At 1:27 PM +1000 7/10/05, Rocky Road wrote:
My school here in Sydney, Australia uses Finale, but this is because I like it and I introduced it here when we brought computers into the music department some years back (being head of music has its privileges :-) ). However, all around us, it seems to be all Sibelius. Most Music Technology and Music Education stores sell both, but only seem to push SIbelius. The nearest Music Education store regularly promotes Sibelius in their literature and technology training days (and the other Sibelius - linked products like Auralia). They are quite happy to sell you Finale products, but you usually have to ask specifically.
Let's not forget that this is also a matter of platform competition. Our (college) music department is 100% Mac, and always has been. We used to have a computer-assisted learning lab. Now, and for a number of years, incoming Freshmen are required to have Macs, encouraged to have iBooks that they can take to class, and required to have a certain suite of programs. (The Art Department also requires Macs, but most departments on campus including the entire College of Engineering and College of Business require Windows machines.) MakeMusic lost us as steady and reliable customers the year our incoming students had Macs with OS X, and Finale for OS X did not exist. This had absolutely nothing to do with marketing, and everything to do with a complete missreading of the market and a complete failure to provide a product that was needed but not available.
The history of our department, if anyone cares: We first adopted Professional Composer in about 1990, dreadful as it was. When MOTU replaced it with Mosaic we adopted that in about 1993 or 1994; steep learning curve for me, not a techno-geek in any way, but still the program I'm most comfortable with. Changed to Finale "because it was the industry standard" (now THAT was marketing hype!) in about 1998, and most students came to hate it except for the few who put the time into really learning it; they were also not techno-geeks, and simply couldn't figure out how to make it do what they needed. Were forced to drop Finale and adopted Sibelius the year Macs started shipping with OS X (2002??); much more positive student acceptance. When I say adopted, I mean that the school provided legal copies for all faculty members and required all music majors to purchase legal copies. Our department head (yes, there are definitely privileges!) is watching the market and would switch to a freeware or shareware program that can do what's needed in a second, if one ever comes along, to save our students and our department money. So far, it hasn't happened. And yes, playback is very, very important to students, although I have never used it myself.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
