Michael Roth is a Los Angeles-based composer, music director, orchestrator, sound designer, and pianist who first came to my attention through his work with one of my personal heroes, Randy Newman. With Randy, Michael has served as a music director, arranger, and editor.

Their collaborations include Michael's work on the 2008 album Harps and Angels, orchestrating his Faust for the theater (produced in La Jolla and Chicago), co-conceiving (with Randy and Jerry Patch), music directing, orchestrating, and playing piano for The Education of Randy Newman in Costa Mesa and Seattle, and editing five wonderful Newman songbooks for Alfred Music Publishing. Michael also worked with Randy as a music director and vocal arranger for some of his songs for Disney's widely anticipated return to hand-drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog, due in theaters in December 2009. And he will be working in some capacity on the new theatre piece in Los Angeles, Harps and Angels.

While of particular interest to me, his work with Randy (which Michael refers to as an extraordinary and unique cottage industry) represents just a small part of Michael's life and prolific musical output. Michael has worked extensively in chamber music, film, dance, opera, musical theatre, and especially theatre, having composed music and sound for more than 200 theatre projects and world premieres over the past 30 years.

Michael's chamber piece, STREICH (a rag for solo flute, violin, viola, & cello) recently was among the winning compositions at the first annual American Composers Forum/Los Angeles Composer's Competition. He's composing the score for Des McAnuff's upcoming production of The Tempest (featuring Christopher Plummer as Prospero) at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada (their third collaboration at Stratford), and his score for Matthew Wilder's independent film Your Name Here, starring Bill Pullman, has recently been heard at a long list of festivals prior to its premiere on IFC in 2010. And these are just a few of his current projects.

Michael's acclaimed experimental chamber opera, Their Thought and Back Again, was described as music "one could imagine Charles Ives composing had he lived long enough to encounter rock-and-roll and beat poetry." Over the years Michael has collaborated with Tom Stoppard (on the American premieres of two of his plays), as well as with Lee Blessing, Anne Bogart, Alice Ripley, Sarah Ruhl, Mac Wellman, Culture Clash, and many others.

Michael has been a composer and artist-in-residence at both La Jolla Playhouse (more than 35 productions) and South Coast Repertory (more than 45 productions), where his productions have included the world premieres of several Pulitzer Prize winners. George Winston recorded Theme for a Futuristic Movie, a very early piano tune that Michael wrote as a music theory exercise when he was a 16-year-old student on Long Island; "I gave a copy to George when we were both hanging out in the summer of 1971 at the Stanford University coffee shop."

He has accompanied and coached many singers from Alicia Keyes to Marni Nixon, and I'm simply skipping over countless Broadway productions, film credits, Pulitzer Prize-winning productions, and more. To get a better idea of the breadth of Michael's busy career to date, visit his MySpace page.

Composers often make different demands from their notation software than do orchestrators, editors, or arrangers. Michael wears all these hats and more, so his needs are varied, and Finale meets all of them. Michael offers the following thoughts about Finale:

Finale as Compositional Tool

"I think I might approach this from out of left field somewhat. One of the best and most unique composers of my generation is Andrew Violette, who I know very well and is a good friend. I admire his work and its integrity very much. When we've discussed the virtues of notation software, he's indicated that handwritten manuscript works best for him. I think this may be due in part to his ability to hear in his head - incredibly well - all manner of variations he might consider enacting upon his musical ideas.

Of course that works for me as well.  But, to be honest, I don't think I can quite match his ability to simply hear everything at once, and in that spirit Finale has allowed me to more readily create more experimental constructs than I might even imagine without it - and of course I can see and hear the result right away. For example, I'm often interested in all manner of canons - with pitches, rhythms, timbres, et al - counterpoint is probably the musical element I think of most often whenever I write. I might wonder what a section would sound like if I moved everything canonically by a fraction of a beat, or two beats and a fraction, et al, even three or four measures and an odd fraction - any manner of ways to establish a sense of having two or more senses of downbeat, working polyrhythmically, all at the same time - and then construct variations on top of that. Obviously, some of this thinking comes from Nancarrow.

Finale gives me the flexibility to try anything, letting me hear and see it right away, and then adjusting everything beat by beat, measure by measure - refining everything, all elements, knowing that I can change a lot of elements quickly to make the contrapuntal ideas better and more vivid. It's quite something, and I'm sure it has led me to compositional ideas that I might never have thought of otherwise.

Plus it's nice to hear these ideas played back with the built-in Garritan instruments - they're a big step up.

Orchestrations

Composing as much as I do for theatre and film, I'm more often than not under the gun, so it's great to know that - in addition to the counterpoint ideas discussed above - I can shift parts around, harmonize, move instrumental ideas around, even create ossias efficiently and accurately. I'm often refining, making last-minute changes, before I'm absolutely sure I'm done.

Then I e-mail files to the great copyist/collaborators I work with. For example, at the Stratford Festival, where I seem to be, gratefully, doing a great deal of work nowadays, I can rely on the exceptional Finale expertise of both the principal copyist I work with, John Montgomery, and Don Sweete who runs the music office.

Editing and Supervising the Randy Newman Anthologies

Well of course Finale has been indispensable for all the work I've done with Randy, particularly the songbooks of which I'm very proud, including Randy Newman Anthology, Bad Love, Randy Newman Songbook Volume 1, Harps and Angels, and especially the Anthology Volume 2, Music for Film, Television, and Theater, which contains piano suite/reductions of his orchestral film music, something that would have been really tedious to even imagine without Finale.

It was the intention from the beginning to make these books as accurate and definitive as possible, approaching them almost like Peters Editions, and happily the good folks at Alfred, especially Bill Galliford - with whom I've worked most closely - are great at what they do, and absolute Finale masters.

Basically we exchange Finale files via e-mail until we're done - sometimes they'll do an initial transcription, sometimes I will, and then I add various elements from sitting with Randy as he plays the songs, or I take elements from his demos and orchestrations and incorporate them (sometimes from older and different Finale files in various archives et al). The books I've edited are done completely in Finale, and in fact, no hard copies of the music are sent until we get to the galley stage.

Final Thoughts

I probably I use Finale in one way or another every day - and I have been using it for more than 15 years - frankly, at this point it's an indispensable part of my music, and I can't imagine working without it."

Polywriter, Deluxe Music Construction Set, Professional Composer, Notator, MusicPrinter Plus, HB Music Engraver, MusicWriter, Graphic Notes, Score, Personal Composer, Copyist, Capella, Amadeus, Encore, MusicTime, Rhapsody, Igor, Overture, Concertware, Nightingale, NoteFlight, MagicScore, Dancing Dots, MusicProse, Musicator, Graphire Music Press, Noteworthy Composer, Notion, Sibelius, QuickScore Elite, Berlioz, MusicWrite, Vivaldi…Whew! The list seems endless. In my 22 years with MakeMusic, I have witnessed the launch of many music notation software programs. A handful are still here.

I remember when, in 1988, three much-touted new notation programs came out: Graphic Notes, HB Music Engraver, and Finale. Because music software was primarily Mac-based at the time, Apple Computer shows represented an ideal place to launch new entries in the field. That year Apple hosted a huge showing of music applications in Nashville, at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel, complete with a great concert and multimedia presentation. I was a young musician, attempting to find my place in the business world, and it showed in my passion as I touted our wares - and I was certainly surrounded by kindred spirits doing the very same thing.

Belmont University hosted a notation program "show down." Score, Graphic Notes, HB Music Engraver, and Finale competed. We were all given a piece of music to enter and format in our respective applications but given only a half-hour to complete the task. Quality was most important but how long it took to get that quality was also important. Graphic Notes and Finale did themselves proud that day (with Graphic Notes' presenter traveling all the way from Australia to do so).

Since then there have been many more shows, from NAMM shows in Anaheim, California to the Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany.  Back in the day, Musikmesse Hall 8 always housed the publishers. The Finn brothers (Sibelius' founders) would hang out there when Sibelius was getting off the ground. Leland Smith, programmer of Score, would actually sit in his booth programming (seriously). And Kurt Haas, who had a fine music application called Amadeus, was always very kind to me and to the fledgling notation program I represented. We'd see Capella, which was a popular product in German-speaking areas, and one year we saw a program called Berloiz (obviously French even if Sibelius is not made in Finland), which showed some impressive sample scores and then was never heard from again.

Of course many of these products aren't here anymore. So from some perspectives the competition might not have benefitted everyone. Personally I think that Finale has always benefitted from competition; it's always caused us to push things just a little more and make things even better. I think we've similarly helped others in the same way. I recall one company whose live demonstrations frequently made fun of Finale's ability to switch between page view and scroll view, suggesting this was complicated and confusing. Then, years later, they added scroll view as a much-requested feature. That said, I'm sure they have similar stories about us.

So, what is the point of all these musings?

I'd like to say THANK YOU to everyone involved in all the notation applications mentioned above - and to any I've unintentionally overlooked. Together we've created something new - desktop music publishing - and provided countless musicians with better tools to share their music with the world.

When I'm composing and inspiration strikes, I move fast, and don't even think about how things look. Sometimes the results of such a session might sound great but look like this:

Finale allows for intricate placement of Expressions and SmartShapes. This means you can place them anywhere you desire. This also means you can inadvertently place them in a haphazard manner as I've done above. This is a bit of an extreme example, but now I can demonstrate a great time-saving feature in Finale.

With the Selection Tool, select a measure or region of measures (Shift + click) that include some misaligned dynamic markings. From the Plug-ins menu choose TG Tools and select the Align/Move Dynamics plug-in. This plug-in allows for alignment of dynamic markings to a number of different points, and also lets you select what markings you wish to adjust.

Choose the alignment option that applies best for your score. With one click of Go, the markings will be beautifully aligned:

What are TG Tools? They're a collection of powerful plug-ins, like this one, created by German composer/software engineer Tobias Giesen. To learn more about other time-saving plug-ins included with Finale, go to Finale's Help menu, select User Manual, and search for Plug-ins.

If like me, you're a movie fan, and you read every last credit of the movie before you leave, then you've read the name JoAnn Kane Music Service many, many times. They have prepared the music for countless Hollywood films - as well as for TV, recordings, live performances, video games, and much more. A few years back I had the good fortune to pay a visit to their Los Angles offices, for a Finale get-together, Q & A, and wine and cheese party (I also distinctly remember fruit, chocolate, and bread as well, but I digress....) for Los Angeles-area music copyists.

I arrived around noon and was greeted by Mark Graham who gave me the quick tour of their large, bustling office. Many copyists worked in the center of a large room where workstations were back to back, each with a computer monitor, keyboard, and small MIDI keyboard. Printers were housed along the walls and were busy printing out reams of prepared sheet music.

Amid all the activity I quietly set up my gear in the corner between an old upright piano and the food. Location, location, location. Besides the food, I noticed some sheet music on top of the piano in nice, organized stacks. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me - I took a peek and noticed it was all hand-notated, and on the manila-colored paper I associate with scores from the pre-software days of music notation. The manuscript was in pencil and I was thinking it was quite readable when I noticed the title: "The Prisoner of Azkaban!" John Williams' score was just sitting there, ready to be entered into Finale. In a warm glow I went back to my task and readied myself for the event.

When the 80 to 90 copyists had arrived and I had begun my workshop, I asked how many of the attendees used Finale. All but two did. That did not surprise me - it was a Finale event after all. Then I asked who was a Macintosh user. EVERY HAND WENT UP. I asked again, "You mean there isn't one Windows user here?" No one came forth. This fact did surprise me, but when I tell others this story they look at me as if I am the uninformed one. Obviously, the L.A. copyist community is very, very Mac-based.

I proceeded with my clinic and got to the part where I talk about entering notes in Simple Entry vs. Speedy Entry. Usually when I ask how many "Speedy" users are in the audience more than half the hands go up. This time, however, ALL the hands went up. My experience is that most people who prefer Speedy Entry learned Finale back when Speedy was undoubtedly the fastest note-entry method, and they have been using Speedy ever since. My guess is that described most of the people in this room. As I continued to explain Simple Entry they were quite vocal in their impatience in even thinking they would change their ways. "I am so fast at Speedy I would never change," one enthusiastic engraver avowed. Who was I to try to change their minds?

As a student of diversity my entire life, I respect that each Finale user has their preferred method for note entry. Of course we would. Each person is different. And as my father used to say, "That's a good thing as it would be a pretty boring world if we weren't." However, I think our best decisions are made when we have all the information at hand, and with that in mind, I invite you to read my next blog where I make my case why long-time Speedy Entry users might consider something new.

For some time, I've wanted to learn to use a sextant. I'm not a real sailor; I don't have any real practical application for it, but I'm often intrigued by the old ways of doing things. I prefer to play old guitars through tube amplifiers, I share my a bit of dad's interests in vintage cars and film cameras, and I am drawn to all matter of anachronistic hardware.

Similarly I am fascinated by thought of how sheet music was made before Finale. Well, I know I how I made it - with a pencil or pen, and sometimes with scissors and tape or glue. But I'm thinking of how music was engraved. If you've never seen Anneliese Bente's 1997 "Sharp as a Tack" video, about how G. Henle used to create their Urtext editions, check it out at:

http://www.henle.de/katalog/stichmaterial.cfm

You may notice on the same page that G. Henle also offers their old engraving plates for sale through their dealers. This fact was actually the impetus for today's blog - one of my coworkers brought one of these plates to work:

Holding this plate in my hands I marvel at the craftsmanship involved in using Iron Age tools to create such a work of art. If mastering the chisel wasn't enough, keep in mind you had to do it all in reverse. It's a bit humbling.

I'm reminded of my own pre-computer struggles with a typewriter in an effort to produce even a few perfect pages of text; not a particularly fond nor nostalgic memory. While I may have admiration for some aspects of the past, I'm not interested in giving up my computer for a typewriter and some chisels. (Have I mentioned my dependence on spell-checking software?)

But the plate, like the resulting engraving, is beautiful. Are you interested in owning one? More details are available at: http://www.jwpepper.com/10061175.item

Am I buying one? Well, no. I'm saving up for a sextant. And a vintage tube strobe tuner.

About a year ago I was in Rochester, NY having dinner with some band director friends when Kevin Mead told me an excellent story:

I was sitting in my office after school on November day when Dale, a soft-spoken senior, knocked on my door and asked if he could play me a piece he'd written. I followed Dale to our MIDI Lab where he our best speakers connected to one of the stations and Finale on the screen. As I sat down Dale hit the PLAY button, and I was transfixed. The music was beautiful - and wonderfully orchestrated for band. I was nearly in tears by the end and stated right there: "We are SO doing that in our spring concert!"

It turns out that Dale had started this piece on his home PC using the ten dollar Finale NotePad. He'd brought that files to school, opened it on a Mac in the MIDI Lab, and fleshed it out in Finale before bringing it home to begin the process again.

Next it was Kevin's turn to take the reins.  Using Finale he saved Dale's piece as a SmartMusic accompaniment. Then, using the SmartMusic Gradebook, he sent it out as assignments to the entire band. This allowed the students to learn their parts and hear the piece as a whole - before the first rehearsal. The first time they read through the piece in rehearsal they already knew how it should sound - and the band was able to dive into the finer aspects of performance instead of simply sight-reading.

Imagine the thrill Dale felt - to not only hear the entire band playing his piece, but to hear them play it well. What makes this even more remarkable is that this was Dale's first composition.

I had asked Kevin's permission to tout this story at last year's Midwest Band Clinic. In turn he asked Dale's permission and all were agreed; "Let's tell the world."

I couldn't have made up a better tale to describe the interaction between MakeMusic products and what they can mean to real people. Dale's piece began its life in the simplest, least expensive notation product on Earth, NotePad; It was fine-tuned in a school-owned copy of Finale, and saved as a SmartMusic file. Finally, SmartMusic made a big difference in how an entire band learned the piece and helped them to concentrate on the music instead of just the notes.

In fact, I should suggest that as a new company motto: We'll take care of the notes so you can concentrate on the music!

Need to enter a mid-measure clef change into your score? Did you know you could do this with one click of the mouse?

Let's try changing from treble clef to bass clef:

1. Select the Clef Tool
2. Hold down the number 4 then left-click where you want to place the bass clef in the measure

Voilà!

Why the number 4? We've assigned a shortcut key (we call them metatools) to each clef: 1 for treble clef, 2 for C clef, 3 for tenor clef, 4 for bass clef, and so on. To discover which metatool is used for each clef, choose the Clef tool and double-click on a measure. The letter or number in the top left corner of the clef sign in the Clef Selection dialog box is the key to press when you click.

Don't like the numbers we've chosen for each clef? You can change them to anything you like! To do so, select the Clef tool, hold down Shift, and press the number OR letter you'd like to assign to a clef, and then click on the Clef you want associated with that key. We call that "programming a metatool." As you can see, it only sounds hard! In addition to clef changes, metatools can speed up the entry of many other items in Finale including articulations, expressions, staff styles, repeats, etc.

Want more information? Try Help>User Manual and search for Metatool.

Jean Luc Ponty is a French-born jazz violinist, bandleader, and composer. I first became aware of him upon seeing his name on the back of several Frank Zappa records, and have followed his solo career starting with his groundbreaking jazz/rock releases on Atlantic in the mid-70s. Ponty has sold millions of records, with 12 consecutive releases reaching the top 5 on the Billboard jazz charts.

Ponty played on Elton John's "Honky Chateau" album, recorded with Stéphane Grappelli, and participated in two John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu Orchestra albums and tours. He's performed his compositions with symphony orchestras in Canada, the United States, and Japan, as well as with the New Music Ensemble of Pittsburgh and the Radio City Orchestra in New York.

In 1995 Ponty, guitarist Al Di Meola, and bassist Stanley Clark recorded "The Rite of Strings," and this supergroup continues to tour periodically to great acclaim. Ponty has performed with bassist Miroslav Vitous, drummer Billy Cobham, banjoist Béla Fleck, guitarist Allan Holdsworth, and many more of the world's greatest virtuosos. For a recent example, on September 2, 2009, Ponty performed at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Bill Connors and Chaka Khan.
 
In addition to being a jazz/rock pioneer, Ponty is equally comfortable on acoustic, electric, and MIDI violins (including 5- and 6-string instruments), and since the early 1990s he's created a new kind of fusion combining the influences of Western and African musicians (and West African-influenced polyrhythms) in his touring group. His 2006 group toured the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and India. The subsequent album, "The Atacama Experience," received four stars in DownBeat and is regarded by many critics as among his very best work.

At the end of 2008 "Jean Luc Ponty & His Band" became a quartet without percussion, representing somewhat of a return to the "Ponty sound" of the 1970s and 80s, while still including strong jazz and African influences.
 
I spoke briefly with Jean Luc in the fall of 2009 as he prepared for an upcoming U.S. tour:
 
"I am working intensely with Finale every day as I have to prepare music parts for my upcoming concert tour. Our regular bassist, Guy Nsangue Akwa, is from Cameroon, and he could not get his new passport in time for this tour. As Guy does not read music but amazingly learns everything by ear, there are no charts for the material Guy has played with the group for the last 18 years!
 
Luckily Baron Browne will be joining us. Baron is familiar with my older material, having played bass in my band from 1983-1990, a period of time in which we recorded four albums. Nevertheless, in addition to all the new material I need to notate, I also have to recreate some of the older music as well, so I have many bass parts to prepare in a hurry.
 
For me, entering music in Finale goes as fast as writing parts by hand, sometime faster. Plus Finale lets me do things I can't do by hand, like transpose, copy, paste, insert, and delete, so I can transfer bits of existing left hand piano parts that play the same lines as the bass. I can update existing parts if the structures changed since the original recording. I also appreciate Finale's ability to playback -- with real instrument sounds - which is a great way to check whether I made any mistakes.
 
When I'm done I can easily email the parts to Baron so he'll have a head start before we start rehearsing. Finale makes a big difference."
 
Visit http://www.ponty.com to read, see, and hear more about Jean Luc's music - I especially recommend the video "Introducing The Atacama Experience" and the "Concert Dates" link to see when he's playing near you.

[Photo by Imma Casanelles]

In my previous blog we explored the ease of entering percussion parts in Finale 2010 using just the Simple Entry Tool. In this entry, we will take a look at how Finale can easily switch between different VST/AU or MIDI percussion instruments without having to re-enter the notes or convert anything in the staff. This can be particularly helpful if you collaborate with others on a score and they do not have the same instrument libraries that you may (such as the Garritan Jazz and Big Band library or the Tapspace Virtual Drumline 2.5 instruments).

In previous versions of Finale, percussion staff playback was linked to MIDI note numbers. If you entered a snare drum part and later decided that you wanted to use a different snare drum sound, it could be difficult to quickly switch sounds. Finale 2010 is now smart enough to recognize that you entered a snare drum, and can switch back and forth between different sound libraries with a few clicks.

In my previous blog, we created a new snare and bass drum percussion staff using the Basic Orchestral Percussion found in Garritan Instruments for Finale 2010. After following those steps, let's try switching to the General MIDI Percussion instrument in the SmartMusic Softsynth.

1. In the example score we created in the previous blog, navigate to Window Menu > Instrument List
2. Under Perc. MIDI Map, notice that Basic Orch. Percussion is selected. This map tells Finale what notes are included in that instrument, and which MIDI pitch to trigger when you enter that note into the score. Click the dropdown menu and change to SmartMusic SoftSynth > Orchestral Percussion
3. Close the Instrument List and navigate to MIDI/Audio Menu > Play Finale Through MIDI
4. Press play. Notice that Finale will still play a snare and bass drum sound, except though the SmartMusic SoftSynth

In addition, we can apply the same concept if we wish to use another VST/AU instrument.

1. Go to the Window Menu > Instrument List and change the Perc. MIDI Map to Tapspace Drumline for Finale > VDLite General MIDI Percussion Map
2. Go to MIDI/Audio Menu > Play Finale Through VST/AU
3. Navigate to the MIDI/Audio Menu > Instrument Setup > VST/AU Instruments
4. Click the Pencil next to Instrument for Finale for the bank that contains your percussion instrument
5. In the Aria player, locate the Basic Orch. Percussion instrument (should be channel 10, 26, etc) and change it to 013. Tapspace Percussion > VDL Combo Instruments > VDLite General MIDI Percussion Map
6. Close the Aria player and play your score

Using these steps, you can quickly sample different instrument libraries to find the perfect percussion sounds for your score. In addition, anyone else who has Finale 2010 that you collaborate with or send your score to can listen to your music without necessarily having to own the same VST/AU instruments that you do.

Yesterday I spoke of a number of improvements that are free in Finale 2010a, but I indicated that I saved a nice surprise for my music educator friends. Many of them were aware that Finale 2010 included more than 300 music education worksheets, but not everyone knew where to find them. Finale 2010a makes them easy to find. Just look in the File menu for "Open Finale Worksheet...."

Even better news is that once there you'll find that we've added to the list of worksheets with the following music education tools:

• 271 Classroom Flash Cards - Designed to be printed double-sided (with the answers on the back) and to be used in front of a classroom. Topics include keys, note names, rhythm, vocabulary, and musical symbols.
• 126 Individual Flash Cards - Designed to be printed double-sided (with the answers on the back) and used by individual students for self-quizzing. Topics include keys, note names, and musical symbols.
• 30 Ear Training Worksheets - Designed to be used with the free, downloadable Finale Reader, students can print the worksheets, use Reader to play the examples, and write the answers on the printed worksheets. Topics include intervals, chords, and melodic dictation.

I always think of these worksheets and flashcards as being specifically for general music educators, but just the other day one of my musician friends commented on how he'd be using some of these worksheets with his son at home. Pretty cool.

I'm working on an upcoming blog post about Finale and the general music teacher. Their requirements are very unique among music notation users as a whole, and I'm excited to share some tips specific to their needs that I've picked up in the course of my Finale travels!