(Dave is still working with pencils - sometimes faster than we can, and will probably not make the jump to this particular laborious relationship with screens and mice. I find it almost impossible to imagine going back.)
Cheers,
Chuck
Oh, pencil is DEFINITELY faster! I still compose only with a pencil to sketch, moving to Finale to make it neat. But it isn't faster if you include part copying by pen, nor if you make even relatively insignificant edits in the finished work, and unless you are WAY neater by hand than I ever was, the notes won't be as nicely formed.
There is something to be said to committing yourself to a hand score. You make up your mind with more definiteness (definition? That, too!) when you know that it will be a royal pain to make changes in the future. Unfortunately, I discovered rather early on that I am the type of composer who changes his mind at all stages, including after the first performance, and computer copying has the edge when you are revising. I used to cut up parts with scissors and paste them back together again with inserted and replaced sections. Command-c and command-v changed my life.
Large ensemble works with a lot of doubling benefit more from Finale than small works. (Except for piano and vocal parts, which get a lot of benefit, too. The automatic vertical alignment in piano parts made me literally gasp with pleasure when I first started with Finale!)
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