I spoke too soon.

At some point in the last year, as I auditioned MuseScore and Dorico as replacements for the ill-fated Finale, crucial bits of Finale stopped working without my knowing it.

I discovered this after I created a bootable external drive with the old MacOS on it, with its own copy of Finale and Garritan orchestral sounds. I was working on finishing up a Little Waltz that I had transferred to MuseScore and had now transferred back to Finale — and as usual neither program can completely transfer its data without glitches.

So it was with Finale’s import. The ending was missing the rallentando and tenuto marks I had placed in MuseScore, and to be honest, MuseScore has a tenuto symbol, but it in no way plays back. I clicked on the tool where Finale keeps such markings and… nothing. No palette popped up. I clicked on another tool, same thing. Finale is now functionally dead.

I don’t know what this means yet. One of my existential nightmares is what I call the Charles Ives Moment: Late in his life, he came down from his study where he composed and announced to his wife that the notes weren’t there anymore. He never composed again.

Is this where I am?

I don’t know yet. The idea of actually composing in MuseScore is worrisome. Composing is not easy for me. I joke about being the “whinging composer,” but the fact is that I don’t have any of the training the cool kids like Ives had, or the weird genius like Mozart did. Every note I produce is scraped from my brain onto the page or screen, and every note is literally an ABORTIVE ATTEMPT that I have to listen to over and over and over so I can hear which note, chord, cadence is off, and then fix it by literally trying again.

MuseScore does not make that easier.

Oh well. Here’s that latest Little Waltz.

Score [pdf]

And the sound file.