Yes, yes, yes. This is absolutely true. Tyler, I'm glad you were able
to articulate this fundamental issue so clearly. That summarizes 10
years of frustration for me.
I have worked in the software business for 30+ years and pretty open to
learning curve issues. I feel like I have been able to assimilate 70%
+- of what Finale has to offer. But unless a person is a professional
copyist working with the program at least 10-20 hours a week, I just
don't believe one can really get really in touch with the program.
To underscore the point, I attended a master class last evening with a
local professor, and we rehearsed a new piece he had written. (A really
nice composition, I might add.) This is a guy who obviously spends
considerable time on Finale. His purpose is to commit his musical
inspirations to paper, not to become a software junkie. I think you all
know what the result was. It was a legible piece of music that worked.
The extracted parts were out of sync with the score. He lamented that
Finale should add cautionary accidentals. (Of course, it can, but you
have to dig for that.) Lots of markings were misplaced or covered
because of collisions.
I'm not being critical. He is a composer -- and a really good one. He
isn't a software specialist or professional copyist. Finale is the best
software ever for the professional copyist. For the artist -- not so much.
My knowledge base is 2007. It is possible that MM has closed that
copyist/artist gap in 2008 and 2009. I hope so.
Tyler Turner wrote:
--- On Mon, 7/28/08, Robert Patterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Flexibility only works in Finale's favor if the implementation always makes it clear what the BEST method is in a given situation. And that is the single largest problem Finale has faced all along. Finale's flexibility is really only attractive to a fairly small (but important) percentage of its users - for the rest, it has served as a stumbling block that makes the program take longer to learn and slower to use.
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