Photo caption: Jennifer Higdon and her cat, Beau. Photo by Candace DiCarlo

In a world where child virtuosi seem to get younger each year, Jennifer Higdon had a relatively late start in music. She taught herself to play flute at 15, began formal musical studies at 18, and didn't begin to study composition until she was 21. This delay doesn't appear to have negatively impacted her career: Today Jennifer is one of the most frequently performed living American composers.

The list of organizations who have commissioned her spans from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; from eighth blackbird to the Tokyo String Quartet; and from The President's Own U. S. Marine Band to such artists as Hilary Hahn.

She has been the recipient of many awards including a Pew Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. This past January she added a 2010 Grammy Award to the list: A London Philharmonic Orchestra recording of her Percussion Concerto was named Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

I recently congratulated Jennifer on the Grammy Award and talked with her about her choice of music notation software.

"I've been using Finale for the past 16 years...pretty much every day of those past 16 years. I've found that the ability to adjust so many different things has made it possible for me to do complex graphics, and still be able to meet the MOLA guidelines that major orchestras require in their commissioning contracts."

Some people assume that folks who earn their living by composing still work with pen and paper and hire others to enter their work into Finale. That's not the case with Jennifer:

"I actually do my composing directly into the computer on the program itself. I consider Finale to be indispensable in my compositional process, and in the plying of my trade. I also run my own publishing company, and we sell on average 15 scores a week - so we print-on-demand, using Finale. So you might say I'm a fan!"

Additional details about Jennifer's career, as well as information on purchasing or renting her music, can be found at http://www.jenniferhigdon.com

Kenneth Amis playing the Harvard University Band's BBBb Besson tuba. Photo by Mark Olson

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that anyone who plays classical music on a brass instrument is familiar with the Empire Brass. Furthermore, anyone who's heard this internationally acclaimed group's tuba player perform the piano solo from the third movement of Mozart's Sonata in A, on his tuba, will likely never forget the name Kenneth Amis.

Ken was born and raised in Bermuda. He enrolled in Boston University at age sixteen where he majored in composition and studied tuba with Chester Schmitz (of the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and Sam Pilafian (founding member of the Empire Brass). After graduating from Boston University and becoming a licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music, he attended the New England Conservatory where he earned a master's degree in composition.

Today, in addition to being tuba player for the Empire Brass, he's a lecturer/professor at Boston University, and in 2003 he became the youngest recipient of the New England Conservatory of Music's "Outstanding Alumni Award." While a list of Ken's many accomplishments is available on his website I list these few simply to illustrate the impression Ken's talent seems to have made with everyone he encounters. It's clear that, even among the world's best, he is an exceptional musician.

Great work requires great tools, so it should come as little surprise that Ken is a longtime Finale user:

"I first began using Finale in 1991 as a college student. I had been using a competing notation program for several years so it was not an easy decision to make the switch. However, once I started using Finale I knew that I had made the right decision.
 
I use Finale for copy work and engraving as well as composing and arranging. Since the program gives me multiple ways to enter the notation, I can choose the most expedient method based on the task at hand. Whether creating new arrangements for the Empire Brass, working on a new commission for large orchestra or band, or simply doing last-minute copy work, the user interface is versatile enough to accommodate my busy schedule. And through its multiple viewing options and advanced playback capabilities I can monitor and proof any of my projects every step of the way."

Ken is also keenly aware of the benefits Finale offers self-publishers, including the ability to create SmartMusic accompaniments:
 
"Advances in Internet technologies have really leveled the playing field among music publishers and resellers, and over the past decade Finale has helped my online store, Amis Musical Circle, to flourish. In everything from uploading score and sound previews to the web to offering SmartMusic files to customers, Finale has been an indispensable tool in the production, publication, and promotion of my music."

In fact, he's currently working on a fascinating project that involves both Finale and SmartMusic.

The Florida Bandmasters Association, Banddirector.com, and MakeMusic commissioned Ken to compose a band composition to be rehearsed and performed on webcasts from the J. P. Taravella High School in Coral Springs, Florida. The result is March of the Corn (participating students provided the title). The score and parts were created in Finale, and a SmartMusic accompaniment and individual assignments were also created to assist in the preparation of the performance.

On March 17, 2010, there will be a free webcast from the J. P. Taravella High School that will include a live, in-depth composer/band rehearsal, as well as a SmartMusic demonstration/clinic. The event will also be simulcast on the Woodwind & Brasswind site. You can view and hear the score as well as watch videos of the project in progress (including Ken's rehearsals with the J. P. Taravella High School band) from the Florida Commission Project webpage.

The concert premier of March of the Corn will occur on May 20, 2010. Additional details can be found at Banddirector.com.

Steve Peha, creator of Petrucci, Finale's first music notation font — Photo by Margot Carmichael Lester

Recently I was asked on Facebook about the origin of Petrucci, the music font used by early versions of Finale. While I know a little bit about Phil Farrand and the origin of Finale (and plan to blog about this soon), I realized I knew nothing of the origin of Petrucci. Although I've been with MakeMusic since 1993, I had to ask a few of the folks who've been here even longer before I learned that the name of the font's creator; Steve Peha. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet I was able to find Steve and was delightfully surprised not only at Steve's generosity in sharing his recollections, but also by the detail of his memories of events that occurred over twenty years ago:

"The font was created much like any other, I suppose. At an early point in Finale's development, Coda realized that relying solely on the Adobe Sonata font was not a good long-term strategy. For one thing, it didn't have nearly enough symbols in it. For another, Phil Farrand, the original programmer, had to practically stand on his head to get things like flags to line up correctly. You should have seen all the 'secret' parameters and 'offsets' that were required to make Sonata work. It worked, but it was obvious that Adobe had no intention of improving it, and that Finale's future development might be slightly encumbered as a result.

I was working on the early documentation at the time with Jim Romeo of Romeo Music and his business partner, and fellow musician, George Litterst. The need for a font arose and as I was fairly competent in the graphic arts, I got the gig.

I had to create the font very quickly. I think I did it in about eight weeks. By contrast, I believe that Cleo Huggins, Adobe's designer on Sonata, had about six months to work with. Petrucci had more than twice the number of useable symbols. At the time, it represented the largest music symbol selection available for a desktop computer.

While the Sonata font was based on the traditional Letraset press-on music symbol set, Petrucci is not strictly-speaking based on anything. I had always appreciated the look of the famous Peters piano editions. I liked the old-style look for classical music. But Finale would, of course, be used for all kinds of music, so something that traditional wouldn't have been appropriate.

Ultimately, Petrucci struck me as something of a hybrid: not 'new' like Sonata, not 'old' like Peters. To be honest, my skills were not sharp enough to truly capture another type foundry's design. Petrucci bears little resemblance to Sonata. Among other things, Sonata is considerably smoother. My ability to place "control points" back then was not what it is today. There's still a little 'hump' on the treble clef that I use to detect Petrucci whenever I see printed music. I must have worked 20 hours to get that hump smoothed out, but I never quite got it right. Other symbols also have unintended irregularities. I guess you could say they add character, no pun intended. In truth, I was in over my head. Petrucci was the first font I ever worked on and I just hoped it would be good enough to get Finale off to a good start. I think it succeeded but I'm also glad that Finale's font selection has improved right along with improvements in the program itself.

I finished the font several months before Finale 1.0 was released. It had to be done this way because Phil needed to tune the placement of symbols under a variety of different circumstances. It took many, many printouts to get everything right, and at certain points, he asked me to make small adjustments to certain symbols, usually to move them up or down by a fraction of a point or so.

The font existed for several months without a name. We had just assumed that it would be called 'The Finale Font' or that Coda would choose a name. But as the program neared release, no name seemed forthcoming. So Jim and I were sitting around thinking about what to call it and we thought about how Aldus had gotten its name from Aldus Manutius, the great printer. So Jim and I tried to figure out who the first printer or publisher was to set music using moveable type. That turned out to be Ottaviano Petrucci. And that's how the font got its name.

Over the years, so many wonderful music fonts have been created that I really think Petrucci is a little 'long in the tooth.' As I said, I was not a great designer at the time, nor did I know much about the subtleties of symbol font design. Up to that point, I had only worked with text fonts and only as a self-schooled graphic artist and desktop publisher. Turns out there are just as many concepts to music font design -- they're just all different.

At the MacWorld Boston release of Finale, I was accosted by this Finnish gentleman who proceeded to give me several long lessons in music font design. This amounted to a litany of things I'd done wrong. However, as the fellow finally conceded, Petrucci was the best font available for a desktop computer program and in that sense he judged it to be at least moderately successful. But he hoped that I would 'fix' it as soon as possible and that I would continue to rev it at least once each year. Obviously, that didn't happen.

Personally, I love the way Finale ships now with so many font choices. As a former jazz arranger, I'm partial to handwritten fonts and I was really excited when those became available. 'Charts' done in Petrucci always drew snickers from the horn players.

The time I spent working on Finale was one of the most exciting periods of my life. And getting the opportunity to create the Petrucci font still stands out as one of the coolest projects I've ever participated in. It's impossible to convey now what Finale represented back then. For years, musicians the world over had struggled to publish music on their computers. But no single program existed that could handle the demands of professional music publishing. I first saw Finale two years before it shipped: I think only two or three tools were functional at the time. But I completely freaked out when, after a few 8th notes in a bar, it automatically respaced them to be more readable. A modest accomplishment to say the least, and yet it totally blew me away. That's how earth-shattering seemed to all of us at the time."

After creating Petrucci, Steve hung up his Bezier curves - he considers himself permanently retired from font design. Since then he has enjoyed a diverse career as a software developer, high-tech entrepreneur, and more. Today Steve is the president of Teaching That Makes Sense (TTMS), an education consultancy specializing in literacy, assessment, and educational leadership.

Tim Davies photo by Paulina Friedel www.puniaf.com

By day Tim Davies works as an arranger, orchestrator, and conductor in the Hollywood film world. By night Davies leads the Tim Davies Big Band, which features his compositions and drumming alongside top L.A. session players.

Born and raised in Australia, Tim first dreamed of leading his own big band at the age of 12. He moved to Los Angeles in 1998 to study at USC where a lesson with bassist/composer John Clayton led to a three-year gig assisting Clayton in his role as the Director of Jazz at the Hollywood Bowl. Orchestrations and transcriptions for concerts followed, including work for the likes of Jimmy Smith, Dave Brubeck, Nancy Wilson, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, and Take 6 as well as albums for Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, and Michael Bublé. Tim continues to arrange and orchestrate for a broad spectrum of top performers today.

Tim has also channeled his orchestration and arranging skills to the world of film, television, and video games. His success here has resulted in conducting work has well, including current films like Couples Retreat and the upcoming Percy Jackson and the Olympians. A complete list of his extensive credits can be found here.

In December 2009 Tim was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Instrumental Composition for "Counting to Infinity," a track from the most recent Tim Davies Big Band recording, Dialmentia. His big band music is as diverse and varied as his list of credits, including elements of classic jazz as well as hip hop, heavy metal, and more.

Tim also enjoys lecturing and conducting master classes, and this side of his personality surfaced quickly in our conversation - he was eager to discuss his setup and share his tips with our readers.

"I have been a Finale user for 16 years: I think version 2 was my first. I am always amazed when I pull up an old score and see how similar it looks to my current work - the biggest difference is how much easier everything is to accomplish today. I have very particular ideas about how I want things to look and the greatest thing about Finale is that I can make anything look however I want. I have a highly tweaked template and this ensures that everything I do comes out looking the way I want, without any effort.

I like to think of Finale as my instrument: I have even been known to practice! Some of my friends think I am a little crazy, but when they realize I can work twice as fast, and more accurately, they quickly change their tune. The goal is to get all of the technical things out of my head and be automatic, so all I have to worry about is the music and being creative.

I use keyboard shortcuts for everything. If Finale doesn't include the shortcut I make one in QuicKeys: I never go to a menu with the mouse. I use QuicKeys a lot to automate tasks and make menu and tool selections with keystrokes as I do not have the main tool palette open when I work.

I also use Quickeys for things like making selections of items in the Edit Filter. I've assigned specific keystrokes for copying only expressions, slurs, lyrics, etc. No mouse-clicking means it's very quick. It took a while to work out how to do it all, but it is just part of what I just mentioned, getting all of the technical things out of the way.

When I am orchestrating, I start from an imported MIDI file. The more I can do by pasting and working with that source material, the fewer chances I have of putting in a careless wrong note. I do a lot of re-transcribing, imploding, exploding, and transposing. I have a set-up designed to make my job as easy and ergonomic as possible. I use three monitors: on the left I display the composer's original file in Digital Performer, Finale appears in the middle, and the right-hand monitor manages things like e-mail, iChat, and Internet tasks.

For entry I use a Kensington track ball. I find this much better than a mouse, I can fly from one monitor to another with the flick of a finger and it has extra buttons I use for things like double-clicking, keystrokes like Escape and Enter, and another button brings up the Speedy Tool.

For playback I use Garritan Personal Orchestra but host it outside in Finale in the Plogue Bidule. This means the sounds are always loaded in the background and I never wait for them to load in a file. I open too many files to have it load the sounds in Finale. I have an HP5100 printer for printing large scores and a spare one just in case it decides to stop working at the wrong time.

Here are two of my favorite Finale tips:

1. Create your own default file
   By creating a custom default file, all your customized settings will appear each time you create a new document. Once you've created the file, go to Finale's Program Options>New indicate to indicate which file you'd like to use as your default. [See some related blog posts here.]
2. Use hidden text in staff names
   Finale has very powerful tools for naming staves. One school of naming involves using a group name for instrument and then the staff name is just a number. If you do this though, you cannot see the name of the staff in any lists in the program, it will be just "1" or "1&2" etc. By calling it the "Oboe 1," for example, but hiding the "Oboe", you get the correct look on the score, and the full name in any lists.
   Creating hidden text is just like creating underline text - when you're editing the staff name, select the text you wish to hide, go to the text menu and choose Character Settings, then specify "hidden."

For more information on the Tim Davies Big Band and Tim's jazz writing visit www.TimDaviesBigBand.com - details on his film, TV, and game work can be found at www.timusic.net.

Jonathan Kelly at an August 2009 recording session (in Vitoria, Spain) for The Vitoria Suite, an
upcoming CD by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Photo by Frank Stewart

Jonathan Kelly is a bassist/composer with an enviable day job: He's Wynton Marsalis' Music Supervisor. In this role he transforms Wynton's handwritten sketches into beautifully rendered scores and parts. Wynton is delightfully open and active on Facebook, where he's posted a before-and-after video of this process as well as a written description of his work with Jonathan, including marathon scoring sessions and chess breaks.

Ever wonder what the application and interview process is for this kind of dream employment? I imagine carrying a portfolio of carefully selected work samples into a fancy office in Lincoln Center and meeting with a bunch of suits who work for Mr. Marsalis. That's not quite how it went. Jonathan explains:

"I started working with Wynton Marsalis in the winter of 1999. At the time, he was working on a project called "All Rise," a full-length concert piece written for symphony orchestra, choir, and jazz big band. I was an observer at a rehearsal when Wynton motioned for me to come over to him. 'You know how to read and write music, right? Go over to my apartment. There's a guy working around the clock. Do whatever he tells you to do and I'll pay you.'

As a not-starving, but definitely hungry artist, I went to his place where I printed parts, bound scores, proofread the music, and generally did whatever was asked of me. This is where I first encountered Finale. I realized that I could really help supplement my income doing jobs copying, orchestrating, and arranging.

The first thing I did, and this is something I recommend to anyone looking to learn the program, was to try to re-create a great handwritten score, in my case a work by Duke Ellington. I just stayed up day and night entering all the notes into Finale. By the time I had finished that piece, I had worn out the User Manual and I had taught myself the basics of Finale. Duke's music is so rich with subtleties; I had to conquer hundreds of problems to accurately represent the handwritten material in Finale. The key advice here is: Learn Finale. No one is going to pay you to learn it. I run into a lot of young copyists who have the music skills to be successful, but lack experience with the program. 

From that point forward, Wynton used me as his primary copyist. We've worked on hundreds of pieces. Tons of big band scores, orchestral projects, music for film and dance: You name it, and Wynton has probably done it. This makes my job exciting — I'm constantly being pushed outside my comfort zone. We're currently finishing Wynton's second symphony entitled Blues Symphony. When we are not busy with commissioned works, I oversee making his sheet music available for sale at wyntonmarsalis.org. 

I use Finale every day and on a lot of those days it's ALL day. I had no idea back in 1999 when I first discovered Finale that this program — that I could use to "supplement" my income — would later become my career. There's honestly no way that Wynton and I could complete the amount of projects that we do without Finale."

MakeMusic CEO Ron Raup receives the "Dealer's Choice Award for Software Line of the Year," on behalf of
Finale 2010, from Richard E. Kessel, publisher of School, Band and Orchestra. Photo by Eliahu Sussman.

Anaheim, California, was the home last week of the annual Winter NAMM tradeshow, where companies related to making music meet to display their latest products to musical merchandise dealers. NAMM also provides an opportunity for the industry to acknowledge achievements.

On Thursday, January 14, Richard E. Kessel, publisher of the School, Band and Orchestra, formally presented Ron Raup, MakeMusic CEO, with the Dealer's Choice Award for "Software Line of the Year." The award recognized Finale 2010 as the year's top software line from the perspective of music instrument retailers across the country. (The award was announced in December: details can be viewed here.)

Finale 2010 was also the only music notation creation software nominated for "BEST NEW Music Software/Multimedia of 2009" by the Music & Sound Retailer, host of the 24th Annual Music & Sound Awards.

This year, for the third year in a row, music educators were encouraged to attend the last two days of the show as part of "Music Education Days." Did you attend? Please share the highlights of your experience using the "Comments" button below.

If you take pride in your music notation and then print it out on cheap typing paper, you're dropping the ball one yard from the end zone. When musicians are given loose sheets of music, printed one-sided on translucent paper, they can't help but think (consciously or not) that the music it contains is similarly slapdash. When it comes to putting your music on paper, presentation plays a big part in perception, and it's relatively easy to manage: your main paper variables are weight, color, and size.

Weight

Perhaps the most important element is the paper's weight. Lightweight paper suggests that the contents are disposable, and its transparent nature is clearly unsuited for two-sided printing. It is also less durable and more likely to be blown off the music stand when someone walks by or opens a door. But you can go too heavy - card stock will also produce unfavorable reactions.

The Major Orchestra Librarians Association (MOLA) provides guidelines which suggest that "the minimum requirement is usually 60 or 70 lb. [100 gsm] offset paper." While I might think that 70 lb. text paper is perfect, the best plan is for you to touch some paper and make your decision by feel.  Note that 70 lb. index is something different, so look for "text" as well as the weight. While you're considering weight you might also consider "acid-free" and similar qualities attributed to archival use.

Color

While color may be the least critical aspect, it does have an impact and should be considered. Jazz, commercial, and other kinds of music that used to be done by hand were almost always done on buff or cream colored paper. Accordingly, music created for these same genres today will likely be best received when it's the same color - especially when working with players mature enough to recall buying buff  manuscript paper from places like Judy Green.

While concert and other music that was traditionally engraved was most often found on white paper, some might still argue that anything but white might be a little easier on the eyes. I suspect that jazz guys might complain if you print to white paper, but it's unlikely that any legit players would complain if you print to buff.

Page Size

While I should point out that there are no universally accepted standards, MOLA guidelines suggest printing orchestra parts "on paper at least 9.5 x 12.5 inches." They also suggest that 10 x 13" is common, but that anything larger than 11 x 14" is "inconvenient and unwieldy." Jazz and commercial music is commonly printed 9.5 x 12.5". That said, because 12 X 18" paper is very readily available, 9 x 12" page sizes are also very common for both jazz and legit parts.

Choral music, on the other hand, is often printed octavo size, 6.75 x 10.5". My goal today isn't to tell you exactly what size you should use, but simply to suggest that there are options to 8.5 x 11". When in doubt you might look to some musicians who perform the type of music you're creating to see what they have on the stand in front of them.

I'll also share another professional secret: Larger page sizes can provide an informal copy protection method as not everyone can easily photocopy 9 x 12" or larger pages.

Combining Pages

As long as none of your pieces go beyond a page or two, we're done talking about paper. However, composers and arrangers often ramble to lengths equaled only by bloggers, so multiple pages are often the case. Printing to larger, better paper, but providing loose individual sheets is like dropping the ball a few inches from the end zone.

The first step here is printing two-up on larger paper. So if you've decided on 9 x 12" pages, you'd need to print two-up on 12 x 18" paper. (We'll talk about printing in a minute). This starts to get involved when you decide to assemble the resulting pages to a booklet, because you may, for example, want page 4 and page 1 to print on one side of the sheet and pages 2 and 3 to print on the other. Printing your pages 2-up, double-sided (perhaps requiring you to flip and re-insert pages) can get tricky, regardless of whether you're using music notation software or a word processing application.

Finale users can find tips for booklet printing by searching the Finale User Manual for "booklet," which will provide specific information for both Mac and Windows users.

While booklet printing is the standard for "legit" music, jazz or commercial music is more often printed as a fanfold, so that multiple pages can be seen without noisy or interrupting page turns. This is a little easier to do and uses some old school technology: tape. Again, good materials can make all the difference, especially for charts that may be played again next year or the year after. If you use clear tape, you'll want something that won't yellow. If you might replace a page or change page order somewhere down the road, you might consider a "repositionable" product that can be removed without damaging your page.

Where to Find Paper

For more common page sizes, local paper stores will have a variety of precut paper options: You should be able to pick and choose among different paper types when shopping for 12 x 18" pages. That said, there are lots of options online, especially if you plan to purchase in bulk. Here's one option: http://www.xpedx.com/

Printers and Printing

Okay, so your heart is set on printing 2-up on 12 x 18" paper, but you discover that your printer won't accept anything larger than legal. One option is a new printer. If you don't print in big volumes, an inkjet printer might be perfect. They can be purchased very inexpensively - even for large page formats. The downside is the cost of the ink.

Laser printers, which use toner cartridges, are much more expensive to purchase, but cheaper to use. They're also faster and capable of higher resolution output. Hey, if money is no object, buy a large format laser printer and toss in a duplexer to eliminate guessing and hand flipping when printing on both sides of the page. For the rest of us, a large format inkjet printer can produce some very impressive results.

Other options include printing 8.5 x 11" pages at home, then bringing them, and your 12 X 18" paper to a self-service photocopy shop and enlarging two of your printed pages to copy on one larger sheet. You can also visit self-service shops that rent computer/printer time and print directly to large pages this way as well. If they don't have Finale Reader™ installed, or are unwilling to let you install it, you may choose to print your files to PDF and bring those files. Mac users can do this natively, Windows users will need to get additional software, http://www.pdf995.comis one low-cost option - I've even heard rumors of freeware alternatives. Printing to PDF can also simplify booklet printing.

Final Thoughts

The main objective of this article is to inspire those of you who currently print to typing paper to broaden your horizons. Need a place to start? Pick out some 12 x 18" sheets of 70 lb. paper and print two pages on it - just give it a try. That said, paper alone doesn't guarantee a touchdown. Many years ago my Broadway copyist friend Peter relayed an anecdote where some "fancy" music was placed on a stand in front of a veteran studio musician, who commented: "Looks great. Too bad it's in the wrong key."

*   *   *

Additional resources

The Finale Forum is a great place to find a wide variety of opinions on just about any notation-related topic, including manuscript paper. Here's just one of the threads that touches on this topic: http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=279135

Valle Music is an old-school manuscript provider. Their catalog listings of manuscript paper offer some examples of popular page sizes: http://www.vallemusic.com/Custom.html

Disclaimer

Anything helpful in this post is likely due to the patient help of Mark Adler. Any errors are mine alone.

Photo of Michael B. Nelson by Martin Thomas at lotuslama.com

Michael B. Nelson is the leader, composer, arranger, and trombonist for the Hornheads, the five-piece a cappella jazz horn group. From 1991-2001 the Hornheads recorded and toured worldwide with Prince, performing for more than two million concert-goers in twenty countries. During this time Nelson recorded and arranged horns for twenty CDs with Prince and other Paisley Park-associated artists.

Nelson was also the producer, composer, arranger, and trombonist on three Hornheads solo releases and ten Compass Records CDs for the Target retail chain. In 1996 Nelson received a McKnight Composers Fellowship through the American Composers Forum.

As a top call studio musician, he has appeared on more than 100 CDs, and has performed and/or recorded with Chaka Khan, Doc Severinsen, Lenny Kravitz, The Jonas Brothers, Sammy Davis Jr., Mandy Moore, Jimmy Jam, Johnny Mathis, Honor Society, Larry Graham, Ben Sidran, Jordan Pruitt, Babyface, Maceo Parker, and many others.  He has also worked on many commercial projects for companies such as Target, BMW, Holiday Inn, Macy's, ABC, Minnesota Twins, Best Buy, General Mills, Hormel, Donatos, Long John Silver, and Redline Entertainment.

In the early 1990s I was very fortunate to be able to hire Michael and some of his Hornheads cohorts to play on a few songs for my group, the Auto Body Experience. One tune in particular had a quick tempo, a way-too-many-sharps guitar key, and frequent 16th note syncopation, so I sent charts ahead of time to ensure the recording date would be short and successful. Shortly after Michael and his bandmates arrived at the session my heart sank as I watched him tear open the manila envelope I'd sent — clearly no one had seen the charts beforehand.

As the engineer set up mics and adjusted levels, Michael directed the section through a quick read-though. He was incredibly efficient, reviewing just the tricky bits. I have a distinct memory of Michael, sight-reading himself (and playing wonderfully), listening to the entire horn section, assessing problems (most likely errors in my charts), and — between phrases — calling out suggestions to other players (while mentally transposing for them), like: "I'm sure he meant a B# there..."

I've been fortunate to work with many musicians whose skills surpass my own, but Michael's ability to simultaneously perform, critique, refine, and direct — at a world-class level — clearly earns him the highest esteem I possess. In addition to his fine musicianship, Michael has a great sense of humor, and is generous in sharing his expertise with others. When I caught up with him in early December 2009, he kindly provided the following glimpse into his work with Finale:

"Not long before I first started using Finale in 1995, I recall telling a friend of mine who was already using it, that I didn't think it would ever be faster than doing copy work by hand. Man, have times changed. I'm surprised he doesn't throw that back in my face on a regular basis. With each passing year and each upgrade, Finale becomes a more and more valuable tool for both for my music business and my creative process.

Besides using it for publishing my own Hornheads charts, I am now doing all my composing and arranging on Finale as well. It's very rare that I even pull out a piece of staff paper anymore. For writing, it can be handy to use the Garritan sounds, although I tend to just use a piano sound which allows me to do a quick proof of my arrangements before rehearsal or recording.

This past year I did a number of horn arrangements with the Hornheads for LA Producer John Fields, including the most recent Jonas Brothers release, "Lines, Vines, and Trying Times," a Steven Page (former lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies) solo project, an upcoming Jordan Pruitt CD, and Honor Society's debut release "Fashionably Late." Finale was an integral part of each project.

Oftentimes I will write an arrangement for John using MIDI in ProTools with the basic track he has sent me. After revisions and his approval, I can easily pull the MIDI files from ProTools and drop them into Finale, do some quick editing, and be ready to record. I think this process was particularly helpful with the Steven Page project we did this fall. John contacted me in the morning and wanted a big band vibe for the tune, and the deadline was the following afternoon.

I was able to create an arrangement in Minneapolis while they simultaneously worked on the tune in LA. We swapped revisions throughout the day and that evening I pulled the completed MIDI version of my arrangement off of ProTools and was ready to record the next morning, ending up with a turnaround time of about 28 hours. This would not have been possible without Finale. Also, since Finale is so widely used, when the Jonas Brothers went on tour with a four-piece horn section, I simply sent the Finale scores of my five-horn arrangements to their musical director and he made the necessary changes to fit their section.

I think the upgrade I appreciated the most is the linked parts feature. As music advisor and arranger for the Starkey Hearing Foundation Gala for the past nine years, I write music for a 20-piece orchestra that does play-ons for all the celebrities as well as backing up artists such as Kenny Loggins, Gavin Degraw, Trisha Yearwood, Jon McLaughlin, Michael Bolton, and many others. Creating parts and making edits is so slick now that it's no longer a concern when the producer needs to make any changes regarding music cues or an artist wants to change an arrangement.

Along with all the arranging I do for recordings and live performances, I also have all my Hornheads arrangements available through my publishing company, Bone 2B Wild Music. With Finale's transposition features, it was easy to take the standard instrumentation of the Hornheads arrangements (two trumpets, tenor sax, trombone, baritone sax) and make them available for saxophone and brass quintets. I find that Finale continues to be an indispensable tool for my entire work and creative process."

I am a Brian Wilson fan. I think the best of his Beach Boys work, including songs like Good Vibrations and Heroes and Villains, are among my all-time favorite pop songs. A big part of the sound of these records are the great L.A. studio musicians who played on them. And Ralph Grasso was one of those guys. Like his friend and fellow guitarist Tommy Tedesco (another one of my heroes and a member of The Wrecking Crew), Ralph was an L.A. studio guitarist when L.A. was the place to be. Ralph played on countless TV shows, movie scores, and recordings from the late 1950s into the 1980s.

After a stint in the U.S. Navy Band, Grasso moved from his native New Jersey to Hollywood at the urging of The New Christy Minstrels' founder Randy Sparks, whom he met in the Navy Band. The day after he arrived he was directed toward NBC Studios in Burbank where he was signed to play on "The Andy Williams Show," and from there his career continued to grow as his reputation as a first-rate player spread.

Ralph and famed composer Hugo Montenegro (also a veteran of the Navy Band) collaborated on the score to the Robert Mitchum/MGM classic "Thunder Road." Other classic scores Ralph orchestrated or performed on include "A Few Dollars More," "Charro!," "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," "Hang 'Em High," "Lady in Cement," "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "Matt Helm," "On A Clear DayYou Can See Forever," "Paint Your Wagon," "The Rita Hayworth Story," "Viva Max," and many more.

Ralph was musical arranger/conductor/guitarist for Jimmie Rodgers for five years. He also worked with Herb Alpert, Tony Bennett, Ray Brown, Johnny Carson, Natalie Cole, John Denver, Herb Ellis, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Hirt, Barney Kessel, Henry  Mancini, Shelly Mann, Elvis Presley, Nelson Riddle, Howard Roberts, Lalo Schifrin, Doc Severinsen, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Sarah Vaughn, Paul Williams, and many more. He has also performed for five U.S. presidents and Queen Elizabeth.

Those of us who grew up on TV could claim Ralph as one of our babysitters. He played weekly on countless shows including "CHiPs," "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour," "I Dream of Jeannie," "The Love Boat," "The Partridge Family," "The Smothers Brothers Show," "Three's Company," "The Jonathan 'Winters Show," and still more TV specials, awards shows, and so forth.

As a solo artist Ralph record for both the Capitol Records and Dot Records labels.

Today Ralph is semi-retired in Arizona, where he continues to teach, conduct clinics and workshops, and perform, including a recent special guest appearance with Randy Sparks and The New Christy Minstrels. "Randy and I go back many years to 1956," Ralph interjects. "We are both still at it strong." 

Ralph has seen his share of music manuscript over the years, and eagerly talks of his fondness for Finale: "I use Finale to prepare workshop pieces for clinics at high schools and universities. I'll include arrangements with intentional errors, which the students are to detect and correct. I also prepare short arranging examples which the students can perform during the clinic. I recommend Finale to all who attend: I think it can greatly assist students with their music writing and arranging."

"I also use Finale to write arrangements for the Velvet Guitars, my jazz guitar group, consisting of five melody guitars in harmony (similar to a sax or trumpet section), a rhythm guitar, and bass. Years ago I did everything by hand. Finale lets me hear the score and make changes, then print parts that are easy to read."

Ralph especially enjoyed the chord enhancements in Finale 2010: "Finale 2010 allows you to write in chords without having to have notes to tie them to. Hurray!"

Learn more about Ralph at: the Green Valley News, the Arizona Daily Star, and imdb.com.

Born on Staten Island, N.Y., to a family of professional musicians, Rick Giovinazzo's life has always been accompanied by a musical score. After many years of studying, performing, and writing music he moved to Los Angeles with the specific intent of working in film scoring, and has subsequently scored several feature films and has provided orchestrations for more than 100 others.

A partial list of the many orchestrations Rick has provided — using Finale — include Angels and Demons, Transformers (1 & 2), Austin Powers (1, 2 & 3), The Da Vinci Code, Pirates of the Caribbean (2 & 3), Astro Boy, The Bourne Supremacy, Desperate Housewives, Ice Age 3, The Chronicles of Narnia, Team America, X-Men (2 & 3) and Baby Mama. A very long list of Rick's accomplishments can be viewed at the Internet Movie Database. 

Composers with whom Rick has worked include George S. Clinton, Hans Zimmer, Burt Bacharach, John Powell, John Ottman, Harry Gregson-Williams, Steve Jablonsky, and many others. Because I'm a Frank Zappa fan, I'm intrigued when I learn of projects Rick has done with Zappa-alumni (and fellow Finale user) Bruce Fowler, just as my love of the music of the Beatles causes me to sit at the edge of my seat when Rick describes a recent trip to London's Abbey Road studios to supervise and record the score to Astro Boy.

Rick is a passionate and knowledgeable Finale user, who has generously lent his expertise to beta testing Finale and helping others on the Finale forum. He was similarly generous in sharing his thoughts for our blog (even including some great tips for new users):

"My work as an orchestrator using Finale dates back to 1996 when I began orchestrating for film and television composers in Los Angeles. Although, going back even further to 1991, I can claim to be among the first of the film and television copyists working in L.A. to use Finale professionally.

Finale has always been the only software that I've found capable of providing "everything" that I've needed from notation software. Other applications which I've tried have been lacking in the power and flexibility to handle certain musical situations which might come up — and in contemporary film scoring an orchestrator is often challenged to get new or unusual compositional techniques clearly and succinctly onto a score page.

I don't recall ever being faced with a situation in which there was something that could not be notated in the way that I wanted when using Finale. I couldn't say this about any other notation software. It seems that all others limit, in one way or another, my ability to produce score pages with the precise look that I think they need.

When I think of another challenge facing film score orchestrators today — the ever-shrinking time frame given to complete the job — I also think of how Finale allows me and my colleagues to prepare scores at breakneck speeds. And, we are able to do this without sacrificing accuracy and esthetics. And when new versions of Finale are released it seems there is always something new that can be done more quickly and more easily than was possible before.

If I sound like a gung-ho cheerleader for Finale that's because I am. I've heard all the arguments against using Finale and have not found any of them to be very compelling or accurate. It's true that at one time Finale was a difficult application to learn, but that has not been the case for many years already. I think it's time this argument be put to rest.

My advice to Finale users just getting started is to jump right in. Begin with small projects and work your way up to those which are more ambitious. I'd suggest strongly that you create a custom template which meets your own specifications as fully as possible. It's amazing how much time this saves on every project. One way to go about this is to use the provided templates, then customize them to your own needs. When you find yourself creating the same expressions or custom shapes and lines over and over again, from one project to the next, then you'll know that it's time to include those items in your template.

I'd also suggest that you feel free to experiment with Finale. I've found this very helpful in improving my own experience as a Finale user. For example:

• Click on unfamiliar tools just to see what they offer.
• Control-click (Mac) or right-click (Windows) and click on things to check out the contextual menus unique to each tool — they are a tremendous convenience.
• Explore the menu items and try those which sound relevant to the task at hand. Remember, you can have unlimited "Undos" so don't be afraid to just try something new.

It's also probably safe to say that the most underutilized resource by both new and long-time users for understanding Finale's tremendous power is the documentation. Leave the documentation open in your web browser in the background where you can quickly do a search to find the information you need whenever you need it.

Finally, use the Forums. There you'll find a community of experienced users who are generous with their knowledge and expertise in Finale and who are constantly trolling the forums ready to quickly and constructively help you navigate the ins and outs of whatever issues you may come upon.

For me, and for many others I'm sure, the thrill that comes from using Finale is when we realize that we can notate our music exactly as we'd like to see it...no differently than had we been using a pencil and paper — only, without the erasures or a straight edge — and with a speed that, at times, is difficult to imagine, and with a look that can be considered ready to publish."

Rick (at left) and composer John Ottman recording the Astro Boy score at Abbey Road Studios in London, July 2009. Photo by Amanda Goodpaster, all rights reserved.