My weakness is well-known

I have a tendency to sit in front of my computer a few hours every day, writing charts in Finale.

Finale is not just a program, it's a compositional (or arrangernal) environment. It's a lot like the other applicatation I tend to lose myself in, Photoshop--VAST. There are lots of things I'll never learn to do in both programs. There are users I meet, expert users in each program, who do pretty much what I do. When we get together I can learn a lot of tips about tools and techniques. And inevitably the reverse happens too and they learn from me.

A word about how Finale and I started. Marjorie Baer, without whom I'd just be another broke sax player, bumped into me at an alumni function and the next thing I knew I was writing reviews for Macworld magazine. And the reason they had a need was that David Pogue, whom I greatly admire, had been hired by the company making Finale to write documents for an upcoming release. In Macworld's eyes this compromised the Pogue impartiality, therefore making a non-staff opening for a freelance user. My first assignment was Finale, featuring David Pogue's wonderful documentation. The sample copy arrived a few days later and I hustled up to learn the program. A few days later I got a call to write arrangements for a singer who had recorded an album without them. She was going to Denver to perform for the Pope. No kidding.

I took the job and started taking stuff off the CD.

This was 1993, and incredible 11 years ago. I was running Finale on a 512KE Macintosh, which was the lower limit of horsepower required ti use Finale (not to mention Photoshop!).

But it was a great experience and it resulted in a pretty good review, one still in use by Finale's current owners in their marketing package.

My Finale style has changed over the years, and Finale has caused me to question a lot of the assumptions I'd had about how charts ought to be layed out, something I'd been pondering since I sat at my father's side in the sixties and learned copying. I hardly ever write repeat signs any more. DS al Coda? Not on one of my charts! These devices were, after all, not used because they made charts easier to perform. Far from it. They're designed to make the copying and reproduction easier. Ask any player if they'd prefer a two-page chart they could stare at with repeat signs and Codas and so on, or one that started at the upper left-hand corner and proceeded to the end without regard to page count. The latter wins every time.

I get calm when I do Finale. I try things and see how they sound. I do a lot of take-downs, sliding back and forth between my Finale system and my iPod. (Thank you Steve Jobs! I mean it!)

Finale also makes it possible for the charts when finished (a very relative concept--almost all the ORB charts had antecedents on both the Goose Gumbo and Dino books) for be stored as PDF files and exchanged without much bother. There's a guy in Ohio and another in Washington state with whom I swap charts. Also a guy in California.

I can write a chart a day, maybe 4 in a week. Add that to the chart swapping and you see that the problem is the book grows, well, apace. And I have a tedancy to withdraw from the human race in order to write. This I learned from my father, who wrote music without a piano, at the kitchen table, with all 5 of us kids running around like idiots. This was a very long time ago, and he eventually bought a Wurlitzer electric piano with a headphone jack and moved his musical stuff into the garage, then to an office on the other side of town.

So the good news is we have new charts. And so the bad news is we have new charts. Not enough rehearsal time to cover them, not enough gigs to play them in , , ,

But . . . We do have a whole evening's worth (4 sets!) of Sinatra and Swing, before we even get into the rock and funk. Our Tower of Power charts now number just under 20, so we can do 2+ sets of JUST Tower of Power.

Big, deep, cleansing breath and get on with it.

We're adding:

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Higher & Higher

At Last

Rock Steady

Squib Cakes

25 or 6 to 4

At This Moment

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

She Caught the Katy

And yes, we will be I think the only band playing the intro to Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?. Because the book is the star. (Not taking away from the star material in the band and the band's bench . . . }