We were lucky enough to end up with the full version of Finale through a deal with my stepson's music teacher, but I've seen kids do wonderful things with the free version of Finale, Finale Notepad.
I've played with Pavane's Harmony program and I was very impressed, but haven't taken the time to master it. MMario keeps bugging me to learn SongWright, the music program the Digital Tradition uses, and John in Brisbane keeps sending me notes to encourage me to learn ABC.

I think I'd like to see ABC become the format for Digital Tradition tunes, but Dick Greenhaus won't accept it yet because it doesn't handly lyrics and some other functions as well as SongWright.

All these formats drive me crazy.

-Joe Offer-