Nightscape

The November music font looks very beautiful to me. It costs a little over $100 and comes with a font annotation file so it should work fine with at least Finale (I'm not Sibelius expert, so I don't know how you go about changing the default music font there.) I don't personally own November though since Feta works fine for me and is free. But if you wanted a great font for Finale or possibly Sibelius (again I don't know if it is compatible) I would certainly recommend November.

Both programs require work, effort, and excessive attention to detail to make a beautiful score. Switching to Finale will only illuminate an entirely different path of obstacles for you to navigate. And in the end, you will be ultimately hindered by the lackluster default music fonts (of which I think Sibelius is slightly better here) which will give your music a generic, computerized look. Of course, even more time and effort can get you a better music font to use. Then there's all that time making a collision markup for the font.... Suffice it to say, if you want a score with the beauty of a Henle or Barenreiter edition, you will have to spend hundreds and hundreds and then more hundreds of dollars getting the basic materials, and then be prepared to spend dozens and dozens of hours working on a task that would perhaps be an insult to monotony. All hope is lost. OR is it?

There is certainly less demand now because there are so many more composers. Nobody needs you to write 200 symphonies nowadays. I personally think it is far better to write one really great work than a million so-so ones. With so much great music available to us nowadays, there is really no room for so-so pieces.

You mentioned enjoyable music, right.... of the past 100 years. Here's a couple I like: Ravel - Mallarme songs Webern - op.3 no.5 'Kahl reckt der Baum' (exquisite! you can find it on youtube) Messiaen - Preludes for piano, Oraison, Quartet for the end of time Ives - his songs (esp the recent disk with pierre-laurent aimard) Steve Reich - Just about everything from Piano Phase to Triple Quartet! Also, Cello Counterpoint. John Adams - China and Phrygian Gates, Common tones in simple time, the Chairman Dances, Eros piano Terry Riley - A Rainbow in curved Air album, numerous other works Philip Glass - Music with changing parts La Monte Young - Piano Trio (so eerie... can be hard to find though) Check out Christopher Theofanidis and Kevin Puts too! They are living North American composers with wonderful music.

I will try it.

These things I have done. The markings appear in the score, just not in the playback. I have HP on, and it does work with certain tracks. The only solution I have found is to delete the staff and replace it altogether.

Salieri killed Mozart! Salieri killed Mozart! How could you like him!?

Obviously, Lilypond is the best value since it is free, more powerful, and less buggy than the other programs on the 'market'. I also find it to be quite simple to use, provided you take a bit of time to become familiar with it (you also need a good text editing program like jEdit). But, since there isn't really any playback to speak of and no visual element as you are entering the composition - it probably isn't for beginning composers who are not as accustomed to writing music. Finale and Sibelius have entry level software as others have mentioned and it might be worth looking into. They can be a valuable resource for learning composition skills.

Welcome to the world of Finale. Who says hundreds of dollars can't buy broken dreams? I too have difficulty getting string effects to work sometimes in the playback - I can't figure out why it sometimes does and doesn't work. For example, recently I had a score in which pizz worked for all the strings except the violas. Maybe Finale is just trying to prep us for real life situations.

I hear a lot about this piece - yet never hear it! I need to see if our library has the recording.

Marius - thank you for these excellent suggestions. However, I have played only a few of those games - I imagine the reason why most people here haven't listed this game or that game (especially recent games) is simply because they haven't gotten around it playing it yet or aren't into a specific genre - and it's very difficult to be exposed to video game music unless you are actually playing the game!

It IS tough. Tough really to find good recordings of Ravel's piano works in general. I find the same even more true of Rachmaninov's solo piano works (there are plenty of good concerto recordings.)

To Zanarkand is perhaps not gag-inducing, but I do skip over that track. There are better ones on the soundtrack for sure. In particular, 'Wandering Flames' and the two forest themes. Those I can think of off the top of my head, but there are other good ones too.

Oh yes, Final Fantasy Tactics is not to be forgotten either. Never has music made sprites that walk in place seem so intense!

This thread has made me start replaying through Donkey Kong Country. As soon as I beat the first one (almost done) I'll move on to the 2nd which is my favorite. Here's another nice one from the game: