John Howell wrote:
At 12:56 PM +0100 8/22/04, Owain Sutton wrote:
David Hage wrote:
In my humble opinion it must be that 90% of Sibelius users never used a music notation program before
Unfortunately, simplicity sells.
Well of COURSE simplicity sells. Simplicity is also the hallmark of a mature technology. Simplicity means that anyone can pick it up and use it without worrying about how it works. (Not my original idea, by the way. The subject of an excellent editorial by Stan Schmidt in Analog a while back.) For a crude example, land-line telephony is a mature technology. Anyone can use it. You don't need expensive training. It works when your power goes out. Cell-phone technology is far from being mature, in part because the infrastructure does not yet exist. Cells can lose signal and leave the user frustrated and helpless.
Yet mobile phones are nonetheless selling, because they're filling a need. The recent fluff appearing in Finale isn't filling a need - it's desperately trying to create needs where none exist.
The power users on this mailing list--and I have enormous respect for them and their knowledge and skills--scoff at the idea of using Finale, or any program, right out of the box, but I submit that the expectation of using something right out of the box is a legitimate expectation and, again, the mark of a mature technology. I expect to plug in a new refrigerator or range and start using it. I don't expect to have to reprogram it because the default settings selected by the engineers who designed it aren't what they should be. *Obviously music notation technology is not yet mature.*
Excellent point. No music notation software has an intuitive interface. I can't conceive of what an intuitive interface would involve. It's a huge challenge for any company. Once again, Finale seems to be tackling this by the 'fluff' route, rather than really working out what non-computer-comfortable people really find awkward about the present interface. (For example, note- versus measure-attached expressions - everyone here knows their different function and usage, but it's thoroughly confusing for newcomers). I know one person who nearly gave up on Finale almost immediately in frustration, until I explained the difference between two identical icons (the Simple Entry and Eight Note buttons).
And many people don't identify the limitations of the software, but rather they work within it (several times I've heard "I wanted to do XYZ but Sibelius wouldn't let me" from university-level composers).
Isn't it just a little disingenuous to talk about not identifying the limitations of the software, when the annual rants about Finale's bugs and failure to fix them and what the new program won't do and what needs to be made up for by third-party programmers and so on is in full hue and cry? I find it interesting that Composer's Mosaic does many things quickly and easily that Finale users are still struggling with, even though Mosaic's list of things it can NOT do is plenty long. The fact is that Finale can NOT do everything, and maybe that's true of any software. So the fact that Sibelius or other programs can not do everything either may be true, but is almost irrelevant. At this point in history you have to pick your deficiencies and live with them. But the fact is that for a huge base of those who use music notation programs, the basics are all you need, and anything beyond the basics is awfully nice to have AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T COMPLICATE THE PROGRAM AND MAKE IT HARDER TO USE! Lots of church musicians and others get a lot of functionality out of Noteworthy Composer, limitations or not, and the price is right.
The rants are only from the small minority who discuss such things here, not from the silent (and oblivious) majority.
My comment on limitations applies to all notation software. Indeed to all software full-stop - eg why do most people still use Internet Explorer? Because they don't know what they're missing.
Finale needs to have *extra* attractiveness than Sibelius for first-time users, when at the minute it's well behind. Despite it's greater capabilities (I've picked up engraving jobs which were turned down by Sibelius users as 'not possible').
And that's a great short statement of the present problem. MM appears to be doing exactly that with the fluff for casual users, as a number of people have pointed out. Which suggests that the power users on this list are NOT their marketing base--or that their marketing department has decided this is true, whether it is or not.
Power users are only a small part of their direct income, which seems to be all the marketing dept consider. They don't consider that such people tend to be more influential than most - eg composition professors who have the final decision over what software to select for a site licence purchase.
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