Finale Tutorials

Finale is an incredibly flexible program for music transcription, notation, playback, and publishing. Incorporating elements of a word processor, a graphics designer, a sequencer, and a page-layout program, Finale has all the power you need to create beautiful-looking sheet music and a world-class audio performance. Easier than ever to learn and use, this program has the potential to help you produce more music—both printed and played—faster and better than ever before.

In the following chapters, you’ll learn how to start putting Finale to work right away. From starting the score, to entering music, to printing, and everything in between, we’ll cover all the basics you need to know to get up and running fast. These tutorials elaborate on the Finale 2012 Quick Reference Guide, which accompanied your Finale purchase. As you get acquainted with Finale, use both of these resources to reference the basics. Then, after you develop a general understanding of Finale's framework, expand your knowledge as needed by referencing the comprehensive Finale User Manual.

These tutorials guide you through the production of a single score from start-to-finish in the order we recommend for most projects. We have provided accompanying Finale "Tutorial" score documents that have been prepared for each chapter in case you would like to review at a specific point. To access these documents, choose File > Open and double-click the "Tutorials" shortcut. If you have navigated away from the default "Finale Files" folder, a different folder may appear when you choose File > Open. If this is the case, access the Tutorial documents by navigating to the Finale 2012/Music Files/Tutorials folder. (To find the exact path for your operating system, see Finale Installation Details.)

By the time you have completed these tutorials you will be prepared to tackle most simple projects and begin exploring Finale's vast collection of powerful features that make creating music fast, easy, and fun.

Finale 2012 Tutorials