Notation Software Survey

As I'm certain must also be true for every other institute of higher learning in this country, we who teach at The Berklee College of Music have experienced and continue to experience many changes in educational delivery as a result of advances in computer technology. As a school of music, one of the particular technological problems we face is that of the application of music notation software across our curriculum. The physical production of printed music, whether accomplished by hand or by machine, is of prime importance in a music institution. Printed music is our currency in the process of communication of musical ideas, which, of course, we deal with continually in the classroom, in rehearsal, and in performance. Therefore, it would seem clear that the choice of notation software, and, peripherally, the computer platform on which that software runs, would merit careful study. The survey described in this report marks the beginning of an attempt to study this issue.

From May 31, 2005 to early September, 2005, I conducted, via e-mail, a survey of 4-year college-level music programs throughout the United States. The process began with the creation of a list of colleges and universities culled from various internet sources. These sources were then compared against the most recent College Music Society "Directory of Music Faculties" in the United States and Canada. From these various sources, 894 schools were identified as matching the survey criteria. Using the individual websites for each school, contact faculty were selected as much as possible on the basis of apparent association with music technology as well as e-mail availability.

At the time the survey was conducted, two commercial notation software applications and two primary computer platforms were, and remain, in common use. The applications are: Finale, a product of MakeMusic, Inc., and Sibelius, a product of Sibelius, Inc. The two platforms are the Macintosh OS, a product of Apple Computer, and Windows, a product of Microsoft Corp. The survey, then, consisted of two, simple questions:

Within the period of time indicated above, an e-mail with these questions was sent to a faculty member at each of the 894 colleges and universities. If a response was not received within one month, a second contact person from any “unresponsive” program was e-mailed as well. In a few cases, three e-mails were sent. By the close of the survey period in early September, responses were received and catalogued from 668 of the 894 schools - essentially a 75% success rate. Responses came from all 50 states (with the exception of Alaska*) and the District of Columbia. The incoming information was entered into a large spreadsheet organized by state, with colleges listed in alphabetical order within each state. Application and platform preferences were entered for each school**. The remainder of this report documents the results.

A few, brief conclusions can be found in the final section of the report. I hope the information found here will prove to be interesting and useful. Please feel free to leave comments.

Acknowledgements

I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the incredible web of music educators who participated in this survey. We're all dealing with the same issues - it's wonderful to share information!

I would also like to thank my good friend, David Ocker, who, very much at the last minute and from a distance of 3,000 i-miles away, stepped in to act as a "sounding board" in order to assist me in the process of putting this information together in what is, hopefully, an understandable fashion.

My thanks, as well, go to another good friend, Michael Raskin, who provided a very helpful and insightful even-more-last-minute review.




*The survey questions were sent to colleges in Alaska, but there were no responses.

**A very small number of the total responses indicated use of notation applications other than Finale and Sibelius, and operating systems other than the Mac OS and Windows, but the numbers were not sufficient to merit inclusion in the survey results.