FEATURED FINALE COMPANION APPLICATION: PDFtoMusic Pro is a revolutionary product from Myriad Software that translates PDF files created by other music notation programs into MusicXML format. It knows that staff lines are lines and that noteheads are noteheads because it reads the actual lines and font character information in the file, so it doesn't have to guess if some group of black dots on a page should be a slur or a notehead. The results are far more accurate translations than have ever been possible before. If you have files in Mosaic, Overture, Professional Composer, Logic, Cakewalk or other apps where MIDI has been your only option to translate into Finale, this is a must-have companion application.

Finale 2008 is the latest version of MakeMusic's flagship notation application. Order your upgrade today!

INTERVIEW: Music Copyist Robert Puff

If you haven't already updated to Finale 2008, you can download the Finale 2007c updater . This is a free, downloadable maintenance update available to registered Finale 2007 users.

Please contact us with additions and corrections to this listing. Thanks for helping us keep this resource page current! Send us info about plug-ins, fonts, or Finale web sites you don't see listed here. Thank you.

FEATURED RESOURCE: Friday, May 09, 2008

Developed at the Ghent Conference on Music Notation, these percussion symbols are now in wide-spread use and are becoming an international notation standard. The two fonts in this set include glyphs for more than 150 instruments, mallets (including hand, finger, fist, etc.), playing method symbols (center, rim, open/closed hi-hat, and more), and upper and lower alpha-numeric characters. Mallets can be shown mallet-head up or handle-end up, and boxed separately or in combinations. They are entirely cross-platform compatible in music notation programs. www.caltabiano.net Also available: Sicilian Numerals & Rehearsal Font Set

FONTS

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FONTS

MusiQwik, MusiSync, Bongos, FretQwik, and NoteHedz are free TrueType music fonts created by Robert Allgeyer. Use them in Finale, or a word processing document. Robert is also a beta-tester for PDFtoMusic, the revolutionary notation translation program by Myriad software.

Bayard-Nizet has developed a set of 12 new music fonts for Mac and PC (both Postscript and True-type versions are available). These fonts cover a variety of notational symbols from common to the more esoteric and are sold at very moderate prices. Choose from Virtuoso, Charleston, Grupetto, Staccato, Vivace, Espressivo, Koechlin, Fingering, Ars Nova, Flamenco, Oratorio and Timpani.

BlueNotz, BlueText, and BlueChords jazz notation fonts with a handwritten jazz look by Tom Williams. Please email us if you have current contact information.

Caltabiano music fonts by Ronald Caltabiano. Sicilian Numerals (figured bass and Roman numerals), Ghent Percussion Font set (2 fonts), and Rehearsal Font Set (3 fonts). Downloadable demos and online purchase.

ChordSymbol and CSTimes are music analysis fonts developed by John Clevenger. Please email us if you have current contact information.

DaFont - thousands of freeware and shareware fonts available for download.

Doremi is a shapenote font that has the shapes for the systems used by Aiken, Funk, Walker, The New Harp of Columbia, and The Sacred Harp. Aiken's system is the seven-shape system used by almost all of the modern songbooks using a shapenote system.  Order from Karen E. Willard, Pacific NW Sacred Harp Singers, 15215 Tubbs Road, Buckley, WA 98321; Ph: 360-897-9545. hallock@mindspring.com.

ExpressMusic offers three music fonts with a distinctive hand copied look; Ashmusic, Leemusic and Russmusic. There is a corresponding text font available for each of the music font sets. Available for both Mac and PC.

FinaleFontSolutions by Ansgar Krause for Mac and Windows (including XP). Figured Bass (Standard and struck-through numbers, accidentals, brackets ...), GuitarTools (For guitar fretboard pictures of your choice and more), SmartTools (Ornaments, glisses, quartertone-accidentals, accidentals with brackets of different shape [standard, non-symmetric, square], piano pedal-graph and much more ...), Lyrics (Improvements for Finale®-users), Piano Fingering (Stacked Numbers and round brackets, silent changes, square brackets for special thumb situations...), Thicker Cursors (for Macintosh users).

Franck and Brahms fonts are available from Florian Feuser. Franck is compatible with the Petrucci font, and Brahms contains a variety of nonstandard symbols. Both fonts are available for Mac and PC. Email florian@feuser.net

GoldenAge music fonts by Donald Rice. Anixter Rice Music Service - Suite 1410-D, 630 9th Avenue New York, NY 10036

Handbell notation font by Paul A. McKlveen. Of interest to composers and engravers of Handbell music. Available in TrueType or Postscript for Mac and PC.

Identifont - this unique online service allows you to match an existing typeface, or identify a typeface you have seen in a publication. Most of the major type libraries are supported, including Adobe, Berthold, Bitstream, FontFont, and P22.

Matthew Hindson has created some very useful and unique music fonts for both Mac and PC. Clefs, Harp Pedals, Saxophone Fingerings, Recorder Fingerings, and more. Freeware. There are also Finale tutorials on his website.

JazzFont - this handwritten music font set for jazz charts created by Rich Sigler comes bundled with Finale™. Comes in a set of four fonts - Music, Chord Suffix, Text, and Jazz Percussion. For a different hand-written look, Rich offers the "Swing" font.

Kidnotes offers noteheads with letters embedded in them. Intended for music for beginning music students, this font can be used to display note names on noteheads. Available for Mac and PC. DVMarticulations is included free of charge. Call DVM Publications (610) 896-0996 or email SPLsm@aol.com for information.

Metronome font. DVMarticulations is included free of charge. DVM Publications · Woodside Rd. Suite A-202 · Haverford, PA 19041 · (610) 896-0996 · Email SPLsm@aol.com

Medieval is the solution to set early music notation with Finale (11th - 15th centuries), like Gregorian chant. The package contains 2 new fonts, a plug-in (a new tool palette including automatic recognition of neumes), default files, samples, and a printed documentation in 4 languages. Delivered on a hybrid CD (Mac/PC). Published and distributed by Klemm Music Technology.

Microtonal Font - Andrian Pertout has created two versions of this freeware font, with the first, 'Microtonal Font' (TT, PS) intended for use in Finale, and the second, 'Microtonal Font Text', (TT, PS) intended for use in a word processor. Included are the five standard accidental signs of Western music; four common quarter-tone and three-quarter-tone symbols; twenty-three unique symbols based on Daniélou’s division of the whole-tone; Ali Naqi Vaziri’s notation system, or four accidentals of Persian music; Johnston’s system of notation, which contains twenty-three unique symbols for the notation of just intonation up to the thirty-first harmonic; as well as Fokker’s nine symbols for the notation of thirty-one equal temperament. All these symbols have been incorporated into a 238-character microtonal notation PostScript Type 1 (PS) or TrueType (TT) font, which is fully compatible with Finale 2008. There is extensive information about these notation systems, along with instructions for use in Finale here.

MidiDesign - by Christian Texier (French website). Six free music fonts: Acoustica, Concreta, Controla, Electronica, Microtona and Sonora. Available for Mac and PC.

Music Font Links - courtesy of the School of Computer Science at McGill University.

Music Teacher Tools - currently feature 7 new TrueType music fonts: MusicEd - rhythms that align, kodaly handsigns, and keyboard tablature. MusicEd Flute - create fingering diagrams for flute and recorder. MusicEd Oboe - create fingering diagrams for oboe. MusicEd Clarinet - create fingering diagrams for clarinet. MusicEd Bassoon - create fingering diagrams for bassoon. MusicEd Sax - create fingering diagrams for sax. MusicEd Brass - create valve and slide position diagrams for brass.

NorMusic fonts - a set of jazz music fonts with a handwritten look, available for Mac and PC. This handwritten music font set for jazz charts created by Nor Eddine Bahha works with Finale™ and other music notation applications. Comes in a set of three fonts: NorMusic, NorText & NorText Extra.

November from Klemm Technologies is one of the finest and warmest music font ever designed for Finale, and covers a wide period of symbols, from the Renaissance up to the 21th century. The package contains font files, templates, libraries, samples (with executable baroque ornaments and microtons). Delivered on a hybrid CD (Mac/PC) with a full documentation in 3 languages and Reference Card.

Numero font was created by Lars-Anders Calrsson, who works at the "Artisten, Huset for Musik och Teater" in Gothenburg Sweden. Freeware.

Realbook Chords, New Realbook Chords & Realbook Title are music fonts (Windows TrueType) in the style of the famous Jazz Real Books for use in Finale. Created by Jochen Pietsch. Freeware.

Really Loud Fonts by Arun Konanur. Publication quality Postscript music fonts include Tempi, Thesis, Metric, Barnett, Lassus, Musica, and the Partita font, which emulates the printed look of the Score music publishing program within Finale.

Salzedo Harp Font - This excellent font by Bill Duncan is based on Carlos Salzedo's harp notation standard, and also includes a number of squiggles and loops, brackets, l.v. symbols, pedal spelling and circled pedal diagram characters. Bill also has several other fonts available.

Sonata, the venerable music notation font, is available from Adobe.

StMeinrad font and its auxiliary, StMeinradAux, contain the symbols necessary to reproduce Gregorian chant. Mac and PC.

Susato font is available from: NOTENGRAFIK, Werner Eickhoff, Schauinslandstr. 99, 79 100 Freiburg, Germany

Toccata & Fughetta by Blake Hodgetts are Petrucci compatible music fonts available for both Mac and PC. These fonts include a wide variety of specialized music characters not available in Petrucci. Blake is the author of the Maestro music notation font which comes bundled with Finale 2000 - 2002.

IMAGING

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PRINTER MANUFACTURERS

• Canon
• Epson
• GCC Technologies
• Genicom - (formerly Texas Instruments printer division.)
• Hewlett Packard
• Lexmark
• Konica / Minolta / QMS
• Xante

RESOURCES & MISC INFO

• DataProducts - toner and ribbon supplies for all printers.
• Drivershack - if you are a Windows user, this is a valuable resource. Current software drivers for most printers and nearly everything else.
• ZDNet - Printers guideand reviews. Good starting point if you are shopping for a printer to use for music notation.
• Webopaedia - In-depth information for different things you might want to know about printing and typesetting is available here. Be sure to check out their Printer Category page.

BOOKS

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Some of the following links will take you to Amazon.com for info about specific titles with no obligation to buy.

FILM SCORING BOOKS

1. On The Track - by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright
2. Syncronization, From Reel To Reel - by Jeff Rona
3. The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures - by Jeff Rona
4. Complete Guide to Film Scoring - by Richard Davis
5. The Art of Film Music - by George Burt
6. American Film Music - Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915 - 1990 - William Darby and Jack Du Bois
7. Bernard Herrmann's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - A Film Score Guide - David Cooper
8. Complete Guide to Film Scoring - Richard Davis
9. Danny Elfman's Batman - A Film score Guide - Janet K. Halfyard
10. Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - A Film Score Guide - Charles Leinberger
11. Film Music - A Neglected Art - Roy M. Prendergast
12. Film Music - Critical Approaches - (Edited) K. J. Donnelly
13. Film Score - The Art and Craft of Movie Music - Tony Thomas
14. From Score to Screen - The New Film Scoring Process - Sonny Kompanek
15. Gabriel Yared's The English Patient - A Film Score Guide - Heather Laing
16. Hearing Film - Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music - Anahid Kassabian
17. How to make Money scoring Soundtracks and Jingles - Jeffrey P. Fisher
18. Knowing the Score - Notes on Film Music - Irwin Bazelon
19. Listening to Movies - The Film Lover's Guide to Film Music - Fred Karlin
20. Louis and Bebe Barron's Forbidden Planet - A Film Score Guide - James Wierzbicki
21. Music in Film - Soundtracks and Synergy - Pauline Reay
22. On The Track - A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring - Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright
23. Overtones and Undertones - Reading Film Music - Royal S. Brown
24. Settling the Score - Music and the Classical Hollywood Film - Kathryn Kalinak
25. Sound Design - The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema - David Sonnenschein
26. Soundtrack - The Music of the Movies - Mark Evans
27. Soundtrack Available - Essays on Film and Popular Music - Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight
28. Strains of Utopia - Gender, Nostalgia and Hollywood Film Music - Caryl Flinn
29. The Art of Film Music - George Burt
30. The Composer in Hollywood - Christopher Palmer
31. The Film Sense - Sergi M. Eisenstein
32. The Invisible Art of Film Music - Laurence E. MacDonald
33. The Reel World - Scoring for Pictures - Jeff Rona
34. The Score - Interviews with Film Composers - Michael Schelle
35. The Spectre of Sound - Music in Film and Television - K. J. Donnelly
36. The Technique of Film Music - Roger Manvell and John Huntley
37. Twenty Four Frames Under - A Buried History of Film Music - Russell Lack
38. Writing Music for Television and Radio Commercials - A Manual for Composers and Students - Michael Zager

NOTATION BOOKS

1. Finale Power - by Mark Johnson
2. Finale - "An easy guide to music notation" by Thomas E. Rudolph, Vincent A. Leonard
3. The Finale Primer - "Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale" 2nd Ed. by Bill Purse
4. Norton Manual of Music Notation - by George Heussenstamm
5. Essential Dictionary of Music Notation - by Tom Gerou & Linda Lusk
6. Music Notation by Gardner Read. See also Pictographic Score Notation and 20th-Century Microtonal Notation
7. Music Manuscript Preparation - by Mona Mender
8. Preparing Traditional Music Manuscript - by Michael Mohn

ORCHESTRATION BOOKS

1. Artistic Orchestration - by Alan Belkin. This useful resource is the third volume in a free series of online books on musical technique. Other volumes cover Form , Counterpoint , and Harmony.
2. The Guide to Midi Orchestration - by Paul Gilreath
3. The Study of Orchestration - by Samuel Adler. Companion workbook available.
4. The Technique of Orchestration - by Kent Kennan and Donald Grantham.
5. Essential Dictionary of Orchestration - by Dave Black, Tom Gerou
6. Orchestration - by Cecil Forsyth and William Balcom
7. Principles of Orchestration - by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

REFERENCE BOOKS

• The Oxford Dictionary of Music - 2nd Ed
• The Notation of Medieval Music by Carl Parrish

PLUGINS

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Braille Music Kit - convert music into print through the plug-in for Finale ® (Coda) and convert written music into Braille through Finale.

Classic Transposition by Philip Aker is a plug-in for Finale which provides many additional transposition features.

Although there is no Macintosh version available, Forza! by Jari Williamsson is a suite of plug-ins for Finale. Finale Productivity Tips by the same author provides useful Finale solutions not listed in the manuals. There is also a comprehensive list of 3rd party PlugIns available here, from different developers.

Medieval is the solution to set early music notation with Finale (11th - 15th centuries), like Gregorian chant. The package contains 2 new fonts, a plug-in (a new tool palette including automatic recognition of neumes), default files, samples, and a printed documentation in 4 languages. Delivered on a hybrid CD (Mac/PC). Published and distributed by Klemm Music Technology.

Plug-Ins Page - Robert G. Patterson has developed plugins such as Tuplet Copy, Tuplet Mover, Staff Sets, Patterson Beams and Settings Scrapbook. His page also has tips on how to write your own plug-ins. This is a great resource for anyone interested in plug-ins for Finale.

Time Studio FP (currently PC only) written by Zbigniew Zuchowicz. Tempi can be edited by clicking and dragging hitpoints with mouse. Easy and intuitive navigation through bars. MM units displayed Musical terms like Allegro, Presto displayed and aligned with MM numbers.

TGTools for Finale by Tobias Giesen. By far the most comprehensive suite of 3rd party plug-ins currently available. Plug-Ins include: Spacing Utilities, Lyrics Utilities, Harp Pedaling, Mass Create Hairpins, Mass Create Slurs, Automatic Tremolo, Text Expression Sorter, Secondary Beam Breaker, Harmonics Automation and Process extracted parts to extract one voice from a multi-voice staff. 'Playback' plug-in for glissandi and hairpins. Many other useful features being added on a regular basis.

UTILITIES
& MISC.

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• MISC SOFTWARE

Cursors for Finale: Ansgar Krause has created a modified version of the mac-resource within Finale that is responsible for the cursors. When installed under Classic OS using ResEdit, Finale will display thicker cursors, which is especially useful on powerbooks and TFT-displays such as the Apple Studio Display. Only for Mac-users, freeware.

FinKey - (please email if you have current contact info.) FinKey is a Finale tool designed to work specifically with the Windows version of Finale. With FinKey you can significantly speed up your work with the built-in and user defined keyboard shortcuts, fit display magnification exactly to the staff system margins (useful for small monitors), exactly measure horizontal and vertical vectors, rotate any text.

Garritan Personal Orchestra - A comprehensive, easy-to-use orchestral sample Library for $249.  Extremely high quality collection of orchestral instruments, and a great value. GPO Finale Users Page is a resource page on the GPO site, which includes plug-ins written for Finale as well as some excellent tutorials.

LeadSheet - for Finale PC users - this freeware application converts the chord symbols from a Band-in-a-Box file into the Finale 97/98 ETF format. Written by Jan Angermüller.

MusicXML - MusicXML Finale Converter. Using the converter, you can save music to previous versions of Finale, import music scanned with SharpEye Music Reader or Photoscore, and exchange your music with Sibelius and other notation software users.

Quickeys is a Macro tool for Mac OSX and Windows from CE Software .

Page Sender - fax or email large format pages up to 12" x 18" orchestral scores with this great shareware application for Mac OSX. Works with large format hardware faxes such as OMNIFAX G88 and XEROX DL6450. Great for archival of hand written scores. Pages are converted to PDF files, and stand alone PDF files can also be attached to an outgoing fax or email. If you don't have a tabloid printer, large scores are easily reduced to your printer's maximum page size. This is a must have for any professional orchestrator, composer or music copyist on the Mac platform.

Transcribe! - shareware to help transcribe recorded music for Windows and Macintosh. Transcribe! includes the ability to slow mp3 audio files down without changing the pitch, and to analyse chords and show you what notes are present.

Tunefinder X - Tunefinder is a Melody Index for Mac OSX (soon for Windows). It will show you the name of the composer and composition for any of over 13,000 melodies from classical and popular music when all you know is the melody itself. The database includes themes and melodies from scores of composers, including Arlen, Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Bruckner, Chopin, Corelli, Debussy, Donizetti, Dvorak, Elgar, Gershwin, Gluck, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Joplin, Liszt, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Milhaud, Mozart, Offenbach, Prokofiev, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Rodgers, Rossini, Saint-Saens, Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Smetana, Sousa, Strauss, Strauss, Sullivan, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Vivaldi, Wagner, and Weber.

Wedelmusic - European research and software to allow the distribution of interactive music via Internet. Wedelmusic is an XML compliant software format that presents multimedia capabilities and includes identification, classification, symbolic, visual, versioning, printing, protection, image score, image, document, performance, video, and lyric aspects. There is currently a Finale plug-in and editor (Windows only) for using the format.

• FONT CREATION AND MANAGEMENT

Font Lab - software tools for font design, font conversion and font editing. PC and Mac.

Fonts Manager - for Macintosh. A simple application, rather than an extension or control panel, it moves fonts in and out of your fonts folder for you. Shareware.

Master Juggler Pro - font management software for the Mac by Alsoft.

PopChar Pro - makes typing of unusual characters on the Mac easy without having to remember keyboard combinations. It installs a menu that shows all characters available in the current font. Any character can be inserted in the current document by simply selecting it from the menu.

Suitcase - font management software for Mac by Extensis. They also sell a cross-platform fonts manager with integrated font server capabilities.

• MISC MUSIC NOTATION RELATED WEB RESOURCES

ABC Music Notation Language - a language designed to notate tunes in an ascii format. It was designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western European origin (such
as English, Irish and Scottish) which can be written on one stave in standard classical notation.

Archival Products provides solutions for preservation for colleges and universities, museums, historical societies, art and music libraries, medical schools and government offices as well as for the private conservator.

Dr. Gordon Callon's comprehensive list of Music Notation Software for Mac and PC is worth checking out. You may be surprised to find out how many music notation software applications currently exist in addition to Encore, Fermata, Finale, Graphire, Igor Engraver, Nightingale, Opus, Overture, Score, Sibelius, SmartScore and Turandot, many of which are freeware or shareware.

Computerized Music Engraver's Directory - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.

Description of Paper Weights - explains the evolution of basis weights and sizes, how certain sizes became standard. By Charles P. Klass.

Equivalent Weights of Paper - this useful chart cross references Book, Bond, Cover, Bristol, Index and Tag papers by weight. From Dick Stransky.

Extremes of Conventional Music Notation - Donald Byrd, of the School of Music at Indiana University has compiled this entertaining and informative resource.

It would be nice if... " IWBNI" is a webpage created by John Greschak devoted to publishing suggestions and user votes for improving Finale.

Judy Green Music - known primarily as a supplier of music paper and supplies, located in Hollywood, California, JGM also provides complete music duplication and binding services, including gold, silver or colored lettering on scores and orchestra covers.

Music Engravers - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.

Musitek has developed music scanning software, and is working with Coda on this technology. Scanned files can now be imported directly into Finale.

Music Notation Links - an excellent collection of notation related links. Subjects include: Comparisons of Music Notation Applications, Music Braille, Common Music Notation, Shape Note, Tablature, Early Music, Non-Western Notation, Byzantine Music Notation, Kinko Ryu Shakuhachi Notation, Extra-terrestrial music notation.

Vital Presentation Concepts - binding machines especially for printed music parts and scores.

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EDUCATIONAL SITE AND ORGANIZATIONS

Big Site of Music Notation and Engraving at Colorado College. A great resource - includes an extensive notation bibliography, links, notation conventions, and keyword search of the Finale Digests.

EngravingMusic - This email discussion list moderated by Alain Van Kerckhoven is devoted to music typesetting and lay-out. It is not commercial and one click is enough to unsubscribe, so you can easily try it out. You may configure it to receive the messages individually or as digests.

Finale FTP archive - maintained by Professor Henry Howey at Sam Houston State University. This archive houses a number of files for Mac and PC related to Finale. (access available via web browser).

Finale Discussion List - maintained by Professor Henry Howey at Sam Houston State University. This page also details the relevant files contained in the SHSU FTP archive listed above.

Finale Forum - a place for Finale users to communicate with each other, exchange ideas, and help one another. One of the oldest Finale related chat / discussion sites.

MLA - The Music Library Association is the professional organization in the United States devoted to music librarianship and to all aspects of music materials in libraries. Founded in 1931.

The Music Notation Project - An international association exploring alternative music notation systems that improve upon traditional music notation, and providing resources for the wider consideration and use of these alternative notation systems.

MOLA - the Major Orchestra Librarian's Association was founded in 1983 primarily to help improve communication among orchestra librarians. The Association's other objectives include educating and assisting librarians, presenting a unified voice in publisher relations and providing education, support, and information to performing arts and other music service organizations.

MPA - Music Publisher's Association of the United States.

NEDCC - The Northeast Document Conservation Center was founded in 1973 to specialize in the preservation and conservation of paper-based materials, including books, manuscripts, photographs, and art on paper.

NMPA - National Music Publisher's Association.

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Seite mit Links zu allen möglichen Fonts und Erweiterungen für "Finale" und andere Musikprogramme