MakeMusic CEO Karen van Lith

Juan Costello, senior analyst for the Wall Street Reporter, recently interviewed MakeMusic CEO Karen van Lith.

In addition to highlighting our Finale, SmartMusic and Garritan products, the investor-focused conversation covers:

• Recent corporate developments and partnerships,
• Karen’s perspective on future education and technology trends,
• MakeMusic’s advantages in the marketplace,
• Karen’s background and experience in transforming companies, and much more.

If you’ve ever been curious to hear about the business strategy behind MakeMusic, this is a great opportunity to hear it directly from the top.

Take a listen to the interview here: http://www.wallstreetreporter.com/2012/05/make-music-nasdaqmmus-ceo-interview and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below.

Today’s blog post is admittedly a lot like an ad, but it does answer a commonly-asked question.

Q: I own Finale 2012, which contains some great Garritan sounds. Why would I buy Garritan Personal Orchestra or one of the other additional Garritan Libraries?

A: While Finale 2012 includes sounds from many Garritan libraries including Jazz & Big Band, Concert and Marching Band and World, it borrows most heavily from Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 (GPO4). That said, Finale includes only a subset of GPO4’s “greatest hits.”

To get a sense of what GPO4 offers Finale users, take a look at the difference in the flute section alone:

Finale includes: Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, Flute Player 3, Flute Solo, Flute Section, and Piccolo Solo.

GPO4 includes: Alto Flute Solo, Alto Flute Player 1, Alto Flute Player 2, Alto Flute Player 3, Bass Flute Solo w/vibrato, Bass Flute solo no vibrato, Bass Flute Player 1, Bass Flute Player 2, Bass Flute Player 3, Flute Solo w/vibrato, Flute solo no vibrato, Flute Solo Keyswitch (allows user to switch between vibrato, non-vibrato and flutter), Flute Solo Flutter, Flute Player 1, Flute Player 2, Flute Player 3, Piccolo Solo w/vibrato, Piccolo Solo no vibrato, Piccolo Solo Keyswitch, and Piccolo Flutter.

In short, if all you need is a couple examples of the most commonly used instruments, Finale has you covered. If you want a wider selection of instruments and performance techniques, GPO 4 (and the other full Garritan Products) are for you. Interested? Finale owners can download GPO4 for $129 today.

Additional resources:

• See a list of all the Garritan sounds in Finale
• The best list of all the sounds in GPO 4 begins on page 104 of the GPO 4 Manual
• Here's an abbreviated GPO4 list
• Learn more about Instant Orchestra, and all the other Garritan Libraries

What do you think? Too much like an ad? Helpful? Please let me know what you'd like to see in future blog posts by clicking on "Comments" below.

Much has been said about how much time and effort is saved by using Finale’s Linked Parts feature, which dynamically links your score and parts (so changes made to one appear in the other). This week I’d like to highlight one specific aspect of Linked Parts, named Generate Parts. I’m constantly amazed at the enormous power it offers.

As an example, I have many scores created with older versions of Finale (before Finale 2007) which did not have Linked Parts. When I revisit one of these scores in Finale 2012, I want to take advantage of Linked Parts. To do so, I simply:

1. Open the old file
2. Select Document > Edit Part > Generate Parts

Done! My parts are now linked to my score. But this is just one of the benefits Generate Parts offers.

Ever create a new score from the Setup Wizard, enter notes in the score, and then look at the parts only to wonder why Finale didn’t automatically generate some multi-measure rests? Well, if you think about it, when the parts were created, there weren’t any notes in the score. Again one solution is to simply click on “Generate Parts” and multi-measure rests will automatically appear.

This explanation sometimes produces furrowed eyebrows, but it makes sense when you realize that we don’t want Finale constantly updating multi-measure rests each time we enter notes.

For another example, I typically want the page size and orientation of my parts to be different from that of my score. I might want the score to be 8.5” x 11” (in portrait orientation), with part to be 7” x 5” (landscape). To make this happen, I:

1. Go to Document > Page Format > Parts.
2. Change the Width to “7” and the Height to “5”. (I might also want to select a smaller percentage for “Scale Page To” as well.)
3. Click OK.

However, when I do this, nothing changes—until I click “Generate Parts,” for similar reasons. Once I got a handle on this, I felt like I became the master of Linked Parts, for which I am eternally grateful.

Happy notating!

I’ve got some exciting news to share this week.

First off, Finale SongWriter is now shipping. At $49.95 SongWriter is an affordable way for your Finale NotePad-using friends to add some of the features they’ve most requested. Check out the new website.

That’s not all we’ve been up to. We’ve also announced that:

• Our iPad viewer will arrive in May. Check out the latest video of this work-in-process in this recent blog post. Did I mention the app will be free?
• Finale 2012b will arrive in June, will be “broader in scope than past updates,” and will “include further improvements to features added in 2012, address top customer requests, and provide new features to help users create digital sheet music.” Finale 2012b will, of course, be free of charge to all owners of Finale 2012.
• We’ve also entered into an agreement with Hal Leonard to “dramatically expand [our] SmartMusic music library to include many of the most popular songs of the 20th century and today’s contemporary hits. For the first time ever, those songs will be available for purchase from within the SmartMusic application.”

Finally, Finale product specialist, frequent Finale blogger, and my friend Tom Johnson celebrates his twenty-fifth year with our company this month. I suspect that such a long run is pretty rare in the field of music software (It probably helps that he started when he was a long-haired, teenaged, hippie rock star).

While I hope to feature Tom in more detail soon, please join me in congratulating him!

Back in January we shared a video preview of the upcoming Finale iPad app, featuring our own Justin Phillips. This morning Justin and I shot an updated video showing just how far our developers have progressed in the meantime.

In addition to showing new features in action, Justin also clarifies that the as-of-yet unnamed app is due in May, and will be free of charge!

Check out the video above and let us know what you think by clicking on “Comments” below.

Yesterday MakeMusic launched an updated MusicXML website: http://www.makemusic.com/musicxml

Those of you keeping score at home may recall that in November 2011 MakeMusic purchased MusicXML and Dolet software from Recordare. A related blog post from that time offers details including my explanation of what MusicXML is and what it and the Dolet plug-ins offer.

Yesterday’s website updates include tons of detailed information formerly found on the Recordare website. If you’re curious, click on the “Publications” or “For Developers” tabs and then poke around in the right-hand navigation—there’s a lot of scholarly documents archived here.

While not new this week, the site also offers Dolet plug-ins—for free. Note that the Finale plug-in actually provides “faster, more accurate translations than Finale's built-in MusicXML support,” and again, it’s free.

Thanks to Recordare founder Michael Good (now MakeMusic’s director of digital sheet music) for making this all possible.

Have questions or observations? Please share them with us by clicking on “Comments” below.

Traveling to Hollywood to attend the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday?

Me neither.

But I kind of feel like a contender. Not only were many of the most nominated films recorded from music prepared in Finale, but the music of the award show itself was created with Finale, too.

Among all the films in which Finale played a part, below are a few of my picks to win.

While I’m surprised there are only two entries in the Music (Original Song), my money’s on “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets (music and lyric by Bret McKenzie).

In the Music (Original Score) category, I’m undecided between John Williams’ great score for The Adventures of Tintin and, well, John Williams’ great score for War Horse. (My usual approach, to simply bet on John Williams, is challenged this year.) While my six-year-old had his eyes closed during some scary parts, he LOVED Tintin, so I’ll go with that.

Besides, by my count, War Horse is nominated for six Oscars and will win anyway. Other “Finale” films that were nominated in multiple categories (and thus seem like safe bets to bring home a statue) include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Moneyball, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and My Week with Marilyn.

Who do you pick to win? Please share your predications by clicking on “Comments” below.

Recently I gave my first-ever clinic on the subject of “Finale in General Music.” I wondered if anyone would attend. Imagine my surprise when nearly 200 Texas educators did!

In preparing for the clinic, I thought I had everything ready until, dozing the night before, I realized I hadn’t included anything about the Kodály Method.

As I typed the letters “K-O-D-A-L-Y” into Google, hoping to see an example of some Kodály notation that I could emulate for the clinic, I found something I didn’t expect: Two blogs I’d written earlier about that very topic! (This is scary on so many levels—where do I begin…)

General Music is fascinating to me because, on the surface, it can seem almost simplistic. Looking deeper, however, one realizes that the notation needs of the General Music Teacher are often complex. For example, a measure with a whole note usually looks like the example on the left, while the General Music teacher may require a centered whole note: 

Similarly I’d usually beam a measure of eighth notes as seen on the left. In a General Music class, a teacher might need to beam things differently or sometimes flip stems:

My point is simply to illustrate that General Music educators often have very different notational needs, all of which Finale can provide. Add in AlphaNotes™ and support for Boomwhackers and Solfège, and it’s clear that Finale offers the General Music teacher a huge array of specialized tools.

While all of these tools were very well-received in my clinic, Finale’s worksheets may have gotten the biggest response. Having editable, ready-made content that creates a limitless supply of ideas seems irresistible to General Music educators.

Have questions about using any of these tools in your classroom? Have tips you’d be willing to share? Please let me know by clicking on “Comments” below.

The big news this week isn’t the launch of the new NotePad website, no matter how much I like it. The big news is that Finale NotePad is now available as a free download.

Why should you care if you’re already a Finale user? Here’s one way I use it: I’ll create charts for my rock band and send them to my band mates, who don’t all own Finale. With NotePad they can open the files, print them, and play them back before rehearsal, just like they could with Finale Reader. Frankly, some guys in the band are better sight readers, and some are better at learning stuff by ear, and this method gives everyone something they can use as they prepare for rehearsal.

Better yet, since some band members often improve the parts I’ve written (Doug, I’m thinking specifically of you), NotePad enables them to make edits and send them back for my approval. It’s slick, easy, and free.

In addition to being a tremendous aid to musical collaboration, NotePad is also a great resource for music educators. By making NotePad free, we’ve removed the last barrier from having NotePad on every computer in every music lab. This makes the creation of music notation (and the completion of notation-themed tests and worksheets) available to all students, both at school and at home.

I’d love to hear of cool uses you’ve come up with for NotePad as well as what you think of the new website. Please share your thoughts by clicking on “Comments” below.

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.