🔗 The End of Finale | the finale blog

MakeMusic announced the end of Finale today. They encouraged their users to move to Dorico. Dorico is offering their highest tier (Dorico Pro) to users of Finale or PrintMusic for just $149.

Dorico is amazing, and I couldn't agree more that it is the future of music notation.

The end of Finale | the finale blog:

Today, Finale is no longer the future of the notation industry—a reality after 35 years, and I want to be candid about this. Instead of releasing new versions of Finale that would offer only marginal value to our users, we’ve made the decision to end its development.

Effective immediately, we are announcing these changes:

• There will be no further updates to Finale, or any of its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter)
• It is no longer possible to purchase or upgrade Finale in the MakeMusic eStore
• Finale will continue to work on devices where it is currently installed (barring OS changes)

Robby Burns Transforms Band with Technology | TI-ME.org

The Technology Institute for Music Education (TI:ME) has a brand new website design. I am happy to be featured on their blog as a teacher using technology in the classroom. Click the link below for the entire feature.

Robby Burns Transforms Band with Technology:

What is a particular success story from using technology in your music classes?

A few years back, I transformed how I teach my beginning Concert Band class. When concert literature was giving us trouble, I wrote out everyone’s part for every instrument transposition and created play-along materials for all of it. The idea was to have fun in class while doing the necessary repetitions to perform successfully. My music team added a headset microphone to the front of the room, and I loaded all the play-along material into the Farrago soundboard app on the Mac. I became like a spin instructor: running tracks, encouraging repetitive effort, walking around the room, giving high-fives, correcting posture, and keeping kids engaged who might otherwise feel disconnected from the process. This approach changed how I do the job, and wouldn’t have been possible without the hardware and software I have come to depend on.

Guest Appearance: iPad Pros Podcast -

I'm glad to have joined the iPad Pros podcast again to talk about how I use the iPad in my gigging life, both as a performer and conductor.

Anyone looking to level up their iPad skill should listen to the episode below and subscribe to Tim Chaten's show. He even has a new podcast all about the Apple Vision Pro.

Muse Group acquires Hal Leonard - Scoring Notes

Big news.

The Scoring Notes blog has details and insights. Click to read their coverage below.

Muse Group acquires Hal Leonard - Scoring Notes:

Muse Group, the Limassol, Cyprus-based company which owns music and audio products such as MuseScore.com, the MuseScore music notation application, StaffPad, Ultimate Guitar, and Audacity, has acquired Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Hal Leonard, the largest publisher of sheet music and educational books. The transaction is supported by San Francisco-based private equity firm Francisco Partners. The acquisition closed on December 1, 2023 and was announced today. Terms were undisclosed. Muse Group published a series of FAQs to address immediate questions. Keep reading here…

🔗 Dissertation summary | The Ethan Hein Blog

Dissertation summary | The Ethan Hein Blog:

I applied for something that asked for a ten page summary of my doctoral dissertation. Maybe you would like to read it, rather than the full 300 pages? Keep reading here…

StaffPad Autumn 2023 Update

A new update is out for StaffPad. I have been testing the app and have more to say about it on a future episode of the podcast. For now, read about the update from the StaffPad team, themselves…

Autumn 2023 Update:

It's been a while since our last update and, in the interim, we've been working hard on a lot of very interesting challenges and technologies - all designed to make writing music in StaffPad more productive and more flexible than ever.

This has resulted in some major changes under the hood, and a huge amount of R&D. I'm extremely proud of the work the team has done on this release, bringing features out of the research phase and into production use.

As always, this update is free and available in the App Store and Windows Store now. The video below gives a general overview of the update, covering composing using Piano Capture, MIDI Capture, Video Staffs, and more. Let's dive into it! Keep reading here…

The new piano capture and MIDI capture are paradigm-shifting additions to this update that offer entire new input methods. StaffPad is not my only notation tool, but what I appreciate about it is that the features the team chooses to focus on are all features that lift the burden off of me. For example, writing directly on the staff with an Apple Pencil eliminates the abstractions of menus and buttons. Recording my upright piano straight into the staff is, similarly, a concept that let’s me more directly get my thoughts our of my head and into the app, and without fussing with interfaces, USB connections, and MIDI controllers.

This update is very much worth a look and I am excited to discuss it more down the road.

Asked and answered, part 3: Back to school - Scoring Notes Podcast

I’m very happy to have a few of my questions addressed on a recent episode of Scoring Notes (listen here).

Philip and David have been doing a series of episodes featuring listener questions. In part 3, the questions are centered on educational topics. Their responses are insightful, considered, and practical.

Podcast appearance: iPad Pros Episode 178 - Logic Pro

I am back on the iPad Pros podcast, this time to talk about Logic Pro for iPad.

I really had fun talking to Tim about this topic. I hope you will check it out.

Amazing Free Mac Apps You Aren't Using! - Snazzy Labs

I really enjoyed this video of awesome, free, Mac apps. I use and give my thumbs up to most of the apps in this video and even learned about a new one or two myself.

Everything Must Be Paid for Twice

This blog post is worth a read. Via Andrew Hitz.

Everything Must Be Paid for Twice:

The miracle of industrialization has reduced many first prices tremendously, but has also given us many more of them to consider paying. With all the wonderful toys on offer, almost nobody feels like they have quite enough money, enough acquisition power. When a person receives a windfall, they immediately think of more first prices they can now pay.

But no matter how many cool things you acquire, you don’t gain any more time or energy with which to pay their second prices—to use the gym membership, to read the unabridged classics, to make the ukulele sound good—and so their rewards remain unredeemed.

I believe this is one reason our modern lifestyles can feel a little self-defeating sometimes. In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices, creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices. Yet the rewards of any purchase – the reason we buy it at all — stay locked up until both prices are paid. Keep reading here…