John Howell wrote:
At 10:58 AM -0500 2/4/06, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on the impact Finale has made on
publishing music.
Let's not limit this to Finale. Computerized digital engraving, per se,
has made an enormous impact. It enables anyone who formerly would have
hand-copied music to turn out publisher-quality product, which has
probably turned the world of professional copyist shops upside down. In
the amateur world, it allows anyone to turn out good if not perfect
copy, just as digital music handling and MIDI allow anyone to get their
musical ideas performed. Whether this is an improvement is a separate
question.
Consider the number of "Finale-ized" pieces of various levels I've been
running across in the past few years. Some have been very nicely done,
good charts, made legible because of computer notation programs (some
coming from guys who used to do everything by hand, and had many members
of the band squinting and guessing a lot); some have looked great and
sounded terrible (I once went to a rehearsal where a friend of the
bandleader's had submitted several pieces he'd written - and he had no
experience or training or expertise in music - it was just "what he
heard in his head", and it showed; or other bands where I've seen
sloppy, non-tweaked but well-considered orchestrations plugged in just
because it was easier than writing them by hand. The good, the ugly,
and the bad, as it were.
All of these are side-effects of having programs like Finale and
Sibelius around. We now get a lot of pros like Bob Florence turning out
charts that are great, and that are (I hope) easier for him to get to
market because they're easier to print and read and publish; a lot of
amateurs turning our drivel that looks good but sounds awful, because
it's *easy*; and a lot of other stuff that's neither this nor that. A
mixed bag, entirely.
But getting Tom Kubis or Bob Florence or Tom Newsome charts that are
instantly readable and playable is a great advantage, even if you do
have to pay your dues by seeing all of the other stuff.
cd
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