OF NOTE - Finale tips and tutorials by notation expert Robert Puff.

MUSIC FONTS FOR FINALE
  • 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.
  • BlueNotz, BlueText, and BlueChords jazz notation fonts with a handwritten jazz look by Tom Williams. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • 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). Please contact us if you have current information
  • DaFont - thousands of freeware and shareware fonts available for download.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • FinaleFontSolutions by Ansgar Krause for Mac and Windows. Figured Bass (Standard and struck-through numbers, accidentals, brackets ...), GuitarTools (For guitar fretboards), SmartTools (Ornaments, glisses, quartertone-accidentals, accidentals with brackets of different shape [standard, non-symmetric, square], piano pedal-graph etc), Lyrics, Piano Fingering (Stacked Numbers and round brackets, silent changes, square brackets for special thumb situations...). Please contact us if you have current information
  • 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.
  • GoldenAge music fonts by Donald Rice. Anixter Rice Music Service - Suite 1410-D, 630 9th Avenue New York, NY 10036
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • JazzFont is a handwritten music font set for jazz charts created by Rich Sigler which comes bundled with Finale. It is a set of four fonts - Music, Chord Suffix, Text, and Jazz Percussion.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • MidiDesign by Christian Texier is a set of music fonts: Acoustica, Concreta, Controla, Electronica, Microtona and Sonora. Available for Mac and PC. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • MusiQwik, MusiSync, Bongos, FretQwik, and NoteHedz are free TrueType music fonts created by Robert Allgeyer. Please contact us if you have current information
  • 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.
  • Nor Eddine Bahha 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. Please contact us if you have current information
  • 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.
  • Numero font was created by Lars-Anders Calrsson, who works at the "Artisten, Huset for Musik och Teater" in Gothenburg Sweden. Freeware. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • 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.
  • 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 contact us if you have current information.
  • 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.
  • Sonata, the venerable music notation font, is available from Adobe.
  • StMeinrad font and its auxiliary, StMeinradAux, contain the symbols necessary to reproduce Gregorian chant. Mac and PC. Please contact us if you have current information
  • Susato font is available from: NOTENGRAFIK, Werner Eickhoff, Schauinslandstr. 99, 79 100 Freiburg, Germany
  • 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. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • 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.
FONT (TYPEFACE) CREATION AND EDITING
  • 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.
  • 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.
PLUGINS AND PLUGIN SUITES FOR FINALE PRODUCTIVITY
  • Braille Music Kit - convert written music into Braille using this plugin for Finale. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • Classic Transposition by Philip Aker is a plug-in for Finale which provides many additional transposition features. Please contact us if you have current information.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
PRINTER MANUFACTURERS

  • ZDNet Reviews - Good starting point if you are shopping for a printer to use for music notation.
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE FOR MUSIC NOTATION
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
WEB RESOURCES FOR MUSIC NOTATION
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Computerized Music Engraver's Directory - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.
  • 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.
  • Finale Mini - Tutorials - a nice collection of how - to articles written by Finale users, hosted by Seattle's Mike Rosen.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • MPA - Music Publisher's Association of the United States.
  • Music Engravers - if you are a Finale engraver or copyist, you can be listed at no charge in this directory.
  • 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.
  • Musitek has developed music scanning software, and is working with Coda on this technology. Scanned files can now be imported directly into Finale.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • NMPA - National Music Publisher's Association.
  • Vital Presentation Concepts - binding machines especially for printed music parts and scores.
Please contact us with relevant additions, updates or corrections to this listing. Thank you!