Entrepreneurs in Music — and Don’t Forget about Mozart!

Yvonne: I took the liberty today of passing along to Marcia Farabee your kind comments about her. She told me that you have customized Finale — can you give us some details about that? Maybe it’s because I don’t use it on a daily basis, but I find it to be a bit slow and clumsy. Do you also have experience with Sibelius?

Douglas: Please allow me to shed some light on the idea of “customizing” Finale. It is a bit more accurate to say that I have tried to find what works best for performers and incorporated that into my production habits. Oversized time signatures, 3rd party fonts that are bolder than the ones provided with purchase, different basic parameters (size of text, numbers on multi-measure rests, etc.) – basically I try to emulate what I would have done with a pen… only it looks a whole lot better than my hand ever allowed for. Page layout is still everything – if there are no page turns, it complicates life for everyone. Try getting more jobs when you create needless work for librarians (cutting and pasting in page turns)! Word of mouth is your best friend… until something does not work out.

Regarding it being slow or clumsy, I think it is more a matter of it offering so many options that it can be overwhelming. Part of the battle is trying to understand how Finale labels items (cresc,/dim indications are hairpins, for example). My comfort level with the program is high – but then I use it for several hours every day. It is similar to asking a performer if there are any “hard” keys and getting the response that the only “hard” key is the one you did not practice… Hope that did not seem rude, but we all remember the frustrations of developing new instrumental techniques.

I am waiting to install Finale 2008, but I confess to still using version 2004. Perhaps it is a matter of getting crusty in my middle age, but all of the other add-ons in the later versions really seem to slow things down. I do not intend to use the “sequencer” features and would actually prefer a more streamlined version for folks who are truly interested in notation. That is personal preference – I know there are a lot of features that have made life easier for the majority of users and they, like every other business, are about making sales. I would suggest sitting down with a real “power user” some time and just start asking the “how do you…” questions. Once you see how to do something, you will at least have an idea as to where to look the next time you run into a situation.

My experience with Sibelius was minimal. I think that I was so immersed in how Finale worked that I just did not want to “unlearn” what I had spent so many years working on, and so I pretty much looked for specific things that make my work look distinctive, discovered that I could not (quickly – and I do mean within minutes) make it happen, and decided that I did not want to make the time to get to know the program. Lazy? Perhaps. To be more marketable, I should be well versed in this program, I suppose. I am usually too busy with projects to invest time, though. The reality is that the folks I work with/for are all Finale users and there is no pressing need for me to get into Sibelius. Additionally, each program has managed to import/export files to the other without too much liability to the integrity of the file.

A final thought on notation programs – the question frequently arises as to which program is better. My answer is the one that makes you the most productive with the least amount of stress. Sibelius is very user-friendly right out of the box. Finale, while more user-friendly then in previous versions, allows for so many ways to work that it is is daunting. It does, however, allow for incredible command over your material. It is really a matter of what works for you and available resources for help. They are both tools that are designed to help create a product. The best program is the one that works best for you. Period.