In 1988 or 89 two friends and I wangled NAMM passes through a local music store in Edmonton. We had been using DMCS and Professional Composer and getting frustrated with their limitations and bugs. We were hanging around a booth, might have been MOTU, when a guy approached us and asked if we would like to see a new notation program. We went up to a suite and got a demo from Phil Farrand, the original genius behind Finale. He was mostly pumped about showing us the real time transcription features but we could see the notation potential was far ahead of what we were using. We ordered three copies for the music store (don’t think we had any authority to do that) and bought them from the store as soon as they arrived, which wasn’t very long. We all had 000xxx three-digit serial numbers, which we still have today with the addition of some letters and zeros. As soon as we got our hands on Finale we dove right into a publishing project and learned on the go. We’ve used it ever since, and marvel at how powerful and (comparatively) easy to use the program has become. All of our publications at ApRo Music have been self published using Finale, dating back to 1989.
As a Start Trek Next Generation fan, I was fascinated a few years later to learn than Phil Farrand was the author of The Nitpickers Guide for Next Generation Trekkers and a few subsequent volumes. A man of many and varied interests, apparently. Doubt that any of Phil’s code remains, but the program is still obviously the child of that demo we saw back then. Brian Appleby > On Jul 13, 2016, at 11:28 AM, David Froom <[email protected]> wrote: > > Another since-v.1 user here. Prior to that, I tried using MOTU Professional > Composer. I still have a score that used MOTU for notes only, and I drew in > slurs, dynamics, articulations by hand (which I was OK with because I’m of > the generation that had a Pelikan fountain pen with a music nib, a set of > raised rulers, and an electric eraser). I amuse my students by telling them > that when I moved to from LA to NYC in 1979 to start a doctorate program, one > could still find employment in downtown LA or midtown NYC in a room full of > music scribes, all with pen and ink, dutifully writing out scores and parts > for shows, bands, commercials, and the few composers who were getting big > orchestral performances. We used to get our onion-skin paper and bring in the > finished scores for blue-print printing at Circle Blue Print in NYC, Alpheus > (which became Judy Green Music) in LA. Judy Green also had all the best paper > and pencils (with double-sized erasers) and general supplies (pens, nibs, > ink, special rulers). > > Then Finale! Did v.1 come out in 1988? Even on a Mac Plus, (files on one > floppy, programs on the other — remember the repeated disk swapping?), and > pre smart shapes (when you had to generate each slur as an independent > graphic), and tiny computer screens, it was worth the effort — if only > because fixing mistakes was faster, and, with enough fussing, you could get > something that actually looked pretty good! I think it was finally around > the mid 1990s that Finale became faster than doing it by hand. > > David Froom > >> On 13 Jul 2016, at 1:00 PM, <[email protected]> >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Same as Dennis here--around 1989, quit MusicPrinter plus and got Finale >>> 2.x for my 386 computer . Strayed a couple of times along the way and now >>> 80% Finale, 20% Sibelius. >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone, so please pardon all the typos. >>> >>>> On Jul 13, 2016, at 12:39 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Wed, July 13, 2016 12:35 pm, Chuck Israels wrote: >>>>> Don?t know if there are others here with the same history, but I have >>> used >>>>> Finale since v.1.0. Nevertheless, there are a number of others whose >>>>> knowledge of the program runs considerably deeper than mine, including >>> the >>>>> always reliable Christopher Smith. >>>> >>>> Indeed! I didn't start with version 1 because there was no Windows >>> version >>>> until version 2. >>>> >>>> Dennis >>>> > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: > [email protected] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: [email protected]
