Klarinet Archive - Posting 000517.txt from 2005/03

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] music notation software (rather OT)
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 06:39:38 -0500

Curtis Bennett wrote:

> If you want serious music notation software, I recommend Sibelius.
> It's professional grade stuff. It's easy to use, and can do absolutely
> anything musically that you want to do. Modern music, renaissance
> music, you name it. I used to use an old version of Cakewalk, and got
> frustrated because I couldn't do any tuple other than a triplet.
> Sibelius will let me do any tuplet I want, even tuplets within
> tuplets, which is weird, I admit, but it just shows you how powerful
> and flexible it is. It's not cheap though. The software runs around
> $700 last time I checked.
>
> Finale is also very popular, but the last time I used Finale
> (Admittedly several years ago, and probably multiple versions back),
> it was exceedingly difficult to use, and had a very clunky interface.

As far as I understand both Finale and Sibelius are very good, but
Finale is ultimately more flexible. It's been a long while since I used
Sibelius but I remember it as being rather "too clever by half": very
good at allowing you to easily follow the rules of music typesetting,
but not very easy if you wanted to break with tradition. I remember
being not-impressed by the first version of Sibelius for Windows, not
least since the manual gave the impression that they thought many of the
notations modern composers use were somehow silly. Finale by contrast
is less immediately user-friendly but much more powerful in terms of its
possibilities. (And yes, it can do the nested tuplets too!) I
currently use Finale though one of these days when I find the cash in my
pocket I will probably buy the latest version of Sibelius too (and keep
up to date with both).

To be honest I think the best thing is to try out both pieces of
software, try to push the envelope a bit in terms of copying out some
interesting modern pieces of music, and go with whatever feels right.

Igor looked like a very interesting piece of software but the last time
I looked it was nowhere near the development level of Finale or
Sibelius. If it ever gets fully off the ground, though, it will
probably be a serious contender.

To Rien---it's best if you explain what you want to notate with these
pieces of software. I don't know about Sibelius but Finale certainly
has a very active and helpful set of forums to ask questions. With all
these things it's difficult at first to get the hang of but if you
persevere (and ask the right people) it's easy to make progress.

-- Joe

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