Used by permission from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

If you create music in languages other than English, you probably have a good understanding of what Finale 2012’s Unicode font support offers. If not, perhaps the word “Unicode” is Greek to you. What does it offer those of us who don’t work in languages rich in diacritics and other mysterious characters?

Unicode support means that you can access any character in your font. If you’re still wondering what characters these might be, and how to do it, this blog is for you.

Try the following in Finale 2012 OR the free trial version of Finale 2012:

• Select the Text Tool and double-click anywhere in your score, as if you wanted to enter some text.
• From the Text menu choose Font, then specify a font, perhaps Times New Roman. Windows users also need to click “OK.”
• From the Text menu choose Inserts > Symbol. 

This produces a Symbol Selection box from which you can select a character (from your selected font) to insert into your score.

In Times New Roman, I see things like images that represent the various suits in a deck of cards, copyright, trademark, and other legal symbols, distant memories from math class, emoticons, pictures, shapes, and, well, stuff that’s Greek to me too. Note that any time you edit text in Finale you have access to these font characters through the text menu, so you can use these symbols in expressionsm, articulations, and anywhere else you wish.

Is this the only way to access these characters using Finale? Certainly not. Your computer's operating system provides alternative ways to view and access these characters, and you can also purchase language-specific keyboards that already have all the Greek (or other language) characters on them.

Are you accessing these characters? How? Share your experience by clicking on “Comments” below.
 

David Pogue is columnist for the New York Times, an author, and an Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent. He’s also the host of a new four-part PBS/Nova series called Making Stuff, and last week he appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to promote this new series.

It was on The Late Late Show that David made a startling admission.

David described how, many years ago, while working as a musical director on Broadway, he learned of some revolutionary software that would put notes on the page as you played a MIDI keyboard. While he couldn’t afford the software at the time, a computer newsletter editor suggested that if he contacted the manufacturer as a software reviewer, they might send it to him.

Yes, on national TV, David Pogue admitted to scamming his first copy of the ground-breaking music software, which was, of course, Finale! (Check out the above link starting around 6:58.)

Fortunately, that wasn’t the end of David’s association with Finale. He even admits as much on his website. David went on to write the Finale 3.0 manuals, and rumor has it that his 1995 novel, Hard Drive, was influenced by the time he spent with the eccentric staff of a certain Minnesota-based music software company.

While I was tickled to hear Finale described on The Late Late Show, I’m also really excited for David as Making Stuff is great fun and seems to be getting lots of good attention. I’ve crossed paths with David a few times over the years, and I’ve always found him to be a warm, funny guy. His casting in this series strikes me as a perfect example of “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

Check out Making Stuff, and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below.