Finale is dead. Long live MUSIC (notation)!
There has been a lot of buzz on social media and elsewhere among folks part of the same little niche club I belong to—that of “contemporary composition” (could be other names for the club…happy to hear suggestions)—re. the recent announcement by MakeMusic (formerly Coda Music Technologies) that their premiere music notation software ‘Finale’ would no longer be updated or sold, thus signalling its death via OS upgrades and lack of availability and support. It also seems (or seemed) that authorizing it on new computers, even if equipped with a compatible OS, would be impossible after a year or two, though that might change or has already changed, and it could be available indefinitely to those who have compatible computers.
My first reaction was…WOW. I began using Finale around 1991-92, close to the time of its creation, and have used it ever since as my primary tool for creating musical scores/parts/etc. I’ve resisted changing to other tools like Sibelius, Dorico, etc., because Finale worked fine for me, I knew it well, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, etc. I’ve spent hours and hours using it, can do most things I need to do with short cuts off the top of my head, and have been confident in figuring out how to do things I didn’t know how to do quickly thanks to the interwebs.
My second reaction was…oh well. I guess I’ll need to find a different tool to use in the next couple years. Until then, I’ll keep using Finale, create .pdf’s of all the scores/parts I want to save (I’ve already saved most of my scores/parts as .pdf’s), maybe even print out hard copies of scores I want to be sure I have (I used to do this automatically when it was still common to share physical copies of scores/parts with others for performances, competitions, and applications), and then move on with learning a new notation tool (likely Dorico [?]). I’m sure there are others even less worried about this announcement than me—those who don’t use Finale, for example :). But why doesn’t it bother me more?
Here are a few bullet-pointed thoughts as to why I’m not so bothered by this, in no particular order:
Software comes and goes—I’m not sure it’s reasonable or useful to expect a particular digital, computer-based tool or format to be available indefinitely.
In other realms (like digital audio) I’ve become used to using multiple different software tools (Logic, ProTools, Reaper, Audacity, Max, etc.) in combination to accomplish particular goals—perhaps I’ll have to start taking that approach with notation (I’ve already downloaded MuseScore so I could use it with some of my students’ compositions).
My music isn’t in high demand or really that important :) —it’s not that I don’t take it seriously, or that I don’t want my music to be in demand, but the truth is that once a piece of mine is premiered and receives a few additional performances (if I’m lucky), it often ends there…AND if anyone or any ensemble wants to perform an older piece of mine, well, I can email them the .pdfs, whether Finale is alive or dead. WHAT IF I NEED TO REVISE A PIECE OR UPDATE PARTS OR…who cares :) just play it as is, or change whatever notes you want, or ok maybe I’ll pay someone to enter my score into Dorico or MuseScore or whatever :). I think the very small and likely diminishing number of people who care about or want to perform or experience my music will be able to figure out how to do it.
I’m all about revising my music as part of the composition process—a big part of this is going from the pencil score (usually one excerpt/section at a time) to the computer-engraved version, during which process I make changes and updates according to my intuition. THEN, once I hear the first performance of a piece, there might be a few tweaks I make to it based on that practical, physical experience. THEN, done. Usually. That’s enough…anything else that seems problematic can be dealt with in my next piece…learn from it, move on. Blah blah. If .pdf’s don’t die, I’ll be ok.
It seems like some people are upset with MakeMusic about how they ended (?) or perhaps even why they ended (?) or (?)…they may have more insights than me, but I don’t think MakeMusic wanted to go out of business :) or did it to spite composers…so…maybe they made mistakes in their business model, or the MakeMusic fat cats were living hedonistic yacht-partying lives while exploiting their code writers and ignoring changes in the industry, or whatever, but…it happens.
Finale is just a music notation tool. There are others out there now just as good or better. There have been other notation tools in the past. Musicians/artists have always found a way to use the tools at hand to create their music/art, and will continue to do so…and in some cases NEW tools will be created because musicians/artists don’t have the tools they want/need so they invent/create/improve/refine them. Blah blah.
What about AI? I’ve been hearing how AI tools are revolutionizing coding and making it faster and easier…perhaps some sort of AI interface with a Lillypond-like code-based notation environment will make flexible, code-based notation a possibility for even those with little-to-no code-writing skills.
I have fond memories of my undergrad days at BYU, including learning Finale and notating my scores with it in the Harold B. Lee Library Learning Resource Center (LRC), then on the 2nd floor, South side of the library. I was the annoying, lazy friend that rather than read the manual sat next to Chris Brady, Thom Herlin, David Long, and others, and constantly asked “hey, how do you do this?” Perhaps learning Dorico, or MuseScore, or something else will help me create new happy memories with new friends. Or the interwebs will help.
Of course there is also handwritten musical script…something I’ve occasionally used out of requirement or necessity, but never felt naturally adept at. I remember studying in England and beginning to create the first draft of my dissertation piece Leave Song late in 1999 for a performance early in 2000. I had my rough pencil score done with crossed out bars, inserted pages, eraser marks, etc., ready to recopy into a more polished score. Because I was using a variety of less-conventional techniques, including passages that had some instruments with no barlines and others with barlines, and then a general ebb-and-flow from metered to non-metered passages, etc., I assumed it would be easier for me to notate the score and parts by hand. I went to a local copy shop and had pages and pages of custom A3 manuscript paper copied with 9 staff lines per system and two systems per page, landscape format. I sat down at my table in my small King’s College London studio apartment with the rough pencil score to the left, and the stack of blank manuscript pages in front of me, sharpened pencils close by, ready to dig in. I wrote a few clefs on the first page, which took a while, and then put the pencil down and just stared at that page…a sinking feeling in my stomach coming on and growing…until finally I said to myself I’LL FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS ALL IN FINALE. :) And I did.
So…I’ll find a new computer-based notation tool and start/keep using it, until the next one. I do occasionally mix music notation from a computer program with hand-drawn symbols/graphics/etc., as in some of the sections of my piece Grenzen der Kontrolle:
Score page for first section of Grenzen der Kontrolle
And I occasionally dabble in creating verbal scores, like this opening section of Ontology of Plastic Reverberation:
First page of Ontology of Plastic Reverberation
My condolences to my friends and colleagues lamenting the death of Finale. We’ll get through this…music and music notation live on, life finds a way, etc.
