NOTATIO

Does anyone have a sense of which notation program is used most? Finale and Sibelius both claim to be the best-seller; Musescore is probably gaining users fast since the price is right, etc. I wonder whether F and S are about equal in sales, or possibly pretty unequal.

And whether there are strong regional variations in regards to this question? My feeling is that Australia has many more people using Sibelius than Finale, particularly in the Education sector where nearly every school I have ever worked in has Sibelius. Finale feels more of a niche program here, but I come from a background of SCORE (which I still use), so I know all about niche programs.

I think you're right -- I've gotten the idea that Encore is popular in South America, especially Brazil. My interest is more in total numbers. I don't know where we could get those.

Sibelius seems to be the most popular among modern European publishers, unfortunately.

Finale seems more popular in North America and among engravers that love customization (such as us).

If you count the drivel that passes as "music notation" nowadays by laypeople, MuseScore is probably the most popular, but in terms of professional-quality engraving I'd say it's used far less often than the above two.

In Scandinavia I think it is pretty equal between Sibelius and Finale.
One bad thing happened to Finale when the Royal College of Music in Stockholm abandoned Finale in 2007, removing new versions from all computers and giving "amen" to Sibelius and Avid. Of course, all was in had of one person, professional in his job but amateur in music.
But I was keeping recommend Finale for all composition students.

my generalization is Sibelius mostly used by UK and FINALE by US .. that is why my concern is to bring back "stylized" music font to disguise the "brand problem" .. like the old times "Plate Engraving" still exist .. and that is why i love SCHOTT and HENLE better for their dedication on their original "styles"

BTW, the examples above are done:
1. Schott in SCORE
2. Henle in Finale

@odod: Agreed on Schott, especially. Their font is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen on computer, even if I don't agree with all of its stylistic elements.

I was under the impression that SCORE does not use fonts for any musical symbols (perhaps excepting dynamics?), but is entirely vector based.

I suppose you can alter settings that affect the shape of the notes and other symbols.

It's really amazing (to me, anyway) that the the application that almost always produces the best output was developed about 50 years ago.

RMK wrote: ↑03 Jan 2018, 00:11 I was under the impression that SCORE does not use fonts for any musical symbols (perhaps excepting dynamics?), but is entirely vector based.

I suppose you can alter settings that affect the shape of the notes and other symbols.

It's really amazing (to me, anyway) that the the application that almost always produces the best output was developed about 50 years ago.

Correct, and I've even seen it do proper optical scaling as well. Of course, it doesn't mean that every engraver that picks it up will get great results with it, as many publishers nowadays are all too keen to demonstrate.