Finale for Composers

Book excerpt: Much has changed with Finale since my first edition of "Finale for Composers". It has taken me several years to write this second edition. With a new version of Finale every year, it was difficult to stay current. In a nutshell, there are a now fewer tools, but the tools that remain are more powerful and perform multiple functions. No longer do you have to use two or three tools to accomplish a common task. You are able do the same thing more quickly and more efficiently with the same tool. You may even think that the tools have become smarter. Almost all tools now have contextual menus which change based on what is selected. You access these menus by right clicking if you have a two-button mouse or by option-clicking on the Mac. Commonly used functions such as changing the key or time signature can be easily accomplished with one right click on the mouse. The other major upgrade in Finale is the addition of the Garritan Instruments. No longer are you stuck with the wimpy QuickTime sounds nor do you have to connect to an external synthesizer. With each new edition, the playback has become better and better. After countless hours of using Finale, hundreds of phone calls from musicians asking for help in Finale, and numerous lectures in the classroom teaching Finale at Carnegie Mellon University, I finally took the advice of my many colleagues, clients, friends, and students and set out to write a book on Finale. But not just any book... a book that focuses on Finale as a tool for composers. In order to get the most out of this book, I would suggest that you have at least a basic knowledge of the workings of Finale. While I will cover the more elusive features, which many users may not know, I occasionally have omitted some of the more basic skills. These skills can be easily learned from the user guide. In the beginning, Coda created Finale and it was good. Well okay, it was good but very few people realized its potential at first. The interface was clunky with a different type of click needed to accomplish various tasks command-click for this, shift-click for that, and option-click for who remembers what. And the learning curve was steeper than Mount Everest, making it all the more appealing to me. I love a challenge and no program, no matter how difficult, was going to get the better of me. So after a few weeks of fooling around with the thing, reading all of the manuals, watching the video, and hours of trial and error, I became a Finale aficionado. From that point on, I jumped right in for every upgrade they offered. I even switched between Mac and PC a few times just for good measure and used it on everything from my old Mac SE/30 to my current 2.4 GHz Quad Core 2 Duo running Vista Ultimate 64 bit. I have used Finale to print everything from simple rhythmic patterns for Eurhythmics exercises to full-blown Symphonies and Operas that were performed by professional orchestras as well as everything in between. Finale has helped me when I needed to quickly arrange a hymn for my limited voice church choir, and has brought me enough clients to start a side business as a music copyist. You may have laughed earlier when I said that Finale has changed my life, but I believe that Finale has made all of these things possible for me. I would be at a very different place in my life if it were not for Finale. Now I would like to share my success in using Finale with you in this book so you can see what it can do for you.