[Dixielandjazz] Sibellious, Encore or Finale or ???

Tue Jun 3 16:33:01 PDT 2008

I use Sibelius 4.  I also have an older copy of Finale.  I don't know what 
the newer versions of Finale will do but mine won't do the slashes and chord 
symbols that jazzers use.  It's not real easy in Sibelius and there are 
quirks.  For example when transferring chord lines with slashes from piano 
to trombone it puts the slashes an octave up.

I do have the sound and upgraded scanning package with Sibelius but haven't 
loaded them yet but the scanning package (available separately) is only fair 
and it takes almost as long to correct as it would have been to just put it 
in, in the first place.  I find it annoying that the chords don't sound.

Chord symbols in Finale are hard to put in (2002 version) but Sibelius likes 
to jump around.  All of a sudden you are somewhere else.  There may be 
method to that madness but I don't care for it.

It looks to me like all the programs are quirky and not real easy to use.  I 
would like to be able to customize them so that only the things you might 
actually use would be on the menu and easy to find.  I find that a 
gazillianth rest isn't too useful.  These programs have every possible 
musical character in them.  Trouble is the useful stuff is buried in the 
things that you would probably never use.  An example is simple text.  In 
Sibelius you have to go through several menus to find it and musical 
expressions like PP and FF are hard to find.  Unless you use these programs 
all the time the forgetting curve exceeds the learning curve.  To help with 
that, I made up a list of the things I use and how to use them.  It really 
helps.  Digging through manuals is a drag and going to help is tedious and 
takes too long.

I prefer Sibelius to Finale because Finale just isn't jazz oriented at all. 
Possibly the newer versions are.  Also Sibelius has some useful add ons.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Anthony" <santh at comcast.net>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: <dwlit at patriot.net>; "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" 
<dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Sibellious, Encore or Finale or ???

>I gave up using Encore (admittedly a very old version) because it crashed 
>on Windows 2000 and the then-publishers said they had no plans to fix it. 
>Apparently, the people who bought or took over Encore must have really gone 
>in an fixed a bunch of bugs. Nevertheless, since then I've used Finale and 
>it has been great. Finale will also import Encore files although not 
>perfectly.
>
> I was on the team that wrote the Windows and Mac versions of the 
> GuitarVision.com guitar tutor player (free to download at GuitarVision.com 
> by the way). My role was to write the software tools to read Sibellius 
> generated midi files and add proprietary midi-like codes for bending 
> strings, hammer-on, and pull-off, etc. specific to guitar playing. We were 
> given Sibellius to play with even though we really didn't need to use it 
> directly in the work. I found Sibellius to be difficult to learn after 
> working with Encore and Finale, which are much closer to each other than 
> to Sibellius in user-interface, layout, and just overall "concept." If 
> anyone is thinking about "moving up" from Encore for some reason, Finale 
> would require a much easier learning curve in my opinion.
>
> Scott Anthony
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <dwlit at cpcug.org>
> To: <santh at comcast.net>
> Cc: <dwlit at patriot.net>; "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" 
> <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 7:14 AM
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Sibellious, Encore or Finale or ???
>
>
>> Hi Donn. Glad to see your notes on Encore, which I've been using for well
>> over a decade. Used it for my fake books.
>>
>> Have they made any substantive improvements/changes to it?
>>
>> How far back did your Windows system check go--I'm still using Windows
>> 98SE on my main machine, though one of these days I may switch over to my
>> new XP machine.
>>
>> --Sheik
>>
>>> Dixieland Jazz:
>>> I do have the new Encore program 4.5.5 and it does open the old Encore
>>> files and will read them just as if they were written on 4.5.5.  I know
>>> that once you save a file on 4.5.5 you are now unable to read it on the
>>> old Encore program.  That is the only problem that I have.   I have made
>>> certain that 4.5.5 works on Vista, XP and earlier systems.  I use Encore
>>> all the time and find it more user friendly than Sibellius.
>>> Donn  oboist at prodigy.net
>>
>>
>>
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