Migrating to MuseScore from Finale or Sibelius
I am trying to put together a guide to migrating to MuseScore from other software - Finale or Sibelius - and I am wondering if people have any good resources they can share, or would be interested in collaborating on something.
To be clear, I am not talking about MusicXML export/import, at least not primarily - I'm talking about making the adjustment from being a user of some other program to being a MuseScore user. Sure, export/import as way of transferring old work can be part of that, but mostly I'm talking about learning the different ways of doing of things.
Comments
I try to put your post in the Italian forum, there is a contributor who is endorser of Finale, but I'm afraid that the obstacle of the language will hold him back.
https://musescore.org/it/node/271771
This is a GREAT idea!
I'm using both absolutely every day, along with GuitarPro and would be happy to support.
A quick reference guide where you can easily browse to a specific feature or function in Sibelius or Finale and show the equivalent in MuseScore would be great. I really think that GIFs can be a very useful tool for demonstrating some of these, as well.
In reply to This is a GREAT idea!… by Daniel
Thanks, I'll be contacting you offline about this!
For Finale in particular, I believe the most important thing will be to explain the difference about measures and the fact that MuseScore enforces "full measures". Also, MuseScore has a lot less "modes".
On more philosophical level, I'm not sure if it's better to learn a new tool by comparing it with existing knowledge of a "same goal, different means" tool than to diving, fresh, into a different way of working. Again, it's especially true for Finale, Sibelius being more similar to MuseScore.
Last point, Guitar Pro is a totally different beast, with a different audience, so I guess a dedicated guide for "tabbers" would be better.
In reply to For Finale in particular, I… by [DELETED] 5
Thanks for the comment, and I do share your concerns about whether comparisons to something else it is the "right" way to learn a new tool, and that just diving in and approaching from it from scratch is often more effective.
However, there is a particular type of audience I have in mind for whom I think this would be valuable, what I might call a "skeptical user". A good example of that would be the case of a school that is considering dropping some or all of their Finale or Sibelius licenses and switching over to MuseScore. Some will be on board and eager to dive in, but others might need a bit of extra help getting over the hump. Another example would be a satisfied customer of another program someone who really has no real interest in doing anything much with MuseScore but has some special need to accomplish some task with it - again, something that is likely to come up often in an educational context (Finale expert teaching a music theory course where students want to use MuseScore), but could also apply to other situations (eg, Sibelius user wanting to contribute to OpenScore).
This might match quite nicely with a current GSoC project, see https://musescore.org/en/user/1190941/blog/2018/04/26/gsoc-2018-beginne…
In reply to This might match quite… by Jojo-Schmitz
Indeed, there is a possibility for synergy there. I'm mentoring for that project, so I'll be on that :-)