Finale: once the industry-standard of music notation software, now a cautionary tale. In this video, I explore how it slowly lost its crown through decades of missed opportunities - eventually leading to creative collapse due to various bureaucratic intrigues, unforeseen technological changes and some of the jankiest UI/UX you've ever seen. This marks the final part in my series on interface design and notation software, which had previously looked at Sibelius, MuseScore and Dorico.

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ARTICLES & BLOGS

Review of Polywriter
https://www.music-tech-solutions.co.j...

Contemporary review of Polywriter
https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/th...

Early review of Coda’s Finale:
https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/co...

Finale obituary by Scoring Notes
https://www.scoringnotes.com/news/mak...

Phil Ferrand’s website
https://philfarrand.com/contact-me/

MakeMusic acquire Weezic
https://techinmusiced.wordpress.com/2...

Gear Fischer
https://www.scoringnotes.com/people/f...

Peaksware Article
https://endurance.biz/2018/industry-n...

Andy Stevens - We’re ‘Profit Cycle Hunters’ https://www.artisanpartners.com/inves...

Conquering Finale
https://www.scoringnotes.com/tag/conq...

Changes of Peaksware & MakeMusic management, 2020
https://mmrmagazine.com/stephens-tran...

Erato
https://www.scoringnotes.com/meta/pre...

On Igor Engraver
https://www.ooloi.org/home/why-resurr...


PAPERS ON SHORTCUT USAGE

Hidden Costs of Graphical User Interfaces
https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lane/papers...

Keyboard Shortcut Usage: The Roles of Social Factors and Computer Experience
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...

'Satisficing' and the Use of Keyboard Shortcuts
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/...

Accommodating Both Expert Users and Novice Users in One Interface
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...


SEC FILINGS
https://www.makemusic.com/investors/s...


VIDEOS

Mockingbird notation demonstration
   • Mockingbird—A Musician's Amanuensis, lectu...  

Interview with Phil Farrand
   • Inventor of Finale Music Notation Software...  


SCORES FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO

Yoshiaki Onishi - Envoi I für Violoncello solo (2015)
Copyright © Edition Gravis Verlag GmbH, Germany. https://www.amaverlag.com/produkt/env...


--------- CHAPTERS ---------

00:00 - Our modern technological landscape. Yum.
04:43 - Introduction
06:45 - The beginning: how Finale was born
13:50 - Getting started in V27
17:31 - Pain
26:18 - Shortcuts
31:57 - Note input
41:17 - Pain 2 - The progressive disclosuring
53:48 - Engraving
57:47 - What happened at MakeMusic?
01:09:30 - The Kelley Krew
01:16:46 - The Rooster
01:18:16 - The eternal backlog
01:20:12 - Ascension
01:21:55 - Garbla-sinc, alon, a-maralurbre