Hi all, I teach a few courses in music technology for school educators (primary and secondary) at an Australian university. I am a long-term Finale user (13 years, v.3) and use Fin for all my engraving/publishing work.
I second everything Matthew has written. It appears to me that in the Australian classroom environment, the introduction of the "Worksheet Creator" (in Sib 4) seems to have clenched the Fin/Sib decision for most of the school-based educators (and training educators). (It doesn't seem to matter that Sib's worksheets are quite difficult to edit. Just the knowledge that they are there if they ever need a quick lesson plan...) Regarding the other educational software that has been released under the Sib banner (Auralia, Musition, Groovy Music etc.), the familiar interface and integration between packages is a persuading factor, for my (specialist music)student teachers at least. I can imagine that if I were a non-music specialist teacher and felt insecure about teaching music, Groovy Music would be a saviour. Finale's educational features are directed towards practical studies (considering 'Exercise Wizard', Fin Performance Assessment and Smart Music). School band programs are much bigger in the US and I can see these features being put to more productive use in these contexts. Though I know it does nothing for those of us who use Finale for engraving/composing in the short term, I think if Make Music were to look at becoming more competitive in the Australian market, they would need to develop something to rival 'worksheet creator'. (Of course we all hope they fix note spacing problems first.) Don't know about anyone else, but I find it heartening that two of the new 'features' in Sib 5 included an easier way to delete bars, and plugins that you can undo. Compared to that, are we really that bad off? Angela -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthew Hindson fastmail acct Sent: Monday, 27 August 2007 10:32 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Finale] Sibelius demo in the MD public schools > From: Lawrence David Eden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [Finale] Sibelius demo in the MD public schools > To: FinaleList <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > The boys from Sibelius ran a marketing demo for the General Music > teachers in the public schools. I teach Instrumental Music at 4 > elementary schools and did not see the demo, but EVERY general music > teacher I run into can't stop talking bout how cool Sibelius is. > > During my 30+ years of public school teaching, I have seen this kind > of thing before. Commodore used to dominate the educational > profession in my schools. They lost out to Apple, who in turn, lost > out to Dell. In each case, the newcomer was better at marketing and > more interested in cornering the market. > > Now I am seeing Sibelius stick it to Finale. I have not used > Sibelius, nor do I intend to, but I am concerned to see MakeMusic > take a back seat to any other notation software. On this list, I > hear mostly complaints about Finale. Why is MakeMusic willing to > take this kind of beating? For my purposes, (small ensembles), > Finale is just fine and I have no complaints. It used to be that I > could endorse Finale without reservation. Now, I am not so sure. > Is Sibelius as good as it appears to be? The marketing to education here in Australia has been extensive and fabulous, to the extent that Sibelius basically runs in every school and just about every University. It may prove to be a model of what is to come in the US if it hasn't already. Students use Sibelius in schools, then go home and buy it or use cracked copies. The cracked copies have basically negated any advantage offered by Finale Notepad. Through observation and anecdote, very few people in the education sector seem use Finale any more (though the ex-distributor tells me that the Finale sales in the last year were higher than ever, so maybe I'm wrong). The education sector is the beachhead to the wider community. Personally I find Sibelius difficult to use and am full of admiration for those who manage to scores with it. I still consider Finale to be a superior product than Sibelius in many ways, however the thousands of musicians/students/educators/composers who use Sibelius in this country prove me wrong every day. Matthew _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
