239 - R.I.P. Finale

Today I received news I never expected from a source I never expected either.

I have been a user of the notation program Finale since version 2.0 back in the early 1990’s. All this time Finale has been the premiere (as far as I’m concerned) notation program regardless of platform. I’ve used it literally for over 30 years and it’s probably the only software in existence where I don’t have to look up in a manual how to do anything - I already know it, plus I’ve developed all kinds of shortcuts & tricks.

And, I have a rich body of compositional works all saved in Finale format.

Which made it all the more disturbing to get a notice from a friend, not even from Finale itself despite being a customer of theirs for decades, that the company is abandoning the software and pretty much that’s it. No updates and as soon as operating systems advance to the point that the program no longer works, tough cookies for you.

However, gee, for a limited time users of any version of Finale can update to Dorico Pro for cheap. Dorico is their recommended replacement, however, having recently upgraded my Finale I’m not really keen on spending more money right now on another upgrade.

Nor am I particularly keen on learning a brand new notation program from the bottom up either. I had to do that for a while with Sibelius for an arranging job and it’s maddening having to look up all the minutia involved in accomplishing nit-picky notation details.

However, the real lesson here is always keep at least one printed copy of everything you create which I haven’t. Unless I go thru the monumentally inconvenient and time consuming task of taking nearly a career's worth of finale files, exporting each one of them, including unfinished sketches, as musicXML files then reimporting them into Dorico, and then, of course, fixing the inevitable issues that happen with exporting / importing music, there will come a day when all that work will be lost absent printed scores.

Technically, that day will come anyway even with printed copies, but why hasten it?

I suppose I shouldn’t care, but damn - it would be nice to think there’s a possibility at some point in the future some of this stuff will be turned into sound waves again via musicians.

What a mess.