![]() But if I was COMPOSING this music from scratch, I would choose Sibelius. If I was just engraving the music I would choose Finale. In these examples, Finale is the clear winner to me. Is the final notation the main concern? Here are three samples of the same sheet music in Sibelius, Finale and Dorico: But for COMPOSERS, it seems that many prefer Sibelius for its ease of use. The bulk of Finale users also say that once you get past the steep learning curve that the software is ultimately fast and flexible. In my experience, Finale is the industry standard and used by the vast majority (if not all) of professional music engravers. So just like back in 2007, I once again hold my head in shame that I just can’t use Finale as my main notation software. Working with Finale, for me, is not just “unfun”, it’s physically painful with the bizarre combination of shortcut keys. I did all the Finale tutorials that came with the program, imported my Sibelius XML files to re-do them in Finale. Two weeks ago I decided to overcome my Finale shame and finally master the program. So that is how I have worked in professional entertainment for so many years without mastering Finale. But as music director I don’t have to create those scores, I just direct and play the music already engraved. ![]() My “day job” is usually as music director for professional shows and my experience has been that all the composer assistants and orchestrators use Finale. It seems every orchestrator uses Finale and also most of the Broadway composers (except Stephen Schwartz uses Sibelius and I also love his work). I do realize that the industry standard in professional shows for notation is Finale. Not only practical, but Sibelius is even fun to use. Sibelius was wonderful to use during those rigorous rehearsal schedules. All four musicals went to the stage and endured the critical crucible of endless score changes and song re-writes. For my creative process the decision was clear that Sibelius was the clear winner if I wanted to get any work done at all.įorward to 2021 and I’ve now scored four full-length musicals using Sibelius. I completed three song sketches in just the FIRST DAY working with Sibelius. I found Sibelius and bought a cross-grade from Finale. I was totally stymied by Finale and it destroyed my creative process to a standstill. After a full month I had written very little music. I bought Finale notation software and started to learn it and score my new musical. I’m very fast at typing so notation software was an easy switch in that regard.įast forward to 2007 when I was commissioned to write a musical. For me, notation software was a game-changer even back then because my handwriting is illegible in both hand print and music scoring. It was really tedious and buggy but I did manage to publish a book of piano pieces with that early software. My first notation software was back around 1989. Here are some of the reasons why I’m once again sticking with Sibelius (while also feeling ashamed). ![]() I’ve been using Sibelius since 2007 and I love it, while at the same time I feel a little shame that I haven’t mastered Finale. The endless debate on which notation software to use seems to now be centered on Finale vs. ![]()
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