Winter 2006
Same Motif, New Instrument
John Paulson didn't teach Hilary Swank how to box or coach Jamie Fox on his piano-playing technique. He didn't write the music that swelled as Johnnie Depp, playing author J.M. Barrie, conjured up the characters Peter Pan and Captain Hook. But when Million Dollar Baby, Ray, and Finding Neverland won Academy Awards last March for Best Picture, Best Sound Mixing and Best Music Score, respectively, Paulson found himself brimming with pride: His company makes the music-notation software that was used to create sheet music for the recording sessions of each film.
Paulson, 57, is president of MakeMusic, a publicly traded company that specializes in software for music education and publishing. Finale, a software program used by several music-services production houses in Hollywood, as well as by college professors and professional composers around the world, is among the firm's most popular and profitable products.
The Eden Prairie, Minn.-based company also produces SmartMusic Studio, a music practice system aimed at music educators and students. An interactive teaching tool for woodwind, brass, string, and vocal musicians, SmartMusic technology helped Paulson launch the company in 1991. And if his predictions are correct, the two platforms will carry the company far into the future — nurturing and benefiting a generation of musicians and composers that just could produce the music for tomorrow's Oscar-winning films.
But technology isn't the passion that drove Paulson into business: His first love is music. A saxophonist since his teenage years, he enrolled at the University in the mid-1960s primarily to play in the school's famed marching band. In 1970, he graduated with a B.S. in music education, then worked as a teacher for a year before enrolling at the prestigious Eastman School of Music in New York, earning a master's in the same discipline. A nine-year stint as a music teacher in the Wayzata public schools followed — a period that Paulson still recalls with affection. In addition to band practice and music lessons, he taught classes focusing on Mozart, classical piano, and electronic composition.
The arrangement didn't just benefit students; Paulson also learned a few things. "I evolved from standard band director to a full-time electronics composition teacher — possibly the only one in the country at the high-school level," he says. "I had a window into how technology was going to transform music-making and music education. I saw that I could make a valuable contribution."
Personal computers were just beginning to shape American work and life in the early 1980s, when Paulson's interest in electronic music led him into the digital world. From the school library, he checked out books on writing code and began developing small, simple software programs — mostly aimed at entertaining the two young children that he and his wife were raising at home. When the experiment evolved into a viable product, Paulson found himself running a small but lucrative side business.
In 1982, he quit teaching to develop a company now called Springboard Software, a developer of early childhood learning tools. Operating a business seems to have come naturally to Paulson, but he also says luck was on his side. "I had an unbelievably forgiving marketplace," he explains. "Machines were being sold in increasing numbers, and people wanted software to go with them. It was much easier to be a pioneer back then."
Despite his success, Paulson still found himself itching to have an impact on music education. "I'd created this thing that didn't have my heart," he says. "Or rather, I loved it. But it didn't have anything to do with music."
After taking Springboard public in the mid-1980s, he left in 1990 to found the company that ultimately became MakeMusic, developing the SmartMusic platform (originally called Vivace) and acquiring Finale from a competitor in 1992. The company remains small, at 60 employees, but last year generated $11 million in revenue. Within the niche market of music education and publishing technologies, MakeMusic is a well-known player.
Paulson is clearly pleased with the company's impact — not only on Hollywood, but also on music education in schools. "Teachers see SmartMusic as something that will keep kids singing and playing," he says. A SmartMusic subscription gives teachers and students access to thousands of titles of music as well as practice exercises and accompaniment resources. "It helps sustain kids' love of making music," Paulson says. "Fewer kids will drop out because of SmartMusic."
What's more, the technology helps students advance by offering self-tests, recording options, and other digital teaching tools. In an age when educators are increasingly asked to demonstrate students' progress with test results and other yardsticks, that's important to the future of music.
"The technology adds tremendous value to what music teachers are trying to do with kids," Paulson says. "A music teacher conducts concerts, so when it comes time to cut programs, the teachers don't know how to prove that they're doing a great job. SmartMusic gives them a simple way to document what each student is doing."
Photos by Richard G. Anderson