motet
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Post by motet » Sun May 13, 2018 5:02 pm

By fixing mistakes, I was referring to the fact that in pre-computerized music typesetting the publisher would have to hammer out the copper plate, or, later on, remake their offset-printing plates. That problem is now much more easily solved, and I doubt Newzik would be much of a help. Perhaps if someone in the Met Orchestra fixes a mistake in an old published edition and somehow other music librarians all get a hold of that and somehow pick the mistakes out of bowings and cuts and other things only peculuar to the Met's edition, the errata can somehow be shared, but that seems like a marketing pipe dream if in fact Newzik is making that claim (which is unclear). I do think electronic music readers have great potential, but perhaps not for that.

I don't see anything wrong with criticizing Finale, but nor do I see anything wrong with saying, "Thank you, Finale." Why are you even belaboring your points here?

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Post by RMK » Sun May 13, 2018 5:26 pm

motet wrote:Perhaps if someone in the Met Orchestra fixes a mistake in an old published edition and somehow other music librarians all get a hold of that and somehow pick the mistakes out of bowings and cuts and other things only peculiar to the Met's edition, the errata can somehow be shared, but that seems like a marketing pipe dream


Not a pipe dream at all. Google "Major Orchestra Librarian's Association" (MOLA).

They provide many errata lists available to members for no cost at all. It's the first thing I check when receiving a new set of parts (either rented or purchased).

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motet
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Post by motet » Sun May 13, 2018 5:43 pm

Right. The pipe dream is that this gadget will automate that.

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Michel R E
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Post by Michel R E » Sun May 13, 2018 10:24 pm

Jay Emmes wrote:Never has reading been so hard for so many as in the 21st century, apparently.

Consequently, it’s not the software that I have been ‘pissing all over’, as someone so eloquently formulated. I’m rather baffled as to where or how anyone might even have been reading such. Please read carefully what exactly I wrote, not what you chose to read.
Since i didn't say that you "pissed on Finale".
I said that someone woke up in a bad mood (the expression is "who pissed in your Cornflakes").
I guess reading really is hard for some people.
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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Tue May 15, 2018 7:47 pm

Michel R E wrote:
Jay Emmes wrote:Never has reading been so hard for so many as in the 21st century, apparently.

Consequently, it’s not the software that I have been ‘pissing all over’, as someone so eloquently formulated. I’m rather baffled as to where or how anyone might even have been reading such. Please read carefully what exactly I wrote, not what you chose to read.
Since i didn't say that you "pissed on Finale".
I said that someone woke up in a bad mood (the expression is "who pissed in your Cornflakes").
I guess reading really is hard for some people.
O the irony!
Michel, it was mr. Halloran who wrote the words I was referring to. But thank you for illustrating the premise.
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