Summary: We are urging MakeMusic to continue Finale's development or at the least open-source the code.

Update as of August 27, 2024: After consideration of requests from some community members to reposition the goals of this campaign, we are offering MakeMusic other more realistic options to save Finale, including: erasing the authorization need to ensure that Finale will install and work on new computers, or/and working with Steinberg/Yamaha to create a good musx implementation so that files can open in Dorico while maintaining their formatting. Another plausible option would be to at least provide a musx reader that would allow PDF and XML exporting. 

As a composer, orchestrator, and copyist, Finale has been an essential part of my workflow and creative process for years. Like so many in the music community, I have relied on Finale to notate, arrange, and bring musical ideas to life with custom formatting and design. That’s why the recent announcement from MakeMusic to discontinue the development of Finale has been so disheartening and worrisome.

Finale has been used for decades by countless musicians—since 1988—particularly on Broadway and within the musical theater world. A recent article in Playbill highlights the widespread impact this decision will have on the music community. You can read it here. Please also see the coverage by Broadway World for additional context.

MakeMusic recently informed users that, effective immediately, there will be no further development on Finale or its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter). In their letter, they explained that the increasing complexity of Finale’s code has made it difficult to deliver meaningful updates. Instead of releasing new versions with only incremental improvements, they have decided to sunset Finale entirely. You can read their official announcement here.

While it is understood that Finale is not the most user-friendly or accessible software specifically to new users, copyists and programmers have spent countless hours developing plugins, scripts, and other tools to enhance its usability. With this announcement, all of that hard work will be rendered obsolete, leaving a community of professionals without the resources they have painstakingly created and relied upon. Additionally, as discussed in the Playbill and Broadway World articles, music preparation houses that have spent years developing and refining templates and workflows for Finale will now face the burden of investing significant time and money to create new templates and on training. This transition will be extremely inconvenient and disruptive, particularly for an industry that depends on efficiency and precision in music notation.

This decision impacts not just myself, but thousands of composers, educators, and all types of musicians who depend on Finale for its robust capabilities and long-standing legacy in music notation. While MakeMusic has partnered with Dorico, we believe that discontinuing Finale will leave a significant gap in the music community and limit our creative tools.

I am calling on MakeMusic to reconsider this decision and either continue developing Finale or preserve the software in a way that allows it to remain accessible to musicians—whether by making it open-source or by finding alternative ways to maintain its legacy.

While I understand that changing the minds of MakeMusic and its president, Greg Dell’Era, may not be easy, we can still do everything in our power to try. This petition will demonstrate how deeply users and companies depend on Finale and underscore its importance to the music community globally. If MakeMusic chooses not to continue its development, we hope that another company or individual will step in to purchase Finale and carry it forward. Alternatively, we urge MakeMusic to consider at least open-sourcing the Finale code, allowing the community to continue developing and improving the software for future generations.

Please join me in signing this petition to urge MakeMusic to keep Finale alive and ensure that our creative journeys can continue with the tools we know and trust.