Sibelius lyrics compared (was RE: [Finale] Finale 2011 preordering?)
From what I can see, the new lyric features are more like playing catchup with Sibelius, although I can't make a side-by-side comparison. Infinite verses might better than Sibelius' limit of 5, for people doing hymn books. And the automatic melisma slurs MIGHT come in handy, if they can be turned off. But Sibelius can already switch fonts and sizes almost as easily. And ignoring punctuation and quotation marks might be a really tiny improvement, but handling verse numbers would be an even better one. Sibelius doesn't actually have a limit of 5 verses. Sibelius treats lyrics (and many elements) as text styles. What Sibelius does have is a default of 5 defined lyric text styles. You can define, quite easily, extra lyric styles. In addition to the 5 lyrics styles, there are also lyric chorus and a lyrics above the staff style available, either of which can be adjusted to be a sixth or seventh verse. I do a lot with hymns and find Sibelius to be a tad better than Finale, but I'm not thrilled with the alignment of verse numbers and lyrics at the beginning of a system in either program. Given the way the current melisma plug-in works in Finale and Sibelius, I sometimes find that doing it manually is more reliable. James Gilbert www.JamesGilbertMusic.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: Sibelius lyrics compared (was RE: [Finale] Finale 2011 preordering?)
At 1:31 PM -0400 5/26/10, James Gilbert wrote: Sibelius doesn't actually have a limit of 5 verses. Sibelius treats lyrics (and many elements) as text styles. What Sibelius does have is a default of 5 defined lyric text styles. You can define, quite easily, extra lyric styles. Thanks, James. There are MANY things in Sibelius that can be taken beyond the defaults, as I'm sure there are in any complex program. The problem is that you have to know (a) that you CAN do them, and then (b) HOW to do them. In the case of lyrics, it isn't a matter of style, but one of placement on the page, which is easy and automatic for the first 5 verses, but I never figured out how to add a 6th. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html We never play anything the same way once. Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
