Hi marymezzo,
I've been a long time Finale user, that being said, I had to upgrade or get a new program from Songwriter 2012. While I have gotten used to many of the new features that limited my capabilities in the ways I did not like, The only major drawback for me in the version I use now (Finalev26) is the audio that is used for vocals; it sounds inferior to past versions. I still haven't attempted to make music using stemless notes, but this is an option available.

Mary, I use Dorico and I LOVE it. It has a few strengths as far as stemless notation is concerned:
1.) it is the only program that supports truly open meter. You do not have to have a time signature (or create a really long time signature and then hide it). You can simply enter notes and then add a barline once you're ready.
2.) stemless noteheads are very easy to achieve. You have two methods: A.) enter your notes, select all and then simply press the "hide stem" parameter in the properties panel, or B.) you can create a custom set of noteheads that are stemless.
3.) these custom noteheads allow a certain degree of flexibility; for instance you can see i created an anglican-style rectangular reciting tone in one example. I simply edited the default glyph for a double whole note.
4.) the default output is wonderful. Just like you can often "spot a finale score" (and lilypond, for that matter) you can also spot a Dorico score, IMHO. And that is a good thing 99% of the time.

I will concede that it takes some getting used to, since the conception of the program is very different from the others, but I truly love it. The forum is very active there, too, and you can interact with the developers directly and the help you receive from the forum is top notch. (Not unlike this forum.)

I'm going to attach a few examples of what I've been able to accomplish in Dorico so you can judge the results for yourself. (Please note that you cannot yet do square note notation, so the example that has a bit of this is an imported graphic which Dorico does support natively.)

I wasn't happy about organs for accompaniment either.

Thank you, guys, for the fast and informative responses!

Serviam, I am no Finale master, so learning a different way of doing things in Dorico would not be a major issue. It does sound like Dorico is a bit friendlier when it comes to non-metrical music, and that's certainly a selling point.

I use the Meinrad fonts when I'm setting square notation, so that front is covered.

I'll see what I can learn online about both Dorico and LilyPond before I make a decision. I have seen loads of LilyPond scores and actually hadn't heard of Dorico until today.

Mary, check out the Dorico YouTube channel. They have tons of videos there that demonstrate new features and how to do various things.

Sibelius 7 gives similar results to ServiamScore's, and one can assemble (non-oblique) neumes in the make symbols/edit noteheads menu. For multiple stanzas like the attached it's an attractive alternative to Gregorio.

As an aside, in stemless notation remembering to globally turn melody stems downward before hiding ensures that the slurs go on top!

Sibelius 7 can't do anything close to what Dorico can. Aspects of the program like slurs and note spacing are fundamentally broken, ugly, and unmusical. At least with other programs you can customize them.

I really don't see a purpose in buying Sibelius any more except for its compositional tools, which were excellent the last time I used it.

I use MuseScore too and it's free! I like it and its easy to learn and there is a nice forum for help if you get stuck on something. Doing unmetrical notation is easy once you learn the steps. It does not do square notes, so if you're looking for that feature you may have to try something like Gregorio.

James (if I may call you that) has made me curious about spacing; here at least you can compare apples to apples:

In your position: Dorico

I got Dorico when it came out, and got v. 2. I've never really worked with it much because of time, and because of my ingrained finale habits. The worst for me was their step-time system, which was opposite Finale's (press the MIDI keyboard note, THEN the time value on the keypad). But I've heard that since 3.5, there's an option to reverse that and do it Finale-style.

@ServiamScores

My post was not clear. I do not use a music app to set noteheads to create chant scores. I use a layout app - text blocks for setting type. All music elements are simply moveable graphics whether note heads (neumes), staff, episemas, etc. The example I posted was created with InDesign.

If you're comfortable enough with using Finale, it is not a problem at all to write stemless notes. There is an easy way to achieve it, in fact. To get stemless notes for a particular staff, you can uncheck "Stems" box in the Edit Staff Attributes box for that staff, and you can do this either before or after you have entered the notes.

For other tidbits on how I set chant in stemless notation with Finale, see my comments and worksheet in:

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/12198/the-great-debate-finale-vs.-sibelius/p1

Anna, there are a couple ways to take care of this. If you right click on the time signature you will see "Time Signature Properties" and you will see toward the bottom of the window, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32 notes. If you select the vary last note and click on it, say for 1/8 you can break the beam bars. You also have the "Beam Properties" in the left hand palate which allow you to beam or break the beam.

I've been using Finale for so long, it would be tough to change platforms at this point. I also spent the money on the Medieval font which looks quite nice for chant notation and fixes the meter issue, but...

My biggest issue with Finale is with the lyrics tool. It has never been improved in all the years I've used it. Since I mostly deal with choral arrangements and hymns working with Finale lyrics is quite tedious. For example, importing lyrics from a word document and the font automatically changes to Finale lyrics, which I don't like. Then after changing to the desired font for verse 1 the process has to be repeated for all subsequent verses. Why? There's also a glitch I haven't figured out where lyrics will simply disappear (which is why I never type them directly into a score, but copy and past from a word document where I can use spell check and hyphenate, etc.). It seems that the developers are only concerned with instrumental music.

Anna, I think you mean "comments"? There is away, read through this section on "rehearsal remarks"

Anna, There is no option that I know of for you to add comments like you would for a word document or editing a PDF. You could use the Staff Text option or Text Frame option as a work around. I guess it would depend on what your comments might entail. For Staff Text, highlight any note and then double-click Staff Text in the palette window. (See first image) The Text Frame is another option but not really what you are looking for (see second image)

Another option is "Layers" but I don't know how they work. If you take a look on the musescore forum you might find some other work arounds.


I just saw this on the musescore forum. Maybe this is what you are looking for?