Bobbie Thornton

Bobbie Thornton is a performing musician/vocalist and choir director who uses MIDI technology to augment live performances. She is also a busy music technology clinician, providing training sessions at schools and universities throughout the U.S. and Canada. Bobbie has served as a clinician for TI:ME, ACDA, IAJE, MENC, CMS, AGO and NPM, as well as for state music education and religious music conferences. 

Bobbie has an interesting perspective on the world of music notation software. In her former role as a Central Region Manager for Sibelius, she was very familiar with Sibelius, but perhaps more familiar with Sibelius’ claims about Finale than she was with the latest Finale software. As she currently provides training services on a wide variety of music software through Romeo Music, she’s become very familiar with Finale 2010, and I found her comments on the experience very interesting:

“Today I offer training on many music software titles (like ProTools, Band-in-a-Box, Finale, Sibelius, theory programs, scanning, and more) as well as on the implementation of technology into music programs. I have to say, it’s been a couple of years since I last had used Finale and there have been some real improvements. I was amazed to see how much easier it is to use Finale now; many changes make it much more intuitive.

I was blown away at some of the things Finale could do (like HyperScribe, which is far more accurate than Sibelius’ Flexitime). Finale’s scanning, also, is now greatly improved and extremely good. As well, opening a MIDI file presents the user with much more useable notation right off the bat, and Finale’s Expression Tool puts a lot into one location, which was very useful and handy. 

I recently conducted a Finale class for the Chicago Public Schools: of course it went really well! I had a full class of 21, and only one teacher had previously used Finale. After the 90-minute class, many people asked where they could purchase Finale. One guy told me; ‘I have Sibelius, but this is so much easier.'”

I’d like to thank Bobbie for her great enthusiasm and for sharing her experiences with us. If you’re reading this having not yet purchased music notation software, I’d encourage you to download the Finale demo and form your own conclusions.

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