Finale is the flagship program of a series of proprietary scorewriters created by MakeMusic for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Finale is regarded by some as the industry-standard notation software, though there is some debate as to whether there is a true industry-standard.[1] Both Finale and its main competitor Sibelius are widely used in professional engraving and publishing, educational institutions, and for film, TV and theater music preparation, among other uses.
MakeMusic also offers several less expensive versions of Finale, with subsets of the main program's features. These include Finale NotePad, Printmusic, and Allegro. Two more such versions, Finale Guitar and Finale Songwriter, have feature sets tailored to different musicians' needs. Another "lite" program, Finale NotePad Plus, was previously made but is now discontinued.
Operation
The default document is a 31-measure piece for a single treble clef instrument. A Setup Wizard, the preferred method of starting a score, consists of a set of dialogs to specify the instrumentation, time signature, key signature, pick-up measure, title and composer.
There is a Main Tool palette, and the right tool must be selected to work on a given score element, (e.g., the Smart Shape tool to work on trill lines and dynamics "hairpins" (so-named because the symbols resemble women's hairpins), the Staff tool to work on staves). Also, there are four layers of music that can overlap. Each tool has an associated menu just to the left of the Help menu, available only when that particular tool is selected. Thus, the operation of Finale bears at least some surface similarities to Adobe Photoshop.
On the screen, Finale color codes some elements of the score as a visual aid, on the print-out all score elements are black (unless color print-out is explicitly chosen). With the right tool selected, many adjustments are possible either by clicking and dragging or by entering measurements in a dialog box.
Finale automatically takes care of many of the more mechanical aspects of music notation, such as stem direction and alignment of different rhythmic values. For other things, the program makes a good guess, such as enharmonic spelling from a piano keyboard: it is smart enough to spell F-sharp rather than G-flat in a D dominant 7th (the dominant or fifth of the dominant) chord in C minor; but for other chords, such as a G major 7 +5 (major seventh chord with an augmented fifth), it might use G-flat instead of F-sharp. For tonal music, Finale chooses the correct spelling for chords of the tonic and dominant keys correctly, but when the music wanders to tonal regions further away from the tonic, Finale tends to make mistakes by treating chords as if they belonged to the tonic key in some way. When using a nonstandard key, experts recommend one "assign a spelling for each pitch in the chromatic scale" using a dialog box available from the Preferences menu.[2]
Version history
The lead programmer for Finale version 1.0 in 1988 was Phil Farrand, better known in some circles as an author of Nitpicker's Guides for Star Trek and The X-Files. He wrote the original version software for Coda Music Software, which was later sold to Net4Music and then became MakeMusic After Finale version 3.7, Finale's marketers made the switch to years as identifiers for each new release, starting with Finale 97.
Finale 2004, released in early 2004, was the first release to run natively on Macintosh computers running OS X "Panther". This was considered a "late" release by MakeMusic, and full support for the features of OS X was limited at first. More comprehensive support was brought "on-line" through maintenance releases going forward into 2004. Finale 2004 also continued to support PowerPC Macs running OS 9. This release shortened the development cycle for Finale 2005, which was released the following August. While the number of new features in Finale '05 were necessarily limited, this was the first release to have both Windows and Mac versions on the same distribution CD.
The most advertised new feature of Finale 2006 (released in the summer of 2005) was the Garritan Personal Orchestra, an integrated sound library with upgradeable selections from Garritan Personal Orchestra for more lifelike playback than the SmartMusic SoftSynth (which is still included in the program). In addition to Page View and Scroll View, the 2006 release added StudioView, a display mode which is similar to Scroll View with the addition of a sequencer interface. This feature offers an environment for creation, evaluation, and experimentation with different ideas in a multi-track environment. In StudioView, an additional staff shows up called TempoTap, allowing for complete control over rubati, accelerandi, and ritardandi.
A key new feature of the Finale 2007 release was an integrated "linked" score and part management system. A properly-set-up "full score for extraction" could now contain all the data and formatting necessary to generate a full set of linked ensemble parts, ensconced within a single Finale master document. Limitations on the scope of format and layout control between parts and conductor score (including measure numbers and staff system breaks) suggest that this new feature was targeted to media production work, where quick turnaround and accuracy is a crucial factor, rather than publishing, though publishers still may use certain aspects of linked parts to improve the part creation process. The 2007 release was a Universal binary, and runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.
Finale 2008 was the first version to come out with full Vista support. It also changed the way several editing modes are accessed, by introducing a multi-purpose “selection tool”. More notably, the 2008 release offers the importation and/or recording of synchronized real-time audio as an additional single track in a document.
The most recent release is Finale 2009, identified as the 20th Anniversary edition. [1]
Capabilities
Finale's strength is its flexibility. Almost every feature on the page can be globally or individually adjusted, manipulated, resized, replaced or altered in some way. By adapting existing notation symbols, or by creating new elements, it is ideal for contemporary and modern music that requires extensions to standard music notation.
Linked parts create orchestral parts that remain linked to the master score, so that changes to the master score will be instantly reflected in the parts.
Finale can notate anything from a textbook chorale to a cut-out score including new symbols invented by the composer. It is also capable of working with guitar tablature and includes a jazz font similar to that used in the Real Book. Virtually all score elements can be positioned or adjusted, either by dragging (with the appropriate tool selected) or by using dialog boxes with measurements in inches, centimeters or picas.
Music can be entered in a variety of ways: using the computer keyboard alone in realtime or via a command line window; using user-determined combinations of mouse clicks, computer keyboard, and MIDI piano keyboard; or by MIDI keyboard alone. Standard midi files may be also be input. It also includes a function for optically recognising printed music from a scan, similar to OCRring text. From Finale 2001 onward, the program included Mic Notator, a module able to notate pitches played on an acoustic instrument via a microphone connected to the computer.
Finale can import and export MIDI files, and it can playback music using a large range of audio samples, notably from the Garritan library. As of Finale 2009, it can use VST and AU plug-ins. 'Human playback' creates a less mechanical feel, by incorporating playing styles into the playback, including ornaments, ritardandos and accelerandos. Finale can export it audio output as .aif, .wav or .mp3.
Finale 2004 also introduced FinaleScript, a scripting language for the automation of tasks such as transcribing music for other instruments to use.
"Lite" versions
Several "lite" versions of Finale, each with a subset of Finale's features, are made.
Finale NotePad is a free version with extremely limited staff and notation capabilities. Finale NotePad Plus, now discontinued, added the ability to save as a MIDI file. This feature has been reintroduced to NotePad in Finale NotePad 2008. PrintMusic is a more expensive and somewhat more robust version, and Allegro is a further superset of PrintMusic.
Finale Guitar is a specialized version with Finale's full complement of tablature features, and Finale Songwriter has features needed by those writing scores with lyrics.
Prominent users
The program is acknowledged as the de facto "industry standard program".[3]
Finale is used by large publishers such as the Hal Leonard Corporation[4], as well as smaller, specialist publishers such as G. Henle Verlag.
It is used by prestigious schools such the New England Conservatory, the Juilliard School, Millikin University, the Berklee College of Music and the Lemmensinstituut.
Academy Award-winning movies such as Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, Spider-Man 2, Sideways, Polar Express, The Village, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Passion of the Christ, Finding Neverland, Ratatouille, Michael Clayton, and The Golden Compass were all scored with Finale.[5]
Criticisms
Finale "has a steep learning curve" and requires "a significant investment in ... time to learn the program."[6] Musicians approaching Finale when determining which notation software to use often find Finale to have a much steeper learning curve than its main competitor, Sibelius.[7] Some Finale users disagree; others claim that a slightly steeper curve is necessary to incorporate the high level of manual adjustment of a score that Finale is known and lauded for.
The following are specific problems that some users run into when using Finale, the first few being more common than the later ones:
- For pieces starting with a pick-up measure, the setup wizard enables one to put in the correct note values but it does not put in the correct rest values. If the arranger fails to notice and correct this in each part, it leads to confusion in rehearsal when the players who don't play in the pick-up measure see a whole rest instead of the correct value rest in their part.
- Users sharing files between different versions of Finale will notice that it is not fully backwards-compatible. Newer versions of Finale can open older files, but a newer file cannot be converted to an older version. Finale 2003 added a feature to import and export MusicXML files, solving the problem of backwards-compatibility to a certain extent.
- Finale does not yet support Unicode when entering lyrics. As of Finale 2007, only ASCII-based characters are supported. Finale also supports 2-byte (Huge) fonts.
See also
References
- ^ Nicholl & Grudzinski (2007): 5
- ^ Mark Johnson, Finale 2008 Power. New York: Penolope Press (2008): 288
- ^ Nicholl & Grudzinski (2007): 110. "The industry standard program (if there is one) is generally considered to be Finale."
- ^ Business & Entertainment Editors, "MakeMusic! Inc. Announces Deepening Alliance with Hal Leonard Corporation and Music Sales..." AllBusiness.com Posted September 30, 2002, accessed May 7, 2008.
- ^ "Finale Plays a Leading Role in Oscar-Winning Films". Retrieved on 2008-05-16.
- ^ Nicholl & Grudzinski (2007): 110
- ^ Jim Aikin, review "Sibelius Software Sibelius 3 (Mac/Win)", Electronic Musician Posted 1 June 2004, accessed 13 March 2008. "In a few tweaky areas, Sibelius might not be as flexible as Finale, but in my experience it's much easier to use."
- Matthew Nicholl & Richard Grudzinski, Music Notation: Preparing Scores and Parts, ed. Jonathan Feist. Boston: Berklee Press (2007)
External links
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