DR ChasSmith, you are right: learning Finale is a bitch and this old dog is not learning the tricks fast enough. The one thing i've learned is that a lot of these young computer wiz kids are good at using it but completely incompetent about finessing the product into art. I believe that printed music should be as attractive to the eye as it is to the ear, and I see too many pieces of music and band parts that look like complete crap. Some of what's being printed by publishers these days is an insult to the engravers who produced art on the page 100 years ago.
DR Elmore, that was a welcome paragraph on this Monday morning! I've meant to bring it up on any number of occasions over the past few years. This has annoyed and saddened me for some time, and it gets ever worse. As in any kind of publishing, there's an art to general layout and appearance and a multitude of details, and very few are practicing it.
In show scores, which I'm mostly familiar with in this regard, forget about it. MTI is a major offender. Their long-needed redone P/C scores, e.g.
The Music Man, are a godsend, but the layouts and notation decisions in many of them look like raw beginners efforts.
Ironically, the Finale folks themselves talk about this. In the latest newsletter they made a few observations. using the "house styles" of classical piano music publishers to illustrate, that instantly resonated with me. Hell, some of the music that I haven't been able to make myself get rid of is partially due to its pure physical beauty.
