Dennis wrote: "A score is a score."
Dennis, with all due respect, this is not the case. We ask scores to perform a variety of very different tasks -- prescriptive, descriptive, and analytical -- and do so in ways that are often contradictory. For example, the horizontal spacing of notes may refer strongly to their sequence, but weakly to their position and duration in chronological time, and the vertical positioning of pitches does not always indicate pitch height with precision (i.e. b# vs cb). With the advent of computer-based notation, the expectation that the score be coupled with some reasonably suggestive playback has become a common one, but what is a reasonable playback for a score with indeterminant elements? I believe that the expectation that a single program will do everything in order to be considered "mature" is a false one, and I'm happy to accept the fact that some tasks will require an alternative program. For example, Graphire Music Studio or Score would probably allow for a score like Refrain, while Lime does non-alligned meters very easily, including playback. Each program will have it's own premises and biases, and there will be tasks that are either awkward or impossible to perform within those restrictions. AFAICT, Finale has a data base-like structure with limited capacity to treat staves or systems as malleable graphic items or drop the verticle allignment of measures, but when I compose within such a structure, Finale does its work very well. I think, however, that there is a perfectly valid complaint to be made when a program does not exploit the full capacity of its own premises, for example, in not allowing "display a different time signature" to put a time signature with a non-power of two denominator in the score. The alternative meter on display is simply a fiction anyways, so there is nor reason that that fiction can't be even more fantastic.
Best, Daniel Wolf _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
