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font editors • finale plugins • music fonts • music productivity • printers • web resources
composing & film scoring books • music notation books • music reference books •  orchestration books

1. Bayard-Nizet has developed a set of 12 new music fonts for Mac and PC (both Postscript and True-type versions are available). These fonts cover a variety of notational symbols from common to the more esoteric and are sold at very moderate prices. Choose from Virtuoso, Charleston, Grupetto, Staccato, Vivace, Espressivo, Koechlin, Fingering, Ars Nova, Flamenco, Oratorio and Timpani.
2. BlueNotz, BlueText, and BlueChords jazz notation fonts with a handwritten jazz look by Tom Williams. Please email us if you have current contact information.
3. Caltabiano music fonts by Ronald Caltabiano. Sicilian Numerals (figured bass and Roman numerals), Ghent Percussion Font set (2 fonts), and Rehearsal Font Set (3 fonts). Downloadable demos and online purchase.
4. DaFont - thousands of freeware and shareware fonts available for download.
5. Doremi is a shapenote font that has the shapes for the systems used by Aiken, Funk, Walker, The New Harp of Columbia, and The Sacred Harp. Aiken's system is the seven-shape system used by almost all of the modern songbooks using a shapenote system.  Order from Karen E. Willard, Pacific NW Sacred Harp Singers, 15215 Tubbs Road, Buckley, WA 98321; Ph: 360-897-9545.
6. ExpressMusic has discontinued selling their music fonts online. These were a set of three music fonts with a distinctive hand copied look; Ashmusic, Leemusic and Russmusic.
7. FinaleFontSolutions by Ansgar Krause for Mac and Windows. Figured Bass (Standard and struck-through numbers, accidentals, brackets ...), GuitarTools (For guitar fretboard pictures of your choice and more), SmartTools (Ornaments, glisses, quartertone-accidentals, accidentals with brackets of different shape [standard, non-symmetric, square], piano pedal-graph and much more ...), Lyrics (Improvements for Finale®-users), Piano Fingering (Stacked Numbers and round brackets, silent changes, square brackets for special thumb situations...), Thicker Cursors (for Macintosh users).
8. Franck and Brahms fonts are available from Florian Feuser. Franck is compatible with the Petrucci font, and Brahms contains a variety of nonstandard symbols. Both fonts are available for Mac and PC. Email florian@feuser.net for more info.
9. GoldenAge music fonts by Donald Rice. Anixter Rice Music Service - Suite 1410-D, 630 9th Avenue New York, NY 10036
10. Handbell notation font by Paul A. McKlveen. Of interest to composers and engravers of Handbell music. Please email us with info if you have it.
11. Identifont - this unique online service allows you to match an existing typeface, or identify a typeface you have seen in a publication. Most of the major type libraries are supported, including Adobe, Berthold, Bitstream, FontFont, and P22.
12. Matthew Hindson has created some very useful and unique music fonts for both Mac and PC. Clefs, Harp Pedals, Saxophone Fingerings, Recorder Fingerings, and more. Freeware. There are also Finale tutorials on his website.
13. JazzFont - this handwritten music font set for jazz charts created by Rich Sigler comes bundled with Finale™. Comes in a set of four fonts - Music, Chord Suffix, Text, and Jazz Percussion. For a different hand-written look, Rich offers the "Swing" font.
14. Kidnotes offers noteheads with letters embedded in them. Intended for music for beginning music students, this font can be used to display note names on noteheads. Available for Mac and PC. DVMarticulations is included free of charge. Call DVM Publications (610) 896-0996 or email SPLsm@aol.com for information.
15. Metronome font. DVMarticulations is included free of charge. DVM Publications · Woodside Rd. Suite A-202 · Haverford, PA 19041 · (610) 896-0996 · Email SPLsm@aol.com
16. Medieval is the solution to set early music notation with Finale (11th - 15th centuries), like Gregorian chant. The package contains 2 new fonts, a plug-in (a new tool palette including automatic recognition of neumes), default files, samples, and a printed documentation in 4 languages. Delivered on a hybrid CD (Mac/PC). Published and distributed by Klemm Music Technology.
17. Microtonal Font - Andrian Pertout has created two versions of this freeware font, with the first, 'Microtonal Font' (TT, PS) intended for use in Finale, and the second, 'Microtonal Font Text', (TT, PS) intended for use in a word processor. Included are the five standard accidental signs of Western music; four common quarter-tone and three-quarter-tone symbols; twenty-three unique symbols based on Daniélou’s division of the whole-tone; Ali Naqi Vaziri’s notation system, or four accidentals of Persian music; Johnston’s system of notation, which contains twenty-three unique symbols for the notation of just intonation up to the thirty-first harmonic; as well as Fokker’s nine symbols for the notation of thirty-one equal temperament. All these symbols have been incorporated into a 238-character microtonal notation PostScript Type 1 (PS) or TrueType (TT) font, which is fully compatible with Finale 2008. There is extensive information about these notation systems, along with instructions for use in Finale here.
18. MidiDesign - by Christian Texier (French website). Six free music fonts: Acoustica, Concreta, Controla, Electronica, Microtona and Sonora. Available for Mac and PC.
19. MusiQwik, MusiSync, Bongos, FretQwik, and NoteHedz are free TrueType music fonts created by Robert Allgeyer. Use them in Finale, or a word processing document. The most recent version will be available for a limited time from the links here and here.
20. Music Teacher Tools - currently feature 7 new TrueType music fonts: MusicEd - rhythms that align, kodaly handsigns, and keyboard tablature. MusicEd Flute - create fingering diagrams for flute and recorder. MusicEd Oboe - create fingering diagrams for oboe. MusicEd Clarinet - create fingering diagrams for clarinet. MusicEd Bassoon - create fingering diagrams for bassoon. MusicEd Sax - create fingering diagrams for sax. MusicEd Brass - create valve and slide position diagrams for brass.
21. Nor Eddine Bahha (co-author of JAZZOLOGY) has created three different music symbols fonts for use with Sibelius™. These fonts are designed to produce handwritten music in a style similar to that of many jazz charts. NorMusic font set; NorMusic, NorText & NorText Extra. BopMusic font set includes a complete script font for text, chord symbols, and hundreds of symbols for jazz and commercial music. The BopMusic font set includes 7 accompanying fonts to help transform the overall appearance of the music and titles; BopMusic, BopMusic Script, BopMusic Chords, BopMusic Text, BopMusic Special, BopMusic Metronome, and BopMusic Time. The RealScore font set includes 11 accompanying fonts to help transform the overall appearance of the music and titles; RealScore, Metronome, RealScore Time, RealScore Marks and RealScore Title.
22. November from Klemm Technologies is one of the finest and warmest music font ever designed for Finale, and covers a wide period of symbols, from the Renaissance up to the 21th century. The package contains font files, templates, libraries, samples (with executable baroque ornaments and microtons). Delivered on a hybrid CD (Mac/PC) with a full documentation in 3 languages and Reference Card.
23. Numero font was created by Lars-Anders Calrsson, who works at the "Artisten, Huset for Musik och Teater" in Gothenburg Sweden. Freeware.
24. Realbook Chords, New Realbook Chords & Realbook Title are music fonts (Windows TrueType) in the style of the famous Jazz Real Books for use in Finale. Created by Jochen Pietsch. Freeware.
25. Really Loud Fonts by Arun Konanur. Publication quality Postscript music fonts include Tempi, Thesis, Metric, Barnett, Lassus, Musica, and the Partita font, which emulates the printed look of the Score music publishing program within Finale. Please email us if you have current info.
26. Salzedo Harp Font< - This excellent font by Bill Duncan is based on Carlos Salzedo's harp notation standard, and also includes a number of squiggles and loops, brackets, l.v. symbols, pedal spelling and circled pedal diagram characters. The font is available through NPC Imaging.
27. Sonata, the venerable music notation font, is available from Adobe.
28. StMeinrad font and its auxiliary, StMeinradAux, contain the symbols necessary to reproduce Gregorian chant. Mac and PC.
29. Susato font is available from: NOTENGRAFIK, Werner Eickhoff, Schauinslandstr. 99, 79 100 Freiburg, Germany
30. Toccata & Fughetta by Blake Hodgetts are Petrucci compatible music fonts available for both Mac and PC. These fonts include a wide variety of specialized music characters not available in Petrucci. Blake is the author of the Maestro music notation font.
31. The Virtual Conservatory has developed chord symbol fonts, available in both Unicode and TrueType formats, for use with both MakeMusic and Sibelius music-notation products: ChordSymbol 2 for traditional music and JazzSymbol 1 for commercial music.

1. FontLab - offers several different typeface (font) editor applications with various features and price points. FontLab Studio, their top of the line offering, supports all major outline font formats, including Type 1, TrueType, Multiple Master and OpenType, and is available for Mac OSX and Windows operating systems.
2. FontForge - is a typeface (font) editor program developed by George Williams. FontForge is free software and is distributed under the BSD license. FontForge is available for several operating systems and is localized in several languages.

FINALE BOOKS

1. Finale - "An easy guide to music notation" by Thomas E. Rudolph, Vincent A. Leonard
2. Finale Power - by Mark Johnson
3. Finale Primer, The - "Mastering the Art of Music Notation with Finale" 2nd Ed. by Bill Purse

NOTATION & MUSIC ENGRAVING

1. Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation (Faber Edition) - This is an indispensable reference book for composers, arrangers, teachers and students of composition, editors, and music processors. In the most thorough and painstakingly researched book to be published since the 1980s, specialist music editor Elaine Gould provides a comprehensive grounding in notational principles.
2. Guidelines for Music Manuscript Preparation - by Alfred Publishing. A 64-page concise handbook for professional and student writers, arrangers, copyists, editors or proofreaders -- anyone working with music manuscripts. Included are sections on general music notation, shorthand notation, proofreading, terms and type, choral/vocal music, instrumental scores and parts, pop and keyboard music, plus a special section with specifics for engravers.
3. Guide To Standardized Drumset Notation - by Norman Weinberg. Topics covered include: general notation, drums, cymbals, noteheads, voicing, improvisational notation, and more.
4. Music Engraving Today - The Art and Practice of Digital Notesetting. By Steven Powell. This book describes the process for creating publication-quality music engraving using today's computer tools.
5. Music Manuscript Preparation - By Mona Mender. Learn, step by step, how to prepare any kind of music manuscript; composers and copyists can use it for reference. Includes sections on classical & popular contemporary music; cueing; abundant illustrations; and an extensive index.
6. Music Notation - by Gardner Read. Although originally published in 1979, this book is still a vital reference for anyone serious about music notation.
7. Music Notation in the Twentieth Century - by Kurt Stone, one of the world's leading authorities on contemporary music notation and its problems. As head of the Index of New Musical Notation, he collected and categorized the myriad new devices appearing in published music of this century. The result is a guide to all forms of notation used in serious music today.
8. Norton Manual of Music Notation - by George Heussenstamm. Designed to serve as a practical guide to music handwriting and music-writing procedures. It provides the music student with an essential tool for learning to put notes down on paper with clarity and speed. At the same time, it serves as an indispensable reference to a wide variety of notational conventions.
9. Pictographic Score Notation - An illustrative and evaluative look at the pictographic diagrams of 20th century composers by Gardner Read
10. Twentieth Century Microtonal Notation - No other book has covered the subject of 20th-century microtonal notation in such depth as this comprehensive guide book by Gardner Read.
11. Preparing Traditional Music Manuscript - This book by author Michael Mohn provides composers, copyists, and music students a useful reference for the proper preparation of music manuscript.

1. Artistic Orchestration - by Alan Belkin. This useful resource is the third volume in a free series of online books on musical technique. Other volumes cover form, counterpoint, and harmony.
2. The Guide to Midi Orchestration - by Paul Gilreath
3. The Study of Orchestration - by Samuel Adler. Companion workbook available.
4. The Technique of Orchestration - by Kent Kennan and Donald Grantham.
5. Essential Dictionary of Orchestration - by Dave Black, Tom Gerou
6. Orchestration - by Cecil Forsyth and William Balcom
7. Principles of Orchestration - by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

1. Art of Film Music, The - by George Burt
2. Complete Guide to Film Scoring - by Richard Davis
3. Composing Music For Film - by Jack Smalley
4. On The Track - by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright
5. The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures - by Jeff Rona
6. Syncronization, From Reel To Reel - by Jeff Rona
7. American Film Music - Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915 - 1990 - William Darby and Jack Du Bois
8. Bernard Herrmann's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - A Film ScoreGuide - David Cooper
9. Complete Guide to Film Scoring - Richard Davis
10. Danny Elfman's Batman - A Film score Guide - Janet K. Halfyard
11. Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - A Film Score Guide - Charles Leinberger
12. Film Music - A Neglected Art - Roy M. Prendergast
13. Film Music - Critical Approaches - (Edited) K. J. Donnelly
14. Film Score - The Art and Craft of Movie Music - TonyThomas
15. From Score to Screen - The New Film Scoring Process - Sonny Kompanek
16. Gabriel Yared's The English Patient - A Film Score Guide - Heather Laing
17. Hearing Film - Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music - Anahid Kassabian
18. How to make Money scoring Soundtracks and Jingles - Jeffrey P. Fisher
19. Knowing the Score - Notes on Film Music - Irwin Bazelon
20. Listening to Movies - The Film Lover's Guide to Film Music - Fred Karlin
21. Louis and Bebe Barron's Forbidden Planet - A Film Score Guide - JamesWierzbicki
22. Music in Film - Soundtracks and Synergy - Pauline Reay
23. On The Track - A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring - Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright
24. Overtones and Undertones - Reading Film Music - Royal S. Brown
25. Settling the Score - Music and the Classical Hollywood Film - Kathryn Kalinak
26. Sound Design - The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema - David Sonnenschein
27. Soundtrack - The Music of the Movies - Mark Evans
28. Soundtrack Available - Essays on Film and Popular Music - Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight
29. Strains of Utopia - Gender, Nostalgia and Hollywood Film Music - Caryl Flinn
30. The Art of Film Music - George Burt
31. The Composer in Hollywood - Christopher Palmer
32. The Film Sense - Sergi M. Eisenstein
33. The Invisible Art of Film Music - Laurence E. MacDonald
34. The Reel World - Scoring for Pictures - Jeff Rona
35. The Score - Interviews with Film Composers - Michael Schelle
36. The Spectre of Sound - Music in Film and Television - K. J. Donnelly
37. The Technique of Film Music - Roger Manvell and John Huntley
38. Twenty Four Frames Under - A Buried History of Film Music - RussellLack
39. Writing Music for Television and Radio Commercials - A Manual for Composers and Students - Michael Zager

1. Essential Dictionary of Music Notation - by Tom Gerou and Linda Lusk
2. Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music, The - by Don Michael Randel
3. Harvard Dictionary of Music, The - by Don Michael Randel (Editor)
4. Norton / Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, The - by Stanley Sadie (Author, Editor) and Alison Latham (Editor)
5. Notation of Medieval Music, The by Carl Parrish
6. Oxford Companion to Music, The - by Alison Latham
7. Oxford Dictionary of Music, The - by Michael Kennedy (author) and Joyce Bourne (editor)
8. Oxford Dictionary of Musical Terms, The - (Paperback) by Alison Latham (editor)

1. Braille Music Kit - convert written music into Braille using this plugin for Finale.
2. Classic Transposition by Philip Aker is a plug-in for Finale which provides many additional transposition features.
3. Forza! by Jari Williamsson is a suite of plug-ins for Finale. Finale Productivity Tips by the same author provides useful Finale solutions not listed in the manuals. Jari has written dozens of plugins for Finale, and there is a comprehensive list of other 3rd party PlugIns on the site.
4. Medieval is the solution to set early music notation with Finale (11th - 15th centuries), like Gregorian chant. The package contains 2 fonts, a plug-in (a tool palette includes automatic recognition of neumes), default files, samples, and a printed documentation in 4 languages. For Mac or PC. Published and distributed by Klemm Music Technology.
5. Plug-Ins Page - Robert G. Patterson has developed plugins such as Tuplet Copy, Tuplet Mover, Staff Sets, Patterson Beams and Settings Scrapbook. His page also has tips on how to write your own plug-ins. This is a great resource for anyone interested in plug-ins for Finale.
6. Recordare - music notation import / export plugin uses Music XML technology. It lets you distribute interactive sheet music online, and to use sheet music files with a wide variety of musical applications. Save music to previous versions of Finale, import music scanned with SharpEye Music Reader or Photoscore, and exchange your music with Sibelius and other notation software users.
7. TGTools for Finale by Tobias Giesen. Currently, still the most comprehensive suite of 3rd party plug-ins currently available (although Jari Williamson seems to be catching up fast). Plug-Ins include: Spacing Utilities, Lyrics Utilities, Harp Pedaling, Mass Create Hairpins, Mass Create Slurs, Automatic Tremolo, Text Expression Sorter, Secondary Beam Breaker, Harmonics Automation and Process extracted parts to extract one voice from a multi-voice staff. 'Playback' plug-in for glissandi and hairpins. Many other useful features

1. Canon
2. Epson
3. GCC Technologies
4. Genicom - (formerly Texas Instruments printer division.)
5. Hewlett Packard
6. Lexmark
7. Konica / Minolta / QMS
8. Xante

• ZDNet Reviews - Good starting point if you are shopping for a printer to use for music notation.

1. EditorsKeys for Finale - these keyboard sticker sets designed to increase productivity with Finale are made from over 40 micro-interweaved PVC layers and special adhesive which once appliedto your keyboard have a 2 year guarantee. The Finale Keyboard set contains almost 70 color grouped shortcut keys which are easy to apply and are compatible with all standard keyboards. Each Shortcut Key contains the keys letter, the Finale shortcut icon and also a text shortcut underneath for quicker shortcut access. Use our special code to save 15% when ordering: RPMSEATTLE.
2. Garritan Personal Orchestra - A comprehensive, easy-to-use and economical orchestral sample Library. Extremely high quality collection of orchestral instruments, and a great value. Garritan also sells the Jazz and Big Band sample library (JABB).
3. Notation Switchblade - universal Music XML translator that fixes anomalies (tuplets, notes, styles, articulations) occurring when converting from MIDI to notation software (Sibelius, Finale). For anyone who works with MIDI files in notation programs.
4. Quickeys is a Macro tool for Mac OSX and Windows from CE Software .
5. Transcribe! - shareware to help transcribe recorded music for Windows and Macintosh. Transcribe! includes the ability to slow mp3 audio files down without changing the pitch, and to analyse chords and show you what notes are present.
6. TunefinderX - Tunefinder is a Melody Index for Mac OSX (soon for Windows). It will show you the name of the composer and composition for any of over 13,000 melodies from classical and popular music when all you know is the melody itself. The database includes themes and melodies from scores of composers, including Arlen, Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Bruckner, Chopin, Corelli, Debussy, Donizetti, Dvorak, Elgar, Gershwin, Gluck, Grieg, Handel, Haydn, Joplin, Liszt, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Milhaud, Mozart, Offenbach, Prokofiev, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Rodgers, Rossini, Saint-Saens, Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Smetana, Sousa, Strauss, Strauss, Sullivan, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Vivaldi,Wagner, andWeber.
7. Wedelmusic - European research and software to allow the distribution of interactive music via Internet. Wedelmusic is an XML compliant software format that presents multimedia capabilities and includes identification, classification, symbolic, visual, versioning, printing, protection, image score, image, document, performance, video, and lyric aspects. There is currently a Finale plug-in and editor (Windows only) for using the format.

1. ABC Music Notation Language - a language designed to notate tunes in an ascii format. It was designed primarily for folk and traditional tunes of Western European origin (such
   as English, Irish and Scottish) which can be written on one stave in standard classical notation.
2. Archival Products provides solutions for preservation for colleges and universities, museums, historical societies, art and music libraries, medical schools and government offices as wellas for the private conservator.
3. Big Site of Music Notation and Engraving at Colorado College. A great resource - includes an extensive notation bibliography, links, notation conventions, and keyword search of the Finale Digests.
4. Dr. Gordon Callon's comprehensive list of Music Notation Software for Mac and PC is worth checking out. You may be surprised to find out how many music notation software applications currently exist in addition to Encore, Fermata, Finale, Graphire, Igor Engraver, LilyPond, Nightingale, Opus, Overture, Score, Sibelius, SmartScore and Turandot, many of which are freeware or shareware.
5. Computerized Music Engraver's Directory - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.
6. Description of Paper Weights - explains the evolution of basis weights and sizes,how certain sizes became standard. By CharlesP. Klass.
7. EngravingMusic - This email discussion list moderated by Alain Van Kerckhoven is devoted to music typesetting and lay-out. It is not commercial and one click is enough to unsubscribe, so you can easily try it out. You may configure it to receive the messages individually or as digests.
8. Equivalent Weights of Paper - this useful chart cross references Book, Bond, Cover, Bristol, Index and Tag papers by weight.
9. Extremes of Conventional Music Notation - Donald Byrd, of the School of Music at Indiana University has compiled this entertaining and informative resource.
10. Finale Discussion List - maintained by Professor Henry Howey at Sam Houston State University. This page also details the relevant files contained in the SHSU FTP archive listed above.
11. Finale Forum - a place for Finale users to communicate with each other, exchange ideas, and help one another. One of the oldest Finale related chat / discussion sites.
12. Finale Mini - Tutorials - a nice collection of how - to articles written by Finale users, hosted by Seattle's Mike Rosen.
13. It would be nice if... (IWBNI) - a webpage created by John Greschak devoted to suggestions and user votes for improving Finale.
14. Judy Green Music - known primarily as a supplier of music paper and supplies, located in Hollywood, California, JGM also provides complete music duplication and binding services, including gold, silver or colored lettering on scores and orchestra covers.
15. MLA - The Music Library Association is the professional organization in the United States devoted to music librarianship and to all aspects of music materials in libraries. Founded in 1931.
16. MOLA - the Major Orchestra Librarian's Association was founded in 1983 primarily to help improve communication among orchestra librarians. The Association's other objectives include educating and assisting librarians, presenting a unified voice in publisher relations and providing education, support, and information to performing arts and other music service organizations.
17. MPA - Music Publisher's Association of the United States.
18. Music Engravers - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.
19. Music Notation Project, The - An international association exploring alternative music notation systems that improve upon traditional music notation, and providing resources for the wider consideration and use of these alternativenotation systems.
20. Musitek has developed music scanning software, and is working with Coda on this technology. Scanned files can now be imported directly into Finale.
21. Music Notation Links - an excellent collection of notation related links. Subjects include: Comparisons of Music Notation Applications, Music Braille, Common Music Notation, Shape Note, Tablature, Early Music, Non-Western Notation, Byzantine Music Notation, Kinko Ryu Shakuhachi Notation, Extra-terrestrial music notation.
22. NEDCC - The Northeast Document Conservation Center was founded in 1973 to specialize in the preservation and conservation of paper-based materials, including books, manuscripts, photographs, and art on paper.
23. NMPA - National Music Publisher's Association.
24. Vital Presentation Concepts - binding machines especially for printed music parts and scores.