I am often surprised how many times I have run across a client that either does not know about, or just doesn’t use the main tool palette context menus.  These are the menus that you can get to by right-clicking (ctrl-click on Mac) on a highlighted measure.

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The hardcopy of the Finale User Manual is an unwieldy beast of a document. Weighing in at just over 5 pounds, it is 982 pages of 2up printing totaling 1,964 pages of Finale documentation.  What a monster!

I know that there are many of you whom, like myself, prefer to have a hardcopy of manuals so that we may read them as we would read a great novel. Unfortunately, the mammoth size of this manual relegates it to the bedside table. This is one peripheral that you won’t be whipping out on the plane during that overnight to Bangladesh!

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Just received the new Finale 2008 book - Finale 2008: A Trailblazer Guide

I will write up  a review once a have a chance to go through it.

From what I have seen already the book looks great!

There is a fantastic thread over at the Finale Windows Forum discussing the different ways that people proof their scores before submission or first rehearsal. (there are even handouts!!)

Personally, having lived with the tune for as long as it takes me to arrange or compose, I print everything out (score and parts) and go over each measure of each staff line with a red pen.  I don’t single out a specific items, but instead focus on the measure as a whole.  I will then go back into Finale, make my corrections and repeat the process on screen at around 200% zoom.

I will never start my final proofing until I am completely satisfied with the layout before I start my finale proofing.

There are two ways to create pickup measures within Finale - the easy way, and the right way.

The easy way is of course to use the Pickup Measure Option located under the Document Menu.

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Some positive information regarding SmartMusic - the other product that MakeMusic creates.

Make Music Press Release

Continued SmartMusic success can only help Finale!

If you haven’t had a chance to check out SmartMusic you really should.

It is a fantastic product, especially for younger students.

 Let’s face it, midi devices and their drivers are mysterious enough as it is - they don’t need any help in order to act strange or to flat-out not work at all.

So, if you use a midi device while using Finale, I recommend connecting it directly to your computers USB port - not through a USB hub. I have looked through some of the major midi manufacturer’s support sites for information regarding this subject - but of course most are very vague. All of them claim that the device will work and offer no trouble-shooting methods whatsoever.

Here is what led me on this quest:

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With the introduction of Linked Parts in Finale 2007, MakeMusic changed their philosophy behind how Finale fundamentally handles parts in relation to a score. One of the best changes ever to Finale - yes. The problem was that they didn’t let anyone know just how much they had changed the normal work-flow of Finale. MakeMusic had made a mistake and they knew it. How can we tell that MakeMusic knows they made a mistake? They acknowledged it with the release of 2008 and the little piece of paper that was slipped in with the upgrade discs. Much like the introduction of Linked Parts, the combining of the Mass Edit Tool and Selection Tool was no trivial matter. But, unlike the release of 2007, MakeMusic was quick to explain the how and why they made the change. With Linked Parts there was no piece of paper. We got an upgrade and a list of new features. They did not let the user know that extracting parts would no longer work as it had for the past decade. To this day - over a year and some months since the release of Linked Parts - we still get questions from clients about missing multi-measure rests and added measures that are a reduced size. We were glad to see the piece of paper explaining the selection tool change. We were glad to see MakeMusic not only listening, but responding.

Here are the few important points that we use when dealing with parts in Finale 2007 and 2008 - we’ll call it the philosophy of Linked Parts:

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