While I am over in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Michigan Music Conference (Hello, any visitors from Michigan!), NAMM is under way–always of double interest to me for music technology and ukulele news. There are some new Fender ukuleles coming out that look like little Telecasters…and I quite like the look of them…but that’s neither here or there for the “Tech In Music Ed Blog.”
On my way to Michigan, Dorico dropped the news that it was now making a new version of Dorico…a light version entitled “SE” available for download. So, I’m back at my hotel and I’m downloading it.
I have been procrastinating with Dorico, because it hasn’t been able to do what I needed it to do until this summer…when guitar (and ukulele) chord fonts and tabs became available.
I have used Finale for a long time, and I’m pretty used to creating music in measures that are empty, such as with Finale and Notion; and I struggle with programs that have existing rests that turn into beats (Sibelius, MusicScore, Noteflight, and flat.io). To be honest, my Sibelius and MuseScore time is pretty limited (MuseScore more than Sibelius) because I’ve never owned Sibelius, and Notion and Finale handle all of my needs for notation.
Dorico promises to be a whole new experience–I’m not sure what it’s going to be like. Dorico offers some wonderful educator discounts, but even the educator pricing still represents serious money (such as more than one of the aforementioned Fender Telecaster ukuleles) so I want to be able to see what it’s all about before I go further. Dorico does offer a 30 day trial; but I don’t like working under those conditions as I’m never sure how much time I’ll get to play with a software package in 30 days.
So, this news of the SE version is of great interest to me. I have no idea if it will have the guitar/ukulele features that were added this summer, but I’ll very much enjoy finding out. I am a little amazed at the size of the files. When you download the program, you actually download the Steinberg Download Assistant (111MB), which, after installation, allows you to download Dorico 3 SE (423 MB plus nearly 3GB of sounds). That’s a pretty sizable download–and I’ll be waiting a while here at the hotel before it’s ready to go and for me to start entering some notes. Make sure to check your available storage before downloading!
Technology in Music Education 