Re: Music Notation Programs

[moshe denburg <denburg...>]

On Fri, 01 Mar 1996 07:19:02 EST, Dan Kazez wrote:
>
>I am a long-time user of Finale (Macintosh).  I find its
>features limitless, and its flexibility astounding.
>For educators, the discounted price is only a couple
>of hundred dollars.

The price may be easier to handle than SCORE (which I wrote about in my post
of Fri, 01 Mar 1996 00:49:43 -0800), but there is a very strong following,
amongst professional composers and publishers, for SCORE. It has been in
existence since 1971.
>
>I have used Finale over the last 7 years in the 
>preparation of a book on rhythm (to be published
>later this year by W.W. Norton).  
>I have never found Finale to be lacking!
>
I am not qualified to compare the two programs, FINALE and SCORE; I assume
that they both have certain advantages; however, I have seen the results of
SCORE - it is truly a music publishing system.  

>Can there really be a better choice?  (I found out
>the hard way...  I bought two other programs first, 
>both worthless, for a total of $1200.  Ouch!)
>
I suppose it depends on the task - can FINALE extract parts from a complete
orchestral score as a copyist would do? Can the user make additions to
FINALE to accomodate special, non-conventional symbols? A potential buyer
needs to ask him/herself - what do I need a Music Notation Program to do?

I would be interested to hear from someone who has had experience with both
FINALE and SCORE; how do they compare?  

Be Well,

Moshe Denburg