Title: Do yourself a favor and try Sibelius 5 before buying Finale.
Product review: I have been using Finale for several years and, while it is sufficient most of the time, I am constantly frustrated by how totally unintuitive it is. Even after going through tutorials and guidebooks, I still found it slow going. I finally got a copy of the new version of Sibelius and am just floored by how much better I like it. As a Mac user, I especially appreciate the ease and aesthetics of the Sibelius user interface. Plus, there are some Sibelius-specific features that are just really thoughtful (especially the Ideas palette -- great for sketching out compositions or saving alternative melodies). Music notation software is expensive: do yourself a favor and try both before committing.
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