I have been using Finale for about a year. I compose by putting notes with a mouse. Just spare the masochist jokes, please. I do like working that way for the control.
But over time I have come to want things that don't seem to be there. My wants are not extravagant. First, I wish there was a clean up tool. That is, I often have notes unfilled left over in bars. [ok, cue the beer jokes - if a composer walked into a bar...] I wish that I could press an un used notes button and clean them up. Another thing is that Finale does not check arpeggios. I have not updated and will not; Finale took features such a pdf import away and sure as hell I ain't paying money to take away features.
I spent my days composing. If you think of people who write all day, well that is me but with notes. I tried Sibelius once and its GUI just drove me bonkers. That is one thing good about Finale that for the moment keeps me there; its GUI is pretty clear to me. I am not a Finale expert. Have I missed the above features? Or should I look for another notation program for composing? Worth saying that I don't use a lot of the bells and whistles in Finale.
Finale is acting against my aims as a composer
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 70 posts since 29 May, 2016
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- KVRist
- 286 posts since 9 Jun, 2015
Writing a note in piano roll and in notation software is the same thing. The difference is that in piano roll you don't describe notes, but you change velocity and use articulations from sound library and describe them that way.
The difference between a novel, book, and a bunch of written notes is this:
A person who has no talent at writing can read a good book.
A person who is musically deaf can't read notes because his/her brain can't "decipher" pitches to create needed harmony,
basically to be able to hear notes/music correctly and to interpret notes.
If all humans had perfect pitch and could "decipher" notes in their head by reading notes, then we would write notes on pieces of paper all the time and "communicate" that way too and writing notes and reading them would be taught in regular schools too.
But since that's not the case, sheets of music remain to be "archive" of music, how it should be performed.
Because all of this, unless you are a composer whose pieces will be performed, spending time writing notes in notation software is nothing but a pointless and massive waste of time.
Music should be heard, presented. You are free to live in your delusion how you are a serious composer who is "actually" writing "serious" notes, but go into FL Studio's piano roll, click notes with your mouse+keyboard, create another "Fur Elise", export MIDI, import it in notation software and if your piece is that much good, you'll find at least 20 people online who will help you for free to transcribe it and to write correct notes in notation software, because people are like that.
So, it's up to you, will you keep wasting your time or doing something that actually makes sense
The difference between a novel, book, and a bunch of written notes is this:
A person who has no talent at writing can read a good book.
A person who is musically deaf can't read notes because his/her brain can't "decipher" pitches to create needed harmony,
basically to be able to hear notes/music correctly and to interpret notes.
If all humans had perfect pitch and could "decipher" notes in their head by reading notes, then we would write notes on pieces of paper all the time and "communicate" that way too and writing notes and reading them would be taught in regular schools too.
But since that's not the case, sheets of music remain to be "archive" of music, how it should be performed.
Because all of this, unless you are a composer whose pieces will be performed, spending time writing notes in notation software is nothing but a pointless and massive waste of time.
Music should be heard, presented. You are free to live in your delusion how you are a serious composer who is "actually" writing "serious" notes, but go into FL Studio's piano roll, click notes with your mouse+keyboard, create another "Fur Elise", export MIDI, import it in notation software and if your piece is that much good, you'll find at least 20 people online who will help you for free to transcribe it and to write correct notes in notation software, because people are like that.
So, it's up to you, will you keep wasting your time or doing something that actually makes sense
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- KVRAF
- 7795 posts since 28 Apr, 2013
This is perhaps the most bombastic thing I've read for awhile on KVR.brainzistor wrote:Writing a note in piano roll and in notation software is the same thing. The difference is that in piano roll you don't describe notes, but you change velocity and use articulations from sound library and describe them that way. The difference between a novel, book, and a bunch of written notes is this: A person who has no talent at writing can read a good book. A person who is musically deaf can't read notes because his/her brain can't "decipher" pitches to create needed harmony, basically to be able to hear notes/music correctly and to interpret notes. If all humans had perfect pitch and could "decipher" notes in their head by reading notes, then we would write notes on pieces of paper all the time and "communicate" that way too and writing notes and reading them would be taught in regular schools too. But since that's not the case, sheets of music remain to be "archive" of music, how it should be performed. Because all of this, unless you are a composer whose pieces will be performed, spending time writing notes in notation software is nothing but a pointless and massive waste of time. Music should be heard, presented. You are free to live in your delusion how you are a serious composer who is "actually" writing "serious" notes, but go into FL Studio's piano roll, click notes with your mouse+keyboard, create another "Fur Elise", export MIDI, import it in notation software and if your piece is that much good, you'll find at least 20 people online who will help you for free to transcribe it and to write correct notes in notation software, because people are like that. So, it's up to you, will you keep wasting your time or doing something that actually makes sense
And very much wrong. Many are much more literate than you realize.
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- KVRAF
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
brainzistor wrote:Writing a note in piano roll and in notation software is the same thing. The difference is that in piano roll you don't describe notes, but you change velocity and use articulations from sound library and describe them that way.
The difference between a novel, book, and a bunch of written notes is this:
A person who has no talent at writing can read a good book.
A person who is musically deaf can't read notes because his/her brain can't "decipher" pitches to create needed harmony,
basically to be able to hear notes/music correctly and to interpret notes.
If all humans had perfect pitch and could "decipher" notes in their head by reading notes, then we would write notes on pieces of paper all the time and "communicate" that way too and writing notes and reading them would be taught in regular schools too.
But since that's not the case, sheets of music remain to be "archive" of music, how it should be performed.
Because all of this, unless you are a composer whose pieces will be performed, spending time writing notes in notation software is nothing but a pointless and massive waste of time.
Music should be heard, presented. You are free to live in your delusion how you are a serious composer who is "actually" writing "serious" notes, but go into FL Studio's piano roll, click notes with your mouse+keyboard, create another "Fur Elise", export MIDI, import it in notation software and if your piece is that much good, you'll find at least 20 people online who will help you for free to transcribe it and to write correct notes in notation software, because people are like that.
So, it's up to you, will you keep wasting your time or doing something that actually makes sense
Dude, you just dropped the musical equivalent of "This is America, speak english motherf**ker!"
Maybe there's more to life than the way you choose to experience it. Don't be a gatekeeper.
Anyway, OP, you might want to consider posting this in the Hosts forum or somewhere else to get better responses, as this doesn't really fall under the Instruments category.
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- KVRAF
- 21196 posts since 8 Oct, 2014
Wow...Just wow.
To the OP, I too use Finale. Yes, it has its quirks. There are things I wish it was more intuitive with. But for the most part, it's the best piece of software for doing what it does. I've been using it to write anthems for our choir for about 4 years now. No, it's not perfect. But I've learned to live with the few things it does that tend to annoy me a bit.
Ironically, the worst part of Finale is the MIDI import. If you have a piano part that's all played under middle C, even though you're playing the bass line with your left hand and the chords with your right hand, Finale will place all the notes in the bass clef and without the proper stem orientation. Fixing this is a royal PITA.
Still, there is nothing else I'd rather use. Just keep working with it. Read the manual. Do the exercises. If you really enjoy writing music then this won't be a chore for you. Over time, Finale became fairly easy to use with minimal trouble, depending on what it is you're doing.
Just try to avoid importing MIDI files.
It isn't pretty.
To the OP, I too use Finale. Yes, it has its quirks. There are things I wish it was more intuitive with. But for the most part, it's the best piece of software for doing what it does. I've been using it to write anthems for our choir for about 4 years now. No, it's not perfect. But I've learned to live with the few things it does that tend to annoy me a bit.
Ironically, the worst part of Finale is the MIDI import. If you have a piano part that's all played under middle C, even though you're playing the bass line with your left hand and the chords with your right hand, Finale will place all the notes in the bass clef and without the proper stem orientation. Fixing this is a royal PITA.
Still, there is nothing else I'd rather use. Just keep working with it. Read the manual. Do the exercises. If you really enjoy writing music then this won't be a chore for you. Over time, Finale became fairly easy to use with minimal trouble, depending on what it is you're doing.
Just try to avoid importing MIDI files.
It isn't pretty.
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- KVRAF
- 2279 posts since 9 Jun, 2002 from East of Santa Monica
You might at least explore some of the other options. That way if you find they're not to your liking, at least you looked at the alternatives. If you don't, you'll always wonder (Or worse, years from now, you'll discover that Dorico/Notion/? fits the bill a lot better and you wasted years on the wrong product).
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- KVRian
- 513 posts since 26 Nov, 2009
Demo the other popular and unpopular programs.
I think that Finale is still the most advanced featurewise for graphical representation (unless you are after ethnic microtonal music - Mus2 will do the job here), but it's not a handy software for composing really (not that the other alternatives are much better).
I think that Finale is still the most advanced featurewise for graphical representation (unless you are after ethnic microtonal music - Mus2 will do the job here), but it's not a handy software for composing really (not that the other alternatives are much better).
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- KVRAF
- 11093 posts since 16 Mar, 2003 from Porto - Portugal
I don't get what you want.trampofnine wrote: My wants are not extravagant. First, I wish there was a clean up tool. That is, I often have notes unfilled left over in bars. [ok, cue the beer jokes - if a composer walked into a bar...] I wish that I could press an un used notes button and clean them up. Another thing is that Finale does not check arpeggios. I have not updated and will not; Finale took features such a pdf import away and sure as hell I ain't paying money to take away features.
Deleting notes (I presume it's what you are talking about). Finale does that, You just have to select the rubber tool and click over the notes. Beware that Finale does not replace the notes by rests - it simply drags the music the music to replace the rests. To replace the notes by rests, you have to select the corresponding rests and click over the notes.
Checking arpeggios: Finale plays arpeggios. What exactly do you mean?
Fernando (FMR)
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- KVRAF
- 5564 posts since 13 Jan, 2005 from the bottom of my heart
OP thinks that Finale is a notation program without the feature to delete notes! Gosh! 
Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.
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- Rad Grandad
- 38044 posts since 6 Sep, 2003 from Downeast Maine
c'mon marnau that's not what we should be about, no reason to insult the op by mocking him. 
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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- KVRAF
- 11093 posts since 16 Mar, 2003 from Porto - Portugal
Well, on behalf of the OP, things may get confusing sometimes with Finale. For example, when deleting notes, after we select the rubber (eraser) tool, several things may happen. For example, when we have a chord, if we want to delete just one note, keeping the others, we can do that, but we have to be VERY PRECISE while pointing to the note. A little out of that, and the eraser deletes the entire chord.
The workaround is temporarily zoom in the file by a really big factor (we can do this quickly by hitting Ctrl and + keys). If we have just one note and delete it, Finale does not replace the note with a rest, leaving the rest untouched (as we are used in sequencers). Instead, it drags the remaining notes in the bar to fill the empty space. So, if we want to delete a note but leave the others where they are, instead of using the eraser, we have to select the corresponding pause symbol and click over the note.
Regarding the arpeggio. It is one of the "articulation tools". The problem is that, when we select the articulation tools, apparently nothing happens - only the cursor changes. We have to point to the notes that we want to affect, and click over. Then, magically, a box opens, showing the entire list of articulations (which can be quite big). From then on it's pretty intuitive, IMO - as long as we can find the articulation we want, which may take time, until we learn where they are in the list.
Anyway, all the notation programs I tried had idiosyncrasies, and Finale is still the most versatile I know.
The workaround is temporarily zoom in the file by a really big factor (we can do this quickly by hitting Ctrl and + keys). If we have just one note and delete it, Finale does not replace the note with a rest, leaving the rest untouched (as we are used in sequencers). Instead, it drags the remaining notes in the bar to fill the empty space. So, if we want to delete a note but leave the others where they are, instead of using the eraser, we have to select the corresponding pause symbol and click over the note.
Regarding the arpeggio. It is one of the "articulation tools". The problem is that, when we select the articulation tools, apparently nothing happens - only the cursor changes. We have to point to the notes that we want to affect, and click over. Then, magically, a box opens, showing the entire list of articulations (which can be quite big). From then on it's pretty intuitive, IMO - as long as we can find the articulation we want, which may take time, until we learn where they are in the list.
Anyway, all the notation programs I tried had idiosyncrasies, and Finale is still the most versatile I know.
Fernando (FMR)
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- KVRAF
- 1724 posts since 31 Dec, 2004 from betwixt
If it's not music you made with instruments you fashioned from your own organs or from material in and on the Earth then it's fake.
Fake Music! SAD!
Fake Music! SAD!
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- KVRAF
- 1626 posts since 21 Sep, 2007 from USA
I have Sibelius 7 and the latest Finale; I actually prefer Sibelius. MuseScore is actually not too shabby, once you get familiar with the workflow (although I suppose that can be said for most music software). However, when it comes to music composition, Pizzicato Pro, hands down, has the best tools.
Regarding the deletion of individual notes from a chord, is it not possible to use the keyboard to select an individual note in the chord and then press the delete (or backspace) key?
Regarding the deletion of individual notes from a chord, is it not possible to use the keyboard to select an individual note in the chord and then press the delete (or backspace) key?
[Core i7 8700 | 32GB DDR4 | Win11 x64 | Studio One 6 Pro | FL Studio ASIO/WASAPI ]
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- KVRist
- 300 posts since 5 Jun, 2017 from Los Angeles
I started using Finale since 1996 on regular basis. Around 4 years ago I had to work with Sibelius for work and it took me a week to completely drop Finale and never looked back. It's not that Sibelius is a more powerful program or anything like that... For me it was just the way it looks and adapts to my workflow.
