Jonathan Feist - Music Notation and Score Preparation Using Finale
Learn to write professional-standard notation using Finale, the world’s best selling music notation software. This course makes it easy to notate your arrangements and compositions, from basic notes and rhythms to more advanced markings. Through hands-on lessons and workshops, you’ll understanding the subtleties of notation, as well as explore the fine points of lead sheets, vocal/choral notation, drum/guitar notation, fingerings, roadmaps, and lyrics. You’ll also explore more complex techniques designed to speed up your notation process dramatically, and learn to control the nuances of your music’s look and feel to produce clear, professional-quality music. By the end of the course, you will have mastered the most powerful functions of this versatile tool, and learned the techniques used by the most experienced, accomplished music engravers and writers.
Upon completing this course, you will have learned to:
- Use Finale to create most kinds of notation, including great-looking lead sheets, orchestral scores, arrangements, and teaching/analytical materials
- Enter notes, lyrics, chord symbols, articulations and expressions, and create scores with multiple staves
- Master dozens of shortcuts to dramatically speed up your music entry, score layout, part copying, and more
- Perform advanced notation such as notation for guitar, keyboard, and percussion, as well as notation of your own invention
- Notate in accordance with quality standards and conventions of contemporary notation practice
Syllabus
Lesson 1 Writing a Melody
Lesson 2 Key Signatures, Time Signatures, and Clefs
Lesson 3 Lead Sheets
Lesson 4 Lyrics
Lesson 5 Expressive Markings
Lesson 6 Multiple Staves
Lesson 7 Shortcuts
Lesson 8 Page Layout
Lesson 9 Roadmaps
Lesson 10 Fine Tuning Graphics
Lesson 11 Layers: Choral Scores and Drum Set Notation
Lesson 12 Fingerings, Tablature, and Other Instrument-Specific Notation
Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements
The ability to read music notation is required.
Required Textbook(s)
- Berklee Contemporary Music Notation by Jonathan Feist, Berklee Press/Hal Leonard
Recommended Textbook(s)
- Music Notation: Preparing Scores and Parts by Matthew Nicholl and Richard Grudzinski, Berklee Press/Hal Leonard
Software Requirements
Hardware Requirements
- MIDI keyboard (recommended)
Instructors
Jonathan Feist
Author & Instructor
Jonathan Feist is editor in chief of Berklee Press, where he has been bringing music education products to a worldwide market since 1998. He is the author and instructor of Berklee Online courses “Project Management for Musicians” and “Music Notation and Score Preparation Using Finale.” He is author of the books Project Management for Musicians (Berklee Press, 2013) and Berklee Contemporary Music Notation (Berklee Press, 2017) and the co-author of Essential Songwriter (Berklee Press, 2004) and The Berklee Practice Method Teacher’s Guide (Berklee Press, 2004). He has also written hundreds of articles about music, published through About.com, Keyboard Magazine, MakeMusic’s Finale blog, and Berklee’s TakeNote online magazine. As an editor, he is credited on over two hundred books about music. Jonathan is a composer, songwriter, and photographer. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in composition from New England Conservatory of Music.
What’s Next?
When taken for credit, Music Notation and Score Preparation Using Finale can be applied towards these associated programs:
Associated Certificate Programs
- General Music Studies Professional Certificate
- General Music Studies Advanced Professional Certificate
- Songwriting Advanced Professional Certificate
- Theory, Harmony & Ear Training Advanced Professional Certificate
- Music Production and Technology Advanced Professional Certificate
- Orchestration for Film and TV Advanced Professional Certificate
Associated Degree Major
- Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition for Film, TV, and Games
