The Finale Primer: Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale [Paperback]

Bill Purse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Bill Purse is the chair of the music technology and guitar departments at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. His new book, fully updated for the latest version of Finale, remains the authoritative guide for understanding and using the most powerful, state-of-the-art software that generates publisher-quality notation. Finale's wide range of capabilities yields a steep learning curve, but this book guides users through the program's powerful intricacies one step at a time. It assists with all facets of music preparation - from transcribing an existing piece of music to creating an original work - and helps maximize the benefits of Finale's invaluable capabilities in editing, reformatting, and reorganizing musical material. For Finale 2002 and above.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An extremely helpful book. Getting started in Finale can be difficultbut The Finale Primer makes learning Finale simple. The directions and illustrations are extremely clear and easy to follow. The appendices are excellent references." -- MITs Computer Music Journal, Summer 1999

"Clear and comprehensivevery helpful." -- Catholic Music Educator, April 1999

"The Finale Primer makes the trek to the notational summit feel like a walk in the park...an excellent shortcut to learning the software." -- Guitar Shop, January 1999

About the Author

Bill Purse is Chair of the Music Technology and Guitar Departments at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. A pioneer in interactive CD-ROM, MIDI files, hard disk recording and music score publication, he is past chair of the MENC/NAMM/GAMA Guitar Task Force. Purse consults for Fender Musical Instruments and Apple Computer, and has performed with such artists as Al DiMeola, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, and Billy Cobham.

Product Details

• Paperback: 247 pages
• Publisher: Backbeat Books; 2 edition (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879306025
• ISBN-13: 978-0879306021
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,244,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hooked on the software but the book........., December 2, 2000

By 

E. Thornton (Nassau, The Bahamas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Finale Primer: Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale (Paperback)

I began to read with great anticipation but was sorely disappointed. There were too many errors in the 2000 edition, which apparently had been revised in a hurry to catch up with the software upgrade. Many of the existing shortcuts were either inaccurate or, in the case of the new ones, omitted altogether. The author also geared much of his commentary towards Mac users and referred all unexplained problems back to the Final Manual. Very sketchy - and I still have not figured out how to set up the percussion so it sounds like the instruments I want. A complete waste of money.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too little - too basic and incomplete, July 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Finale Primer: Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale (Paperback)

This book spends too much time explaing computer operation (pull down menus, command keys) and not enough on Finale. Too often as it gets close to having some depth it says "but this is beyond the scope of this book, read your Finale manual." The one page index is worthless. The book does things like wastes 4 pages on a windows/mac keyboard comparison chart and yet does not show how to setup notating a drum kit. If this is your first piece of software, maybe it would be helpful, but if you think it gives insight and tricks beyond your manual, forget it. I feel cheated. I found some mistakes in the book and certainly the title "mastering" is an overstatement.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Its a start, but..., January 15, 2002

By 

Keith Kramer (Ellicott City, Md United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Finale Primer: Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale (Paperback)

As a teacher of electronic music and a Finale user since 1992, I have been looking for a good, well-written and reasonably priced text on Finale for my students, other than the online documentation (which is actually not so bad in of itself). This book contains some OK beginning exercises for students, but is not what I would expect in a quality textbook on Finale, and for a semester long course in music notation, you run out of topics rather quickly. Particularly, there is no addressing the more powerful aspects of Finale, including the versitale MIDI tool, among other advanced features. I flipped through the Rudolph/Leonard book from Berklee Press briefly, and that looked much more promising, but it is considerably more expensive. Granted, the title of the book does say "Primer", but at the same time, the concept of "Mastering" falls way short with this book.