It’s a New Year and many of us are learning new things, like exercise routines, cooking techniques, or obscure hobbies like extreme ironing (yes, it does exist and thanks to the internet, we now all know about it). Even in our little corner of the music industry, music engravers are trying out new techniques, technologies and practices. This year, I’m certain there are more people doing this than usual, given the announcement last year of the sunsetting of Finale.
(read more on my take on that here and what you should do). A question I’ve been receiving a lot from friends and clients alike is how do I go about learning one of these programs? Should I just dive right in on a project already in progress, or watch endless tutorial videos or even just experiment in the program till I learn something? All these approaches may yield some results, helpful or otherwise. However, having learned 3 notations programs (Finale, Sibelius and Dorico), I’d like to offer a roadmap of sorts to navigate your way through the beginning frustrations to the calm peaceful pastures of total mastery (well, ok, at least to having a vague idea of what’s going on in the program). First, and this is a more philosophical mindsight, you need to treat these programs like musical instruments. This sounds a bit strange or over the top but let me explain. Much like practicing and playing an instrument, there various ways to approach any given technique or skill that you want to master. Yes, there are basic skills that are used repetitively, but the application of these skills in each given playing situation may be slightly different. Learning and practicing scales is a great example of this; you can play a scale in many different fingerings, tempos, rhythms, or styles based on the music you are playing, but you are still just playing a scale. A notation program, especially ones as powerful as Finale, Sibelius and Dorico (and Musescore to an extent) have various ways that you can achieve the same look on the page, but use different tools, techniques or processes to make it happen. This ability to use the program in various ways is/was especially pronounced in Finale, where there could be 4 or 5 ways to achieve the same result and choosing which one of the methods to use took experience and practice to learn. This flexibility and vast quantity of possible uses is great for someone like me, a professional engraver and, understandably, frustrating for a novice or those just learning the program. Sibelius and Dorico both have elements of this, Dorico perhaps a shade more than Sibelius, but again, all have the flexibility to be used, modified and adapted to all sorts of uses. Another way in which learning these programs should be approached like instruments is that it will take time to learn them. If you imagine that you will be completely proficient at an instrument in a matter of a few lessons and rehearsals, that would be absurd. Of course you wouldn’t be! As I’ve mentioned in the last paragraph, how could you possibly have the experience on an instrument/program to choose between various methods to achieve a goal with such limited experience? You can’t and to expect to be is folly. Take your time, try doing the same thing in different ways, ask others with grater mastery; these are all practices we would expect to employ when learning a music instrument, and therefore we should use them when learning a notation program. There is so much to learn and try so take your time. Ok, now some practical steps. Here’s the method I have employed to learn and grow in mastery of each of these programs. 1) Read at least some of the manuals. Yes, I know, they are tedious and boring, but there are tons of information in there and if you can gleam enough about the underlying philosophy of how the program was built, it will save you hours of frustration trying to get the program to think like you do. Especially in the beginning, you need to learn how the program thinks and then use that method. Once you have learned enough about the program, then you can slowly adapt it to your preferred workflow. 2) Almost of all the manuals have practice projects that introduce escalating concepts and tools. Use these! I know, it can seem crazy if you already know another program to start at the very beginning with simple tasks, but you must learn how the program works, not how you THINK IT SHOULD WORK. Again, you can’t change or modify something, especially for the better, until you know how it works and then you can find places to improve it and your use of whatever tools it offers. 3) Engrave simple pieces. Start at Mary Had a Little Lamb; yes, I’m serious. Start there, remember what tools to use when, and what order to use them. Then add new elements to simple pieces, like chord symbols, more dynamics or articulations, change key, and new instruments, etc. Start small; don’t let your first project be a 10min full orchestra piece. 4) Progress to engraving more complex pieces, especially for instruments you do not play or are not as familiar with. My go-to repertoire for pieces like this is classical guitar music. There are so many layers, techniques, and elements in that notation that you will certainty get a great notation-focused workout just trying to recreate a one-page piece. Try choral music if you are mostly an instrumentalist. Try engraving a harp part (always tricky). There are so many elements and standards in various kinds of instrumental notation that you can explore and learn from and that makes learning all the corners of a notation program much more enjoyable and practical. 5) Try taking an old project you completed and like the look of and recreate it in the new program. This step helps to train you brain to adjust a previous workflow to the new environment while having something you are familiar with. Engraving new pieces from scratch is great, but reworking an old project that you are familiar with helps you to see how comfortable you are using the new program and what areas between the programs are different for better or worse. 6) Lastly, take another project where you were asked to update an old file or someone else’s file and go through all the same processes in the new program. This simulates more how I would typically work on a project (as a copyist, not a composer/arranger) so this may not be as useful to all of you. However, the benefit is that you learn to take someone else’s work and then have the goal of turning it into something else, which can help you explore different areas of the program and then learn best practices to undo and redo problematic uses of the notation software. As you get into the weeds on a new program, whether transitioning from Finale to Dorico or Sibelius (I’ll have more thoughts on that for you in another post later) or trying to learn new things about the program you already use, (don’t abandon Finale yet) try out some of methods. I confident they will help. And remember, take your time, mastery (whatever your definition of that is) takes time, and the underlying logic of one program or another may feel more natural to you and that’s ok too. As always, contact me if you have questions, need some more advice or a helping hand on a project. Comments are closed.
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AuthorSammy Sanfilippo, CEO of Engraver's Mark Music Archives
January 2025
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