When I received my copy of Finale 2009 last week I was anxious to get started on doing an in depth review of it. Now that I have had a few days to kick it around I am confident I can give you a preliminary review of the newest music notation software product from MakeMusic. One that is not without its ups and downs.
While it is often the case that software vendors will release a new version before all of the companion products are ready, I had hoped that one of my most anticipated new features of Finale 2009 would be bug free. For me, the new easy export of full scores to SmartMusic accompaniment files would have been the single most important reason for me to buy the upgrade. In truth, the export of the file was incredibly easy and dozens of times easier to do than the old Finale 2008 method. As a band director wanting to create assessment files for an entire band of instruments, my frustration with the old method often left me giving up and forgoing the use of SmartMusic to assess those custom exercises and etudes. As mentioned, exporting such documents is no longer a problem with Finale 2009. The problem is that SmartMusic CAN'T READ THEM YET! (Note: See UPDATE at bottom of article)
After saving out a new SmartMusic file and trying to open it in the most recent version of SmartMusic I was greeted with the error message that I needed to upgrade SmartMusic and that my accompaniment file could not be used until I did so. Umm... I just downloaded the newest version of SmartMusic... After a few minutes on the SmartMusic tech support line I was assigned a case number and was told I would be contacted shortly with a solution. An hour later I did indeed receive this reply:
As of now, the most recent version of SmartMusic will not open custom files exported from Finale 2k9. The engine for creating these files changed too much for Finale 2k9 to be supported by SmartMusic 10.2 or earlier. SmartMusic 11, which we anticipate to release in early Fall of 2008, will be able to support these files. Until then, you can export these custom files with your copy of 2k8. To get the custom files you created in 2k9 to open in 2k8, export them as XML files in 2k9 and open the .xml file in 2k8.
Well... Isn't that nice... School starts in three weeks... Think it will be done by then?
I must confess that of all the fiddling around I have done with the new Finale 2009 so far this has been the only sticking point I have run across. The other new features of the program are nice improvements and I still think the upgrade is worth it, but for those of us that really want to use SmartMusic files without having to jump through hoops to get them to work, I guess we will have to wait a while longer.
I'll be posting a more in depth review of Finale 2009 in the coming days. Until then you may also want to check out a new review of The Finale Projects by Tom Carruth, an excellent tutorial/textbook for Finale users.
The new version of SmartMusic has shipped and does indeed work very well with the new file formats used by Finale 2009. However, after playing with the software for much longer I have to say that although the export of SmartMusic files is much easier in Finale 2009 than in previous versions, it is still not as intuitive as it could be. Getting a piece of music to display on the screen still requires saving two seperate files, one for the user to view and one for the accompaniment.
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I make this claim because in western countries musical standards are at an all time low.
Children are leaving school without the ability to follow a simple chord sequence or clap their hands in time.
Too many computer games and too much rubbish on television.
The children are also let down by either very bad music teachers or no music teachers at all.
I could teach any child of average intelligence the entire flat and sharp keys in 15 minutes and that would .get them an elementary qualification.
Why isn?t this being done? I don?t know do you?
I could possibly teach you in less than 5mins on the telephone;
Do you know all the different music keys? Or like everyone else are you musically ignorant?
Recently I have started uploading training files to audiosparx that are free to listen to.
One of them is a Chromatic Training tape that will teach most people to sing a chromatic scale in under a week. Do you know anyone who can sing a chromatic scale? (Apart from a professional musician).
I don?t know of anyone .People could do this. The Victorians could.
This training aid was written by Bizet who wrote Carmen so it is top notch.
Children?s mobile phones could be used to teach them music, their ringtone could teach them almost everything.
Being able to sing a chromatic scale correctly is almost degree standard in music and using my training aid has a ringtone would teach them.
Almost anything could be turned into a ringtone .
Unfortunately I think the world wants to stay musically stupid and so the days of songwriters like George Gershwin is over. This goes to prove not all evolution is the selection of the fittest.
Peter Baxter
http://www.audiosparx.com/petebax
I regretfully agree with Peter (double negative) translation Peter is right.
The art of music in the 19th century became the 20th century music business. In the 21st century music has become a game. The audience for jazz and classical music in small and large cities has died. Close the concert halls no one cares what or who Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Wagner, is/are.
My band does classic swing. 15 years ago I could not afford to hire A class musicians; today they begging to work with me if I had any work to do. The legendary bands and orchestras play to empty rooms. It is indeed the start of the lowest moments in music history.
www.danbradleybigband.com
I'm not sure how you're coming to this conclusion. What are you doing where you actually select a separate file? You should be able to easily make a SmartMusic file with both accompaniment and notation all from one Finale file. At first I thought maybe you had to have linked parts, but that doesn't even appear to be the case, so I can't figure out what you're seeing.