Re: Finale, Sibelius, LilyPond, etc.

[ttraub <ttraub...>]

Yes, Finale has supported non-standard key signatures for many years.  Those
in doubt are advised to read the manual.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned abc as an alternative notation system.  It's
a very simple way to represent music as text; the software to display and print
it is a free download for several different operating systems, and it can do
the weird key signatures or so I've heard; I've not used it for that.  I took a
look at Lilypond and it sure looks like a variant of abc.  

For straightforward lead sheets, there's nothing simpler than abc that I've
found.  After some practice, one can render a tune in abc in a minute or so.
There are thousands of tunes scattered about the internet in abc format at this
point, and it's a de facto standard now.

Coda Software wants me to fork over $160 to upgrade to Finale 2003.  Having
done this several times I finally got tired of it.  Each new release is an
improvement, to be sure, but it means relearning a bunch of keystrokes and
working around new bugs.  I'm sticking with 2001 until Coda adds a feature I
can't live without, such as the ability to import and export abc files.

-Terry

R.A.S. (Richard) wrote:
ISTR that there actually is a way of using non-standard key sigs in Finale.
Sibelius, none at all (unless it's been added in V2 - I'm still using 1.4).
....

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