Re: [Finale] Countertenor barred... OT (and long)
On Jul 23, 2005, at 6:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: I remember reading somewhere recently about the change in orchestras where someone entirely attributed the increasing hiring of women entirely to the institution of blind auditions 10 or 15 years ago. There was a particularly striking passage by one orchestra manager who said that he couldn't imagine that he'd been prejudiced against women, but once the blind auditions were in place, his orchestra started hiring more women as a matter of course, and he was forced to conclude that he and his hiring colleagues were, indeed, tacitly prejudiced against women. Isn't it possible that at least part of the reason was because more qualified female candidates were auditioning? Not only would they be more encouraged to audition by the new blind hiring rules, but they had reaped the benefits of the previous decade or two of feminist activism affecting their education and mindset. When I was starting my university schooling, the male music students outnumbered the females by about 2 to 1. These days at the same school, those proportions are approximately reversed. In the part-time orchestra I play in regularly, women are fully 80% of the membership. It's completely normal that more women are going to be hired now than before. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State
On Jul 23, 2005, at 6:22 PM, John Howell wrote: At 2:53 PM -0700 7/23/05, Ken Durling wrote: At 02:39 PM 7/23/2005, you wrote: Of course, last time I checked, the ERA was not part of the Constitution. Eh? What do you think it's an amendment TO? Congress did not pass it. Off with their 'eads!! Hmm. In that case, maybe they should call it the Equal Rights Suggestion, or maybe Here's an Idea About Equal Rights That We Think You Should Consider. Less confusion for us foreigners, you know. 8-) Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] GPO/Kontakt Primer (and a Notion as well)
I have heard that Notion is demonstrating some pretty impressive MusicXML import from both Finale and Sibelius at summer NAMM, but I have not yet seen this myself. I believe that Notion will be the first program to support MusicXML import before it supports MIDI import. VirtuosoWorks' July 16 newsletter included the following information regarding file import and export: --- COMING SOON We are now adding file import of the following formats: - MusicXML - MusicPrinter Plus - MIDI files MusicXML import will be available via free download in a couple of weeks. The others, as well as the corresponding export functions will be available in the next few months. Stay tuned for details. --- Robert, Finale's playback is always MIDI based, though it can save to an audio file. Kontakt is basically a MIDI-controlled software sampler using the GPO samples. Note that Notion currently is a Windows-only product, though they have said that a Mac version should be ready this fall. If you want MusicXML export to work faster on Macs, please let MakeMusic know. When I saw Notion at winter NAMM, it wasn't really aiming at great performances of raw scores. Instead, it was trying to get great performances by controlling the sequencer through notation. You would use a marked up score for Notion performance the same way that you would mark up a score or part for human performance - thinking and working in musical terms, not in sequencer terms. The real test between Finale 2006 and Notion is not so much the quality of out-of-the-box playback. Rather it would be the combination of quality and ease of getting an interpretation that you want, rather than one that the program chooses by default. I hope to get the chance to try out Notion once the MusicXML import is completed. Besides his pioneering software work, Jack Jarrett is also a fine composer and conductor. I've had the privilege of participating in the premieres of some of his choral works under his direction. Best regards, Michael Good Recordare LLC ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Blowing O.T.
On Jul 24, 2005, at 1:36 AM, Ken Durling wrote: Um, did I rank any of Chuck's achievements? Did I say cooler than? If I misread your post, I apologise, but when you say now that is a cool thing it sort of implies that maybe some previous things WEREN'T as cool as that. I was reacting to that implication, in the case of Chuck. Though now that I have waded through some more of last week's posts, he didn't seem to take it amiss at all, and didn't need me to jump to his defense. Do I need a lecture on who the jazz greats are? I honestly have no idea. I come across such a lack of knowledge and appreciation at times that I find it best to err on the side of assuming the worst. Once again, if I was in error, I apologise. Is Lenny Bruce a comedian? Umm, yes? I gather you were expecting a no answer to each of these questions? Christopher At 08:57 PM 7/23/2005, you wrote: On Jul 16, 2005, at 11:30 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Now that is a cool thing to have on your resume, Chuck. That's great. Ken Cooler than playing WITH Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, and directing the National Jazz Ensemble? I dunno, but I would have ranked those achievements above playing opposite a comedian. Not to put you down, Ken, but the first three names are generally among most people's top ten when listing the most masterful players in jazz. Being associated, even briefly, on the same artistic level with any ONE of them would be a career highlight for the vast majority of jazz players. And I'm sure Chuck's list is even longer than the one I gave, which are only the items that came to me off the top of my head. Christopher Remember Lenny Bruce's schtick on What I don't understand is why saying 'F%$# You' is a BAD thing?? Ken _ Chuck Israels wrote: I certainly do. I spent 6 weeks working opposite him at the Village Vanguard some (how many!?) years ago. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] not just TAN: Sibelius's new font
Johannes Gebauer wrote: Having become quite curious I downloaded the Sibelius 4 demo last night. I haven't spent much time with it, but I noticed that it did install the Helsinki font. I haven't attempted to use it in Finale, but I'd like to know if I could and if that would be legal. Anyone? Johannes Of course the legality varies according to country, but my non-lawyer interpretation would be: 1) they provided you with the font for free, voluntarily; 2) they placed no time limit on your keeping the demo on your computer; 3) they have not control over which program(s) you can use any specific font with, provided the font is legally installed on your computer; 4) you didn't download the font from an unlicensed source, you haven't pirated a copy of the program, you used no unlawful means to gain a copy of that font; Go ahead and use it -- they gave it to you! Whether or not all the characters are mapped the same as Finale expects remains to be seen, but it won't hurt you to try it. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing (was notation program comparison)
Johannes Gebauer wrote: Michael Cook schrieb: I'm going to put that, with a bit more detail, into a feature request: my two top priority feature requests are this and some form of house styles. Maybe some people on the list would like to join me? I believe that house styles should be part of the template system. It would need some thinking about, but templates and house styles should be aware of eachother. Johannes Yes, they would definitely need to be aware of each other, so we could change house styles once we begin on a new file based on an existing template. I can envisage something like this: Template definitions would include the number of staves and the instruments defined for each staff, any grouping of staves, libraries of expressions, articulations, etc. all of which would include in initial house style. House style definitions would include: Specific fonts for the various libraries as well as for notation and text blocks, spacing between staves and between systems, music spacing algorithms, bracket shapes and spacing, bar-line usage, page definitions (including margins, page-text block definitions and placement for items such as title, composer(s), copyright notice, instrument) and other items I'm sure I've forgotten to include. So you could choose Brass Quintet Template and Presser House Style and get the appearance you wish with the score layout you want and then start your note entry. Page layout issues would be pretty much defined somewhere in the house styles so very little additional messing around would be required, and the house style would also include the same sort of information for part extraction (or something like changing Special Part Extraction into a version of Dynamic Parts). It could go a long way to making engraving life a lot easier and quicker, and a carefully designed set of house styles included in the release package (along with a clearly described and documented House Style Editor section for us to make our own House Styles) would go a long ways to making Finale's out-of-box printed appearance look a whole lot better and be easier to manage for beginners. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] GPO/Kontakt Primer (and a Notion as well)
Tyler Turner wrote: --- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Witness Finale's new inclusion of GPO and the ability to use other Native Instruments format samples which is far superior to Sibelius's formerly superior inclusion of their Kontakt Silver player. I'll be very interested to see the new Sibelius version's playback capabilites and whether it has improved over Sibelius 3, but it seems that Sibelius and Finale are falling over each other in trying to provide better playback sounds. Notion burst onto the scene already having surpassed them both in that regard, but unfortunately not even coming close in notation. I beg to differ. I understand you beta tested Notion. I purchased it some time ago myself. But have you used GPO, specifically with Finale 2006? I've only thus far entered two of Notion's demo pieces into Finale, note for note, but they both sound considerably better in Finale with Finale GPO and Human Playback than they do in Notion. I had several musicians compare the two to make sure it wasn't just me who thought so. I'm talking about untweaked Finale playback. No, I haven't tried Finale with GPO, since until Finale2006, GPO was an extra-cost third-party add-on. Notion's sample set shipped with the program. As for my having tried Finale2006, it hasn't even shipped yet, so I don't know why you ask it as if that should have been part of my comparison. You may be a beta-tester for Finale, or you may simply be able to score a release copy before the rest of us, but I ordered my Finale2006 upgrade as soon as it was announced, and I don't have it yet. So my comments comparing the playback of the two was based on Notion as it was shipped to betatesters (which anybody could be simply for sending in an application) and on the currently shipping version of Finale, which is Finale2005 which does NOT include any GPO samples. There are some notational elements that Notion loads specific sound patches that Finale does not. But I believe the reverse is also true. Comparing included sounds, Notion has some pretty severe limitations, such as no solo strings. And since they sampled the LSO, they share Finale's current situation of no saxophones. A big difference here is that because Notion doesn't work with any different sound sets, even General MIDI, any instrument not included plays back as piano. That was part of my opinion that Notion doesn't have much chance of surviving unless it can do a hell of a lot of upgrading its capabilities quickly. But my point still stands that when it shipped, the sounds it played were far superior to the sounds which shipped with the most recent version of Finale that anybody other than insiders could get their hands on. Playback can not be tweaked. It is what it is. Notationally speaking, I place this program above NotePad, but significantly under PrintMusic. I agree -- Notion poses no threat to either Finale or Sibelius on notational grounds. Now if Finale and Sibelius could only become more equal in their capabilities, so that a person could use one of them without drooling over some aspect of the other program that they can't make use of. Such as the supposedly superior playback possibilities of Finale2006 (which we'll know for sure, when it finally ships -- currently we only have your word for it) is wonderful, but once we have the score to the point where we can get that wonderful playback, we still have to mess about with Finale's arcane part extraction process and then we are left with a slew of unlinked extracted parts to deal with should we alter anything in the score. Or we can get the score to a wonderful appearance in Sibelius4, complete with dynamic parts to make part-extraction life easier, but we can't get the superior playback that Finale2006 offers. We can only hope that once again, for Sibelius 5 and Finale2007 that the flip-flop of new features will occur so those version will provide the consistency of features that we would like now: Finale2007 will include dynamic parts now that Sibelius4 has them and Sibelius5 will improve the number of simultaneous playback instruments, as well as the sample quality, to equal Finale2006's playback capabilities. But then each program will add some extra new aspect which will keep the leap-frogging nature of their upgrades, and our continual grumbling about some neat feature the other program has being lacking in whichever application we are using. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Notation program Comparison
David W. Fenton wrote: I've only had one correspondence with MakeMusic (I've sent in feature requests, etc., which didn't require a response beyond an acknowledgment), and it took several messages before the support person even got to the point of comprehending what I was talking about, despite a very clearly worded set of instructions for reproducing the problem -- the rep really didn't read what I'd written, and gave answers to the wrong question. It took several back- and-forth messages to get him back on the right topic. snip Obviously I can't comment on any other user's experience of Makemusic customer support, but just to balance the books somewhat, I have to say all my experiences of Winsupport have been markedly different. I've had to correspond with winsupport around 16-17 times, on issues ranging from drum mapping, MIDI importing, feature requests, bugs relating to the main tool pallette (which admittedly, though not serious, I don't think has been fixed.), and on all occasions the response has been fairly prompt, always courteous, and on the whole helpful. On the occasions that they haven't been able to replicate the problem, there has been a slightly more extended correspondence while the problem is pinpointed, and I've even been asked to email them files on ocassion so that they can figure out what's going on. In fact, as much as I have needed it, I really can't complain about Makemusic customer support. C. _ Be the first to hear what's new at MSN - sign up to our free newsletters! http://www.msn.co.uk/newsletters ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
Tyler Turner wrote: --- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Compare this to MakeMusic, which has several employees who monitor this list on their own time (we do appreciate that), but since there is no official monitoring of this list we have to follow official procedures to submit feature requests or bugs. And on the Sibelius list, if Daniel doesn't know the answer to the problem, he will give specific e-mail addresses of Sibelius employees who can provide those answers. If you want to talk on a forum where MakeMusic officially participates, you should go to the forum they set up. If people specifically create a communications group AWAY from the Finale people, why should they feel they are invited to officially monitor those conversations? The Finale forum is much more active with actual Finale topics. A lot of the discussions here would be a waste of company time since many don't relate to Finale at all. Daniel doesn't usually hand out specific company employee e-mails - I wouldn't say any more often than Carla does on their own forum. It's generally bad policy for a number of reasons, the most important being that when e-mails are sent to customer support they are picked up by the people who get to them first. If that employee can't answer it, he/she goes and gets help from someone at MakeMusic who can. Sibelius also maintains an in-house forum populated by their tech-support personnel, same as MakeMusic does. They go the extra-mile and also officially participate in the out-of-house group. MakeMusic does not. Submitting a request to support SHOULD be the way it's done. The forum can get messy, and if people believe that by mentioning something there they can be sure their request will be seen, even when buried in long threads, then there's a good chance their request will go unnoticed. It's responsible behavior for MakeMusic to ask users to make official requests rather than give them the impression the forum works for that. Daniel's method on the Sibelius forum seems very personable, but the guy does go on vacations from time to time, and I'm willing to bet a few requests have been missed. I'm not saying that submitting a request shouldn't be a part of a company's feeling the pulse of their user-base. It is an important part of the procedure. I'm willing to agree that some requests have been missed also. And may I be so bold as to say that if a person can't be bothered to write an e-mail for something they want the company to spend time developing, they perhaps shouldn't be given as much priority as those who are kind enough to do this? It's certainly easier on the employees if they can go through and log multiple feature requests at one time. The old prove that you're worthy of our notice by being the one to go out of your way to contact us approach to customer support? Many companies use this approach. Many customers stay away from such companies. It's a toss-up -- the company never knows what it has missed from people who haven't gone out of their way. The customer who doesn't follow that official path for feature requests or bug fixes never knows what might have been accomplished. I would, however, think that a company would go out of its way to use any and all means at its disposal to track down bug reports, rather than the we'll think about it only if you report it through official channels approach to bug-reporting. And if they aren't really bugs, but rather customer mis-information about how some feature works, I would think that a company would go out of its way to squash such misinformation and correct perceived errors wherever they occur (much of Finale's undeserved reputation for being hard to learn and hard to work with is based on this widespread rumor-mongering, which if it maintained a presence outside its own in-house channels, it could work to squash and build its reputation for ease-of-use, something which it has certainly improved upon.) Obviously my corporate publicity model isn't MakeMusic's -- they're still here after all these year, so they obviously feel they're doing something right and my opinion is only worth what they're paying me for it. Engraving competition to show the comparative strengths of engraving programs? Sibelius -- eager participation MakeMusic -- yawn! why bother? Would you mind telling me where it is that you have seen any mention of the fact that MakeMusic was even TOLD this was going on? You're insulting people who I KNOW care a ton more about Finale than you do - and as far as I can tell you're doing it without having solid facts. I don't know that Sibelius was even TOLD of this event, either! Somehow an official representative found out about it (probably because he was maintaining an official presence outside in-house channels). Sibelius -- instant, courteous response with helpful information, even on a non-company-sponsored e-mail list MakeMusic --
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
At 07:31 AM 7/24/05 -0400, dhbailey wrote: My point about Sibelius as a company working hard to create a presence for itself while MakeMusic is just trudging along in the same old rut still stands, regardless of the low-brow quality of the comparison in question. David is right. Sibelius came from relatively nowhere in the U.S. to start whupping Finale. They struck agreements for sponsorship. Look at ASCAP's programs in new nonpop, all with Sibelius sponsorship -- how'd they do that? Where was MakeMusic? And Sibelius took the out-of-the-box features right to the educational market, gaining for what was an essentially inferior product both visibility and income -- enough to get it up to version 4, which to many musicians and engravers, is the program of choice. The marketing of Sibelius was impressive. By highlighting one area -- ease of use -- and providing discounts and lots of giveaways, presentations, and active involvement in the community, they took away a market that was flat-out owned by Finale. And while the Sibelius team was doing competent and aggressive marketing, they also improved the program so that it actually starting meeting the expectations they had raised for it. Finale, meanwhile, continues to send out its uninteresting brochures, depends on its past for market leadership, and is playing catch-up with features -- all the while leaving a trail of bugs and confusing features unremedied. Other moves might have helped them along the way. They could probably have bought Graphire last year for pennies on the dollar, securing and incorporating its incredibly fast display code, lovely fonts, and clear toolbar/pallette system that worked consistently and without a freight train of dialog boxes. To me, MakeMusic looks like a passel of marketing putzes. Numerous times I've approached the company for some sponsorship of our highly visible nonpop show. For practically nothing they could have sponsored our radio show and website (which won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2000) -- getting a positive image in front of 300-plus composers (many of whom have since gone to Sibelius). The only response from MakeMusic was after several requests for sponsorship of our 2001 Ought-One Festival -- which they negotiated down to a half dozen copies of Finale ... and then failed to send them, ignoring all my followup messages. If I didn't already have experience with Finale, you can bet I'd have bought Sibelius first. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
Mark D Lew wrote: On Jul 23, 2005, at 4:06 PM, Tyler Turner wrote: This is wrong. When I worked in customer support, I computed the number of customer e-mails finished in one response vs. those that took multiple e-mails to resolve. I personally was resolving over 90% of the issues to the satisfaction of the customer in the first response. None of the staff was much under 80%. We probably have a distorted view of this here. Anyone who is a regular participant here isn't likely to contact customer support unless it's a really tough one. We tend to forget that the vast bulk of Finale users out there are asking about simple things that we know very well. mdl And MakeMusic tends to forget that in calculating satisfactory customer requests, there should be some weighting of the responses, so that even though a tech answers 97 responses out of 100 easily and accurately because they are responses such as display in concert pitch is in the Option menu, not the View menu, those other 3 questions may be from a poweruser who doesn't ask for things until he/she has exhausted all their own knowledge plus the knowledge from a list heavily populated by power users. That 100th response, which may well not result in a satisfactory reply, should carry more weight than the it's in the options menu sort of reply. I'm not a statistician so I can't suggest a weighting procedure, but I do know that the sample base would be skewed in favor of the easy-to-answer response. So a more accurate reading of the results might be among those asking basic questions, satisfaction is 97%, but among those asking more complex questions, satisfaction is 50%. But of course no corporation is going to release those results. -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Finale's output quality
I'm as quick as anyone to acknowledge Finale's shortcomings, but sometimes the Finale bashing can be over the top. We should be clear that Finale gives up *absolutely nothing* to Sib or any other competitor in quality of printed output. What we have endless quibbled about is ease-of-use features, which includes dynamically linked parts. Finale's quality of output is capable of meeting the most rigorous engraving standards I know of, with only one exception. Finale cannot produce a proper long slur mark. (Neither can Sibelius, nor any other program except the now defunct SCORE.) David Bailey's post seemed to be offering a contrast of Finale as a high quality playback engine vs. Sib. as high-quality engraving tool. This is an utterly false contrast. Fin (to believe the Fin06 hype) will perhaps offer a step up in playback quality, but gives up not a single thing to Sib. on quality of output. Finaly was and remains a top-quality engraving tool. What it apparently give up to Sib. is ease-of-use, at least in some areas. Personally, I still think dynamically linked parts are going to be of little use to me. I like my parts to have cues and to be separated by instrument even when combined in the score. Heck, I even break divisi string parts out onto separate staves in the parts. Without ever having seen what Sib. offers, I am willing to bet they dynamic part linking cannot navigate those waters. Meanwhile, I suspect that Finale's flexibility still makes it the serious engraver's first choice. David Bailey: Or we can get the score to a wonderful appearance in Sibelius4, complete with dynamic parts to make part-extraction life easier, but we can't get the superior playback that Finale2006 offers. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Finale to GPO question
When you check the option in Human Playback to optimize for Garriton Personal Orchestra, does Finale assume that ALL your staves are being played by GPO? I ask because I want to send MIDI to many different places, not just GPO. Does Finale send different instruments CC#1 instead of CC#7 for volume? (That would be disastrous!) Would it be useful to have Human Playback options for each track or stave? -Randolph Peters ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
Robert Patterson schrieb: Personally, I still think dynamically linked parts are going to be of little use to me. I like my parts to have cues and to be separated by instrument even when combined in the score. Heck, I even break divisi string parts out onto separate staves in the parts. Without ever having seen what Sib. offers, I am willing to bet they dynamic part linking cannot navigate those waters. Actually, I think that for that purpose dynamically linked parts can only ever be an intermediate step. (Although I am sure cue notes could be much better incorporated into linked parts than in to separated parts.) The reason I still find this feature fascinating is some recent experiences with my work. They may be kind of special, but I think similar situations are quite common. I recently was asked to do an engraving job, which was later to be printed by a German publisher. However, part of the job was to get a set of score and parts out for a performance. Originally I didn't see much of a problem with the job, but eventually the changes to the score after the performance were so huge that I simply had no choice but to prepare a new Parts-Score (my usual intermediate step before extraction) and extract the 20 parts again. This was a huge job, and unfortunately the nature of the job made it impossible to just increase the fee massively. This is not the end of the story: A few weeks later I was asked by the same editor (still working for the same publisher) to do a similar thing again. This time it was clear from quite early stages that after the initial performance the same would happen again: Major changes to the score, new Parts-Score, new extraction. Lots of Layout work that had to be done again. Eventually it didn't come to the performance pre-release in this case for other reasons. However, the whole thing would have been made very easy by dynamic parts ala Sibelius. I downloaded Sibelius the other day just to check out this feature, and although I haven't spent much time on it, it does seem that they have done a pretty good job. I would probably still unlink the parts eventually, but in the intermediate steps I could deliver more without spending more time. Problem is, Sibelius is very much the No.1 for publishers these days in Germany. If Sibelius can do it, they expect you to be able to do the same. That's the way it works. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
Johannes Gebauer: but eventually the changes to the score after the performance were so huge that I simply had no choice but to prepare a new Parts-Score I remain skeptical that Sib's dynamic linking will be able to maintain your high standards when this amount of revision is required. (Specifically, an amount of revision that forces an entirely new page layout in the parts.) Nevertheless, I certainly can envision that it would have made life easier. This is not the end of the story: A few weeks later I was asked by the same editor (still working for the same publisher) to do a similar thing again. This time it was clear from quite early stages that after the initial performance the same would happen again: Major changes to the score, new Parts-Score, new extraction. Lots of Layout work that had to be done again. Isn't this a fool me once, shame one you; fool me twice, shame on me? If you knew there would be that much revision, why didn't accepting the job include a revision fee? ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
d. collins schrieb: Johannes Gebauer écrit: Problem is, Sibelius is very much the No.1 for publishers these days in Germany. Do you mean that most German publishers now use Sibelius? I don't have any data available, but from the feeling I get, yes. It used to be Score, many publishers stuck with Score until Sibelius 3 came about and then went Sibelius. Have a look here: http://www.notation.de/german/referenzen.html just one Engraving service. They use Sibelius exclusively. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
Robert Patterson schrieb: Johannes Gebauer: but eventually the changes to the score after the performance were so huge that I simply had no choice but to prepare a new Parts-Score I remain skeptical that Sib's dynamic linking will be able to maintain your high standards when this amount of revision is required. (Specifically, an amount of revision that forces an entirely new page layout in the parts.) Nevertheless, I certainly can envision that it would have made life easier. That's not what I meant. The first set of parts required was only going to be quick and dirty anyway. But the way it worked out I could just trash them afterwards and start again. With Sibelius 4 I could have done the quick and dirty version as linked parts, and later reworked those parts directly. It would have saved me doing Cue notes again, worrying about text blocks (which Finale handles dreadfully when extracting parts), things like that, and doing that all twice. Isn't this a fool me once, shame one you; fool me twice, shame on me? If you knew there would be that much revision, why didn't accepting the job include a revision fee? Partly because publishers pay per page in this country. I didn't say I was going to do it, in fact I had already said I didn't want to produce pre-release parts this time, unless the musical text was completely finished. As I said it didn't come to it. This is not about me and my fees, I was just trying to describe a typical situation where linked parts are going to make things easier. Other situation: I was doing a string quartet recently, lots of work. After I'd done about half the expressions work we wanted to play through it, so I wanted a quick and dirty set of parts. But I didn't want to spend all that time doing a layout that would work, and then having to do it again when everything was entered. It would have been nice to be able to do some layout for the parts which would stay there but would still be updateable when everything was entered. The way Finale produces parts makes this impossible. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On 24 Jul 2005, at 17:10, Robert Patterson wrote: I remain skeptical that Sib's dynamic linking will be able to maintain your high standards when this amount of revision is required. (Specifically, an amount of revision that forces an entirely new page layout in the parts.) Nevertheless, I certainly can envision that it would have made life easier. I just had a look at the the Sibelius demo: it's no problem to change all sorts of things in a part without affecting the score in any way. You can change the paper size or page margins and redo the layout (making new system breaks, page breaks...). You can apply a different house style to each part, if you really want to. Michael Cook ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Blowing O.T.
On Jul 24, 2005, at 1:05 AM, Christopher Smith wrote: On Jul 24, 2005, at 1:36 AM, Ken Durling wrote: Um, did I rank any of Chuck's achievements? Did I say cooler than? If I misread your post, I apologise, but when you say now that is a cool thing it sort of implies that maybe some previous things WEREN'T as cool as that. I was reacting to that implication, in the case of Chuck. Though now that I have waded through some more of last week's posts, he didn't seem to take it amiss at all, and didn't need me to jump to his defense. No, I didn't (take it amiss, I mean) - not at all. I think people deserve special respect when they are doing the thing(s) for which they are specially trained and developed and where they have special experitise. Otherwise, they deserve only normal, person to person, respect (not a small thing, and one that is occasionally missing in some gratuitously insulting posts). I was glad that Ken thought that being around Lenny Bruce was an interesting experience to have had. It was, though I didn't know him well and can hardly point to any level of intimacy in our relationship. I did know some other, now famous, comedians, because there were many of them working in the same clubs I was. Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Godfrey Cambridge, Richard Pryor and George Carlin were among them, and Woody was the only one I had enough of an acquaintance with to think that he'd recognize me, if we passed on the street now. One of my pleasurable moments on this list was when I answered someone's question about arranging techniques by sending some of the material I use with my students, and Linda Worley called it a great post. If I am able to return some of the invaluable help and knowledge I have gained here, and someone happens to acknowledge that, that's recognition enough in this context. About Carl Dershem's suggestion that my autobiography ought to be a great read: a few summers ago, I wrote about 200 pages of a spew draft of a memoir, showed it to a few people and then left it to sit for a (long) while. Now it looks about 40 to 50% pertinent and maybe 60% silly personal stuff that is of interest to no one but me, and me not so much on a distanced re-reading. I think it needs a lot of taking the personal stories and incidents and putting them in a larger context of the the culture of the time. Then it might be a good book. That's a lot of work, and I don't know when I'll get inspired to do that. It's much harder (and probably more important) than just reviewing my experience. A good and interested editor would probably help. Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
None of this changes my basic contention that 1) dynamic part linking is an ease-of-use feature and 2) Finale's output is still essentially equal to if not superior to Sib's. (Specifically, it is superior when the user wants a notation that Sib doesn't approve of.) If you tell me that I can split a part in the score into multiple staves in the score and still have the linking work, then I'll be impressed. -Original Message- From: Michael Cook [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 04:01 PM To: finale@shsu.edu, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality On 24 Jul 2005, at 17:10, Robert Patterson wrote: I remain skeptical that Sib's dynamic linking will be able to maintain your high standards when this amount of revision is required. (Specifically, an amount of revision that forces an entirely new page layout in the parts.) Nevertheless, I certainly can envision that it would have made life easier. I just had a look at the the Sibelius demo: it's no problem to change all sorts of things in a part without affecting the score in any way. You can change the paper size or page margins and redo the layout (making new system breaks, page breaks...). You can apply a different house style to each part, if you really want to. Michael Cook ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir
In later operas, pants roles represent male youths, but they are not prepubescent. In some cases, their pubescence is very much a part of the story. Octavian is most certainly not prepubescent. Cherubino and Siebel are young, but their behavior is clearly that of pubescent teenagers. Yes. I should have left off the pre-. But the point remains that none of these characters are fully adult, either emotionally or biologically, and that the assigned vocal type is meant to realistically model an unbroken boy's voice. It should also be borne in mind that under the nutritional etc. conditions of earlier times, boys' voices broke at a later age--sometimes as late as 19. (This has important implications RE the staffing of cantus and altus singers in Renaissance choirs--but back to pant roles.) Pant roles in Strauss and later are deliberately retrospective in nature--a neoclassic gesture, always to be experienced w. a raised eyebrow, and, especially in the 20th c., with no particular pretense or obligation of realism. Someone else asked about the origin of the chorus as an institution. It is now generally held that the first choral composer was Johannes Ciconia (1335-1411), who wrote thus because he could--the percentage of singers able to sing harmony had reached a critical mass allowing polyphonic choral singing as a realistic option for the first time. The relative rhythmic simplicity required for choral writing (this was the height of the ars subtilior, remember, and solo vocal lines--Ciconia's included--had become unbelievably intricate) set the stage for early Renaissance style of two generations later, but did not directly bring this change about. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Blowing O.T.
Chuck Israels wrote: About Carl Dershem's suggestion that my autobiography ought to be a great read: a few summers ago, I wrote about 200 pages of a spew draft of a memoir, showed it to a few people and then left it to sit for a (long) while. Now it looks about 40 to 50% pertinent and maybe 60% silly personal stuff that is of interest to no one but me, and me not so much on a distanced re-reading. I think it needs a lot of taking the personal stories and incidents and putting them in a larger context of the the culture of the time. Then it might be a good book. That's a lot of work, and I don't know when I'll get inspired to do that. It's much harder (and probably more important) than just reviewing my experience. A good and interested editor would probably help. Chuck A good editor is worth their weight in gold, or chocolate, or something like that. Just finding the right direction for a book, and the right style to tell the stories in can make all the difference. Doing that, while allowing (encouraging) you to keep your own 'voice' is an increasingly rare (and increasingly valuable) skill. Too many editors now are just copy-editors: They check spelling and grammar and some continuity, but as for guidance ... not so good. cd ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On 24 Jul 2005, at 18:42, Robert Patterson wrote: None of this changes my basic contention that 1) dynamic part linking is an ease-of-use feature Certainly. But it is evident that Finale needs more ease of use to continue to exist next to Sibelius. and 2) Finale's output is still essentially equal to if not superior to Sib's. (Specifically, it is superior when the user wants a notation that Sib doesn't approve of.) Finale's output _can_ be superior to Sibelius's. It depends on who is doing the engraving. I think that someone with - (1) an expert knowledge of musical engraving, - (2) an expert knowledge of the particular software he or she uses and - (3) enough computer know-how and inventiveness to find clever workarounds for things the software apparently can't do will be able to produce a first class score with the engraving program they use, be it Finale or Sibelius. The problem for me is that Finale's output is very often inferior to Sibelius's, simply because Sibelius has better defaults. If you tell me that I can split a part in the score into multiple staves in the score and still have the linking work, then I'll be impressed. I can't see a way to do this: I'll let you know if it's possible, but I rather think it isn't. Michael Cook ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Installing fonts?
I just tried to install Finale 2003 on a couple of computers, so I can work on a project for someone who requires it. On a computer that has Final 2004, Finale 2003 installed successfully. But when I install on a computer that has no Finale, Finale 2003 has a font problem: when I open an mus file, the notes have stems but no heads. Anybody know how I can move the required fonts from the one machine to the other? Or get the required fonts? Thanks, Phil Shaw ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
--- dhbailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sibelius also maintains an in-house forum populated by their tech-support personnel, same as MakeMusic does. They go the extra-mile and also officially participate in the out-of-house group. MakeMusic does not. If you address my statements on this issue, I'll be happy to address yours. The old prove that you're worthy of our notice by being the one to go out of your way to contact us approach to customer support? Many companies use this approach. Many customers stay away from such companies. It's a toss-up -- the company never knows what it has missed from people who haven't gone out of their way. The customer who doesn't follow that official path for feature requests or bug fixes never knows what might have been accomplished. Go out of your way, meaning send an e-mail? If you don't care enough about your idea to want to take the time to e-mail it, then I think that says something about how much you care about your idea compared to how much someone who does take the time cares about theirs. the company never knows what it has missed... Feature requests generally aren't missed when they are posted on the forum (and a good number aren't missed here). MakeMusic does record feature requests from the unofficial places WHEN THEY CATCH THEM. But retaining a public policy that all feature requests should be submitted to the company directly helps them ensure that they miss fewer requests. Giving people the idea that their random feature requests made on the forum or on this list will definitely be seen by MakeMusic is just bad policy. And one way you make that mistake is by acknowledging you've logged a person's request in public. On the forum MakeMusic's stance has always been that users should submit requests, and because of this, long-time forum users have taken to telling people to do this. It's an efficient system. I would, however, think that a company would go out of its way to use any and all means at its disposal to track down bug reports, rather than the we'll think about it only if you report it through official channels approach to bug-reporting. They do. Do you think bugs reported here and on the forum don't get logged? Again, it's BEST if they are reported so that it can be guaranteed they won't be completely missed. And as such, the official policy should be as it is. And if they aren't really bugs, but rather customer mis-information about how some feature works, I would think that a company would go out of its way to squash such misinformation and correct perceived errors wherever they occur (much of Finale's undeserved reputation for being hard to learn and hard to work with is based on this widespread rumor-mongering, which if it maintained a presence outside its own in-house channels, it could work to squash and build its reputation for ease-of-use, something which it has certainly improved upon.) Very little of Finale's reputation comes from the internet. As much as I'd like to think that getting out there and chatting on the various forums and correcting misinformation can make a big difference, it just doesn't seem to be true. MakeMusic does keep an official eye on this. And even though I'm not a MakeMusic employee any longer, for the past 4 years I have been out on the net correcting misinformation and participating on various forums, always in my spare time. I haven't seen anyone from Sibelius logging as much time in non-Sibelius/Finale territory. I don't know that Sibelius was even TOLD of this event, either! Somehow an official representative found out about it (probably because he was maintaining an official presence outside in-house channels). So for all you know, someone could have contacted all of these participants directly, including Daniel, without ever sending anything to anyone at MakeMusic? Or perhaps it might be an idea that started on the Sibelius mailing list - should MakeMusic spend a great deal of time participating on that?? If you don't know the circumstances, don't slander people without getting the facts first. I bow to your empirical data on resolution rates. It just seems that we hear about a lot of the I can't recreate the problem responses. I know I've had a few of those, even when I had outlined the steps. Please send me a few of these correspondences. Geico's satisfaction rate, as MakeMusic's satisfaction rate, are based on the responses to a questionnaire, I would assume, although I've never received one. Yes, it's a questionnaire, and it's linked to at the bottom of each e-mail a tech support employee sends. The other customer support employees, along with myself, requested that we start including this system back in 2002 or 2003, and one of us designed the web form so that we could make it happen. We wanted a system that would provide management with a way to measure the quality of our responses and not
Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir
No one has posted a rational response to the complaint that the Texas Music people are being prejudicial to sissies who sing soprano. They are trying to CYA by complaining about singing out of range crap. They are obviously being discriminating in their decisions. The list person who said it was the same as saying the back seat of the bus was as good a seat as the front of the bus was right on target. Phil Daley AutoDesk http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
- Original Message - From: Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personally, I still think dynamically linked parts are going to be of little use to me. I like my parts to have cues and to be separated by instrument even when combined in the score. Heck, I even break divisi string parts out onto separate staves in the parts. Without ever having seen what Sib. offers, I am willing to bet they dynamic part linking cannot navigate those waters. Actually, with dynamic parts, you can put cues in the score, then set them to be hidden in the score and seen in the parts. You can also divide parts as well as combine them (as in a percussion mini score) as long as the transposition remains the same for both parts. You cannot yet add, say, a treble clef euphonium in Bb to a concert pitch bass clef part but that's on the way. Richard Smith www.rgsmithmusic.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
Robert Patterson schrieb: None of this changes my basic contention that 1) dynamic part linking is an ease-of-use feature and 2) Finale's output is still essentially equal to if not superior to Sib's. (Specifically, it is superior when the user wants a notation that Sib doesn't approve of.) No disagreement on that. Actually, I don't really have much of an opinion, since I don't know Sibelius 4 well enough. I remember trying V3 and deciding it's not there yet. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On 7/24/05, Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm as quick as anyone to acknowledge Finale's shortcomings, but sometimes the Finale bashing can be over the top. We should be clear that Finale gives up *absolutely nothing* to Sib or any other competitor in quality of printed output. What we have endless quibbled about is ease-of-use features, which includes dynamically linked parts. When I was chosing what program to get, I was in two choirs with people who often did their own scores for us - one was using Sibelius the other Finale. How much nicer the Finale scores were more than made up for the fact that it was a bit harder to start out on. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
--- Richard Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message - From: Robert Patterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Personally, I still think dynamically linked parts are going to be of little use to me. I like my parts to have cues and to be separated by instrument even when combined in the score. Heck, I even break divisi string parts out onto separate staves in the parts. Without ever having seen what Sib. offers, I am willing to bet they dynamic part linking cannot navigate those waters. Actually, with dynamic parts, you can put cues in the score, then set them to be hidden in the score and seen in the parts. You can also divide parts as well as combine them (as in a percussion mini score) as long as the transposition remains the same for both parts. You cannot yet add, say, a treble clef euphonium in Bb to a concert pitch bass clef part but that's on the way. Richard Smith www.rgsmithmusic.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] My understanding of what Robert is talking about with regard to separating parts is the idea of having for example a single flute staff on the score that has the notes for 1st and 2nd flute, but then having two separate parts made from this - a 1st flute part and a 2nd flute part. Sibelius' Dynamic Parts does not cover this. You will either need to extract the part the old-fashioned way and split it, or create both flute staves on the score. They also don't have the option of a TGTools plug-in for helping with this. One thing I haven't figured out yet - when you actually do a manual part extraction, creating a separate part file, does that file maintain the changes you've made to the dynamic version of that part? We can't tell from the demo version. Tyler __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Countertenor barred... OT (and long)
On 24 Jul 2005 at 2:18, Christopher Smith wrote: On Jul 23, 2005, at 6:02 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: I remember reading somewhere recently about the change in orchestras where someone entirely attributed the increasing hiring of women entirely to the institution of blind auditions 10 or 15 years ago. There was a particularly striking passage by one orchestra manager who said that he couldn't imagine that he'd been prejudiced against women, but once the blind auditions were in place, his orchestra started hiring more women as a matter of course, and he was forced to conclude that he and his hiring colleagues were, indeed, tacitly prejudiced against women. Isn't it possible that at least part of the reason was because more qualified female candidates were auditioning? . . . I don't know. What I do know is that the person who was quoted attributed most of the change to the blind auditions. He said (if I'm remembering correctly) that without the blind auditions, the big orchestras would not have nearly as many women in them as they do now. . . . Not only would they be more encouraged to audition by the new blind hiring rules, but they had reaped the benefits of the previous decade or two of feminist activism affecting their education and mindset. When I was starting my university schooling, the male music students outnumbered the females by about 2 to 1. These days at the same school, those proportions are approximately reversed. In the part-time orchestra I play in regularly, women are fully 80% of the membership. It's completely normal that more women are going to be hired now than before. I don't know. All I know is that somebody in the business attributed the rising number of women in major orchestras almost entirely to blind auditions. And when I was at Oberlin in the early 80s, the M/F ratio was roughly 50/50 (though in some instruments different than others, of course -- few women brass players, for instance), particularly in the violin section (which is by far the majority of the positions in any orchestra). -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On 24 Jul 2005 at 16:42, Robert Patterson wrote: None of this changes my basic contention that 1) dynamic part linking is an ease-of-use feature and 2) Finale's output is still essentially equal to if not superior to Sib's. (Specifically, it is superior when the user wants a notation that Sib doesn't approve of.) If you tell me that I can split a part in the score into multiple staves in the score and still have the linking work, then I'll be impressed. It may be that the kind of work you do would make that really valuable, but I've never had a single project where I'd have had any need for that. But linked parts in Finale implemented in a way that is similar to Sibelius 4 would be an absolutely enormous productivity benefit for me, in all the engraving that I do. And my bet is that there are lots more people like me than there are people like you, who depend on something that I would never use at all. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
On 24 Jul 2005 at 12:46, Tyler Turner wrote: And even though I'm not a MakeMusic employee any longer, for the past 4 years I have been out on the net correcting misinformation and participating on various forums, always in my spare time. I haven't seen anyone from Sibelius logging as much time in non-Sibelius/Finale territory. Maybe that's because you don't see all the work that Sibelius employees are doing that *isn't* in public. Someone forwarded my posts to this forum about trying out the Sibelius demo to Daniel Spreadbury and he answered me in great detail and at great length, and then engaged in a lengthy and quite interesting discussion of the points I'd raised. He spent *hours* responding to my emails. And all of it in private. No one from MakeMusic or Coda has ever gone the extra mile in that fashion. And he's not even a subscriber to this mailing list! So, I'm sorry, but your claim just doesn't hold up. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
Someone forwarded my posts to this forum about trying out the Sibelius demo to Daniel Spreadbury and he answered me in great detail and at great length, and then engaged in a lengthy and quite interesting discussion of the points I'd raised. He spent *hours* responding to my emails. And all of it in private. No one from MakeMusic or Coda has ever gone the extra mile in that fashion. And he's not even a subscriber to this mailing list! I experienced the same from Daniel Spreadbury when I was trying out the Sibelius demo. What was most impressive, in addition to the time he spent, was his acknowledgment that Finale's adjustable and programmed placement of articulations was superior to Sibelius'. Richard Yates ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] notation program comparison
On 24 Jul 2005 at 14:40, Richard Yates wrote: Someone forwarded my posts to this forum about trying out the Sibelius demo to Daniel Spreadbury and he answered me in great detail and at great length, and then engaged in a lengthy and quite interesting discussion of the points I'd raised. He spent *hours* responding to my emails. And all of it in private. No one from MakeMusic or Coda has ever gone the extra mile in that fashion. And he's not even a subscriber to this mailing list! I experienced the same from Daniel Spreadbury when I was trying out the Sibelius demo. What was most impressive, in addition to the time he spent, was his acknowledgment that Finale's adjustable and programmed placement of articulations was superior to Sibelius'. Indeed. He also acknowledged several areas in which Finale had the goods on Sibelius, as well as several areas where there were definite problems with Sibelius. He took my criticisms quite seriously (most of them were on the subject of Sibelius's undeserved (in my opinion) reputation for ease of learning -- the Sibelius UI seems to me to have many problems with discoverability that block ease of learning), and was very reasonable. The last person involved with Finale who gave me that impression of dedication and reasonableness was Randy Stokes, and we unfortunately see and hear little of him these days. Randy served for me as an ambassador for Finale who assured me that Finale was in good hands, and whatever its current problems, the people working behind the scenes were as aware (or more aware) of what was wrong than those of using Finale. Perhaps that is still the case, but now we lack a voice/face from MakeMusic to re-assure us that this is still the case. -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Finale's output quality
If you tell me that I can split a part in the score into multiple staves in the score and still have the linking work, then I'll be impressed. It may be that the kind of work you do would make that really valuable, but I've never had a single project where I'd have had any need for that. Apparently you've never done any work with full orchestra, or concert band, or any large ensemble where it is SOP for multiple wind parts to appear on a single staff in the score, but extracted into single parts. This fits the description of 95% of the work I do with Finale. I agree with Robert, it would be very impressive for a notation program to understand the relationship between multiple-parts-on-a-staff in the score and the individual extracted (for want of a better word) parts, and maintain the link between them for editing purposes, but until then I'll continue to take extra care that my full score is really, truly finished before extracting parts (and some of my orchestral scores are more than 100 pages). One other thing: whether the parts and the score are linked or not, I still have to add cues (the most time-consuming factor for me in doing parts), and lay out decent page turns (I've tried Finale's automated page turn plug-in, but I don't think it's adequate). Using TGTool's Smart Explosion of Multi-part Staves, the remaining cleanup I currently do on parts in Finale is relatively minor compared to those two other items, so having linked score/parts would only be a minor time savings for me, even if it did handle multi-part staves. I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer it, or that it wouldn't come in handy for those inevitable changes after everything is 100% done, just that I don't see it as the 2nd coming that some apparently do. Lee Actor Composer-in-Residence and Assistant Conductor, Palo Alto Philharmonic http://www.leeactor.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir
... Eustazio was also a castrato originally. (I think the part is cut altogether in later edition.) mdl Ouch! ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir
Raymond Horton wrote: ... Eustazio was also a castrato originally. (I think the part is cut altogether in later edition.) Ouch! Agree with the 'ouch! but ... could that have been phrased a bit more subtly? :o cd ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Long slurs -- Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On Jul 24, 2005, at 7:21 AM, Robert Patterson wrote: Finale's quality of output is capable of meeting the most rigorous engraving standards I know of, with only one exception. Finale cannot produce a proper long slur mark. (Neither can Sibelius, nor any other program except the now defunct SCORE.) It's surprising that neither program has set out to correct this. For several years now it's been the one glaring gap in Finale's ability to produce professional-looking output. Pretty much anything else you can kludge one way or another, but with a long slur you're stuck. You're pretty much forced to raise the endpoints and settle for a long spindly curve. On several occasions, it has even affected my editorial decision-making: If a long slur is only marginally important, I'll sometimes choose to just leave it out, simply because Finale is incapable of drawing a proper looking one. Could it be that people have grown so accustomed to seeing curved long slurs that it's now considered normal and no one minds anymore? It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to fix. As I understand it, slurs are current drawn as a Bezier curve (actually, the space enclosed by two almost-parallel Bezier curves) and the slur tool gives the user access to the control points. Why not just introduce one more value that calls for x distance of straight line inserted in the middle of the slur? The midpoint and slope of the curve(s) is easily calculated. The program could just calculate the curve as if the control points are all displaced by a distance of x/2 inward toward the midpoint, split the curve in half, draw each with the actual endpoints, and then fill in the middle with a straight line -- pretty much the same thing that pre-digital engravers with their curve templates did for long slurs for decades. The new x value would then be accessible to the user either by direct input or by a new handle in the slur tool that could be dragged back and forth for immediate eyeball feedback. Adding this new variable would actually help with many types of slurs. For example, those short slurs with a tall slope, you'd be able to put a more attractive curve on the endpoints than is currently possible. Most important, for those long slur stretching all the way across the page, you could put in a big stretch so that each end curves like a short slur with a big straight passage across the middle, just like it should be. As an added bonus, there could be a global slur option somewhere that says if a slur is more than y long, it automatically adds a stretch value of z. All the templates could come with some sensible value there, so that the non-power users wouldn't even have to think about long slurs. They'd come out reasonably nice by default. I'm the sort of user who likes to fuss over my files a lot anyway, so a lot of the ease-of-use requests don't make so much difference to me, since it's something I'm probably going to want to take the time to tweak anyway. This, on the other hand, would make an enormous difference. Unlike other failings of Finale where there's some roundabout kludge or plug-in to help you get it done, for a long slur there's just no way to do it at all no matter how much time you spend on it. It forces even the best and most meticulous engraver to put out an flawed product. Just as important to MakeMusic, perhaps, would be the marketing hook. If they would fix long slurs in one of their upgrades they'd once again be able to claim truthfully that Finale can create professional looking output that Sibelius et al cannot match. mdl P.S. Someone please remind me what the MM feature request email is, so I can forward this to them. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
Tyler Turner wrote: Sibelius' Dynamic Parts does not cover this. You will either need to extract the part the old-fashioned way and split it, or create both flute staves on the score. They also don't have the option of a TGTools plug-in for helping with this. You are right that to separate two parts they must first be extracted. There are tools for this and it's not that hard. One thing I haven't figured out yet - when you actually do a manual part extraction, creating a separate part file, does that file maintain the changes you've made to the dynamic version of that part? We can't tell from the demo version. Yes the formatting from the dynamic parts is extracted with the part. It would be quite easy to leave any extractions needed until the very end and all other editing and corrections have been done May I add that, as a very active french hornist, I really prefer two parts to a stave. I have a much better idea of what's going on. That's just a personal preference. I realize different engraving jobs may have different requirements. What I DON'T like is three (or more) parts per stave. The middle voice(s) are to hard to isolate from the outer ones at sight and require too much concentration. I have limited RAM :) Richard Smith www.rgsmithmusic.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Finale's output quality
On 24 Jul 2005 at 15:00, Lee Actor wrote: If you tell me that I can split a part in the score into multiple staves in the score and still have the linking work, then I'll be impressed. It may be that the kind of work you do would make that really valuable, but I've never had a single project where I'd have had any need for that. Apparently you've never done any work with full orchestra, or concert band, or any large ensemble where it is SOP for multiple wind parts to appear on a single staff in the score, but extracted into single parts. . . . No, all my work is chamber music, early music and vocal music with parts -- no doubling parts at all. . . . This fits the description of 95% of the work I do with Finale. Well, to reiterate a point I've made before, I don't think anyone is suggesting that MakeMusic implement linked parts in a fashion that would make it impossible to continue to extract doubling parts in the same fashion as you've always done it. [] One other thing: whether the parts and the score are linked or not, I still have to add cues (the most time-consuming factor for me in doing parts), and lay out decent page turns (I've tried Finale's automated page turn plug-in, but I don't think it's adequate). Using TGTool's Smart Explosion of Multi-part Staves, the remaining cleanup I currently do on parts in Finale is relatively minor compared to those two other items, so having linked score/parts would only be a minor time savings for me, even if it did handle multi-part staves. I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer it, or that it wouldn't come in handy for those inevitable changes after everything is 100% done, just that I don't see it as the 2nd coming that some apparently do. Well, for me, extracting parts is the most painful thing I have to do. The worst part of it is when I learn new things about Finale that I have to go back and re-apply to existing scores and parts that were prepared and extracted some time ago. Maybe everyone else is so brilliant that they know everything about Finale already, but I'm not -- I'm constantly learning things that I need to go back and incorporate to make my Finale scores better. Or maybe people don't go back and incorporate improvements of this nature in finished projects. Or maybe it's the nature of my work, which is of three types: 1. work for my dissertation, which can't be said to be finished until, well, who knows when. 2. my own compositions, which get revised after run-throughs and performances. 3. works I've edited/scored up for use with the NYU Collegium, where I often come back and make changes to fix problems found in using the parts. For all of these, linked parts would cut down massively on the amount of work it takes to go back and tweak the parts based on new information. And right now, part preparation is taking about the same amount of time as the whole layout of the score process. If that could be reduced even by half, it would be a huge time savings for me. And I can't imagine that it wouldn't be a large time savings for the non-doubled parts for large ensembles, either (assuming it handles cues at least the way Sibelius does, by allowing you to enter music in the score that appears only in the parts). -- David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Re: Finale Digest, Vol 24, Issue 53
I will be out of the office until August 5, 2005. While I will have periodic email access, I may not be able to reply to your message in a timley manner. If you need immediate assistance, please email Rebecca Ott at [EMAIL PROTECTED], or Christine Fry at [EMAIL PROTECTED]; or, you may call the College of Fine Arts and Communications at (801) 422-8271. Thank you, Stephen Stephen Jones, Dean College of Fine Arts and Communications A-501 HFAC Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801) 422-8271 ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
At 07:49 PM 7/24/2005, you wrote: Sibelius' Dynamic Parts does not cover this. You will either need to extract the part the old-fashioned way and split it, or create both flute staves on the score. They also don't have the option of a TGTools plug-in for helping with this. Hi Tyler, Not sure what you mean by your last sentence. If you are talking about splitting an a2 extracted part into separate parts, Sibelius has pretty nifty filtering for this that is nearly foolproof. Dan Carno Daniel Carno Music Engraving Services Quality work in Sibelius, Finale, and Score 4514 Makyes Road Syracuse, New York 13215 (315) 492-2987 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Countertenor barred... OT (and long)
Perhaps, but about 1966 or 67 I remember that the NY Phil still had but one female non-harpist (a bass player). Raymond Horton Louisville Orchestra John Howell wrote: At 6:02 PM -0400 7/23/05, David W. Fenton wrote: I remember reading somewhere recently about the change in orchestras where someone entirely attributed the increasing hiring of women entirely to the institution of blind auditions 10 or 15 years ago. That may be correct in terms of the top tier orchestras, although I'd be inclined to place it more like 20-25 years ago. But while I can't speak for European orchestras, the process in North America started during World War II when so many younger (and not so young) players were drafted into military service. My father would have gone if not for a congenital heart defect (although he was a music educator and not an orchestral player.) And just as Rosie the Riveter went to work in factories that had never hired women except as secretaries, orchestras started discovering women players who were perfectly competent. True, it wasn't as dramatic a sociological change as on the assembly lines, since older refugees from Europe, many of them Jewish and escaping Nazi Germany, filled in quite a few orchestral chairs, but I would say that this set the scene for the use of blind auditions. John ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
--- Dan Carno [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 07:49 PM 7/24/2005, you wrote: Sibelius' Dynamic Parts does not cover this. You will either need to extract the part the old-fashioned way and split it, or create both flute staves on the score. They also don't have the option of a TGTools plug-in for helping with this. Hi Tyler, Not sure what you mean by your last sentence. If you are talking about splitting an a2 extracted part into separate parts, Sibelius has pretty nifty filtering for this that is nearly foolproof. Dan Carno The filters certainly help a lot, but they aren't as bright as the TGTools plug-in. Dealing with more than 2 parts on a staff takes more effort, since the select players for deletion filters don't work in those situations, and if you have 2 voices in a single measure along with instances of single voice chords, that filter doesn't work. The TGTools option also understands how to handle specific text, such as solo, and can automatically remove text that wouldn't ordinarily be included on the separate parts. I find that Sibelius also fails to consistently assign dynamics to the correct parts when different voices are used in different measures. Sibelius filters are awesome, and I find them to be very handy. It's just for this specific purpose TGTools seems to outperform them. Tyler Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
At 10:57 PM 7/24/2005, you wrote: The filters certainly help a lot, but they aren't as bright as the TGTools plug-in. Dealing with more than 2 parts on a staff takes more effort, since the select players for deletion filters don't work in those situations, and if you have 2 voices in a single measure along with instances of single voice chords, that filter doesn't work. The TGTools option also understands how to handle specific text, such as solo, and can automatically remove text that wouldn't ordinarily be included on the separate parts. Yes, I agree that TGTools is more powerful in this regard, although I find the process a touch clumsy visually. I find that Sibelius also fails to consistently assign dynamics to the correct parts when different voices are used in different measures. Well that's up to the user. Each expression can be assigned to a specific voice or all voices, and at the same time can be attached to specific notes where dynamics diverge or clarity is needed (although you have to keep an eye on those attachment lines!). Dan Carno Daniel Carno Music Engraving Services Quality work in Sibelius, Finale, and Score 4514 Makyes Road Syracuse, New York 13215 (315) 492-2987 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Countertenor barred... OT (and long)
On Jul 24, 2005, at 4:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 24 Jul 2005 at 2:18, Christopher Smith wrote: Isn't it possible that at least part of the reason was because more qualified female candidates were auditioning? . . . I don't know. What I do know is that the person who was quoted attributed most of the change to the blind auditions. He said (if I'm remembering correctly) that without the blind auditions, the big orchestras would not have nearly as many women in them as they do now. Hmm. They MIGHT have FEWER women without blind auditions, but I think he is mistaken about the change being mostly attributable to that. There were a LOT of shifts in gender politics going on at that time, both among men (who might be less resistant to accepting women candidates) AND among women (who might be more likely to push harder for a career) and instituting blind auditions in orchestras was only part of it. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: Long slurs -- Re: [Finale] Finale's output quality
At 4:34 PM -0700 7/24/05, Mark D Lew wrote: It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to fix. As I understand it, slurs are current drawn as a Bezier curve (actually, the space enclosed by two almost-parallel Bezier curves) and the slur tool gives the user access to the control points. Why not just introduce one more value that calls for x distance of straight line inserted in the middle of the slur? The midpoint and slope of the curve(s) is easily calculated. The program could just calculate the curve as if the control points are all displaced by a distance of x/2 inward toward the midpoint, split the curve in half, draw each with the actual endpoints, and then fill in the middle with a straight line -- pretty much the same thing that pre-digital engravers with their curve templates did for long slurs for decades. Keeping in mind that there was an awful lot that Mosaic couldn't and still can't do, and that MOTU has stopped development, they had this feature from the very beginning. Every slur has not 3 but 4 adjustment points and is almost infinitely adjustable. I also discovered that you could grab the slur at any point to adjust it, not just on those 4 points. Just like linked scores and parts, these were in the program at least as early as 1992. Were Mosaic's programmers smarter than Finale's or were they just pursuing different goals? Or maybe working with better consulting musicians at that time? Really good looking defaults (except for note spacing, like everybody else), linked score and parts, adjustable slurs. 1992. What can I tell you!? John -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] chord playback problems
On Jul 23, 2005, at 11:05 PM, Ryan Beard wrote: I'm saving my file as an audio file. The chord symbols I've entered won't play back. However, chords have played back on this same file in the past when saved as an audio file. Enable Chord Playback is checked in the chord menu. And I've not changed any playback information other than the instrument name, nor have I done anything to the chord symbols. I'm using Bill Duncan's chord font. FinMac04. OS 10.2.8. I have a very elementary MIDI set-up. Any ideas of what I should look at? Silly question: Why would this stop working all of the sudden!!! Either you have inadvertently hit something, or the file is corrupted. This happens from time to time. I assume that the chords you are talking about have already played back correctly at least once, otherwise I would suspect that some suffixes are not defined for playback. Is the staff in the INstrument List window DARK green under Playback? LIght green means playback is disabled on some item in the staff. Hit the triangle beside the staff name to check this. Is the MIDI instrument that the staff is set to actually set to receive on that channel? Turned on, volume up and all cables in place? Have you recently entered a p at the start of the staff, or some other expression that affects playback? This would make the playback very soft, perhaps too soft to hear properly. The same thing would happen if you took a soft dynamic, duplicated it, and changed the text to something else, like Fast Swing, without editing the playback value which would still be set to piano. Try quitting Finale, then reopening the file. After this step, I would go to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or you could send me the file privately and I could check it for you. Christopher ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
