Category: Finale

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How to Create Stemless + Stemmed / Beamed Sections in the Same Finale File

Q: I compose music for Psalms from scripture. The format typically has a REFRAIN or ANTIPHON of 4 to 10 measures of metered (4/4, 6/8, etc.) notation, with stemmed notes and standard notation of quarter notes, eighth notes, repeat signs, etc.

Music example © Mark J. Stenson

When that short section is done, the music for the longer verses uses a “chant like” un-metered melody, usually without stems on the note values. For example, the start of an “unmetered” section below  is made up of sequential bars of 10/4 and 11/4, with the time signatures and stems hidden; giving the impression of “un-metered” notation.

However, when I try to take the stems off of the notes in the un-metered measures, all of the notes lose their stems, including the original 4 measures of metered music.

My current “work-around” is to merge the contents of the two different Finale documents as a graphic. There must be a way to show both a stemmed section and an unstemmed section in the same Finale file?

more >> “How to Create Stemless + Stemmed / Beamed Sections in the Same Finale File”

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Finale: A Simple Trick for Misbehaving Measure Number Regions

I was just working as a proofreader on a recording project, and the cue I was looking at was supposed to start with measure 6. I noticed that it was starting at measure 1, and (figuring that the copyist had simply overlooked it) went to set the Measure Number Region accordingly. I was surprised to see that the measure number region had in fact been set properly, but for some reason was not updating:

With a little bit of trial and error, I tried reselecting the numbering style, and voila! The region updated appropriately:

Usually measure number regions update dynamically as you change the “Starting Number” field, and I’m not sure why this one got stuck… But if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, give this a try!

Jacob Winkler is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Girls Choir, and an instructor in Finale and Sibelius for the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring Program. He is frequently engaged as a choral singer for film and game soundtracks, including the Halo, Assassin’s Creed, and World of Warcraft series. LinkedIn

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FinaleScript™ Tip : Search and Replace

More recent versions of Finale have a powerful tool called Text Search and Replace (TSAR), found in the Edit Menu:

As the name implies, from this dialog you can search for specific text and replace it with something else. For example, you can quickly replace all occurrences of “1/2” with a proper “½” symbol:

This TSAR dialog also has a filter which allows you to selectively search a specific area of Finale; only replacing, say, a specific lyric spelling or a particular articulation character with another:

Which is great!

However, one thing which would make this search and replace a lot more powerful: The ability to SAVE and RECALL common search and replace commands somehow so you didn’t have to keep typing them in manually each time…

more >> “FinaleScript™ Tip : Search and Replace”

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Adding an Ossia Staff in Finale

A previous OF NOTE post, “Controlling Staff Visibility of Tacet Bars in Finale”, illustrates how to hide unused empty staves in Finale:

Controlling Staff Visibility of Tacet Bars in Finale

A score where string sections are broken out into divisi on several staves for part of the score, but confined to their separate staves for other parts of the score would be an example of this. (e.g. typically, the ancillary 2nd or 3rd divisi staves would be hidden where music for that instrument section is confined to a single staff. )

Ossia bars have a similar visibility requirement. Ossia staves are frequently used in instrumental solo literature to indicate an editorial (or original) ornamentation for a well-known classical passage, or to show alternate chord voicings, rhythmic variations or a different transposition for a double  in a jazz chart.

Let’s take a look at how we can create ossia bars for an instrumental solo, as in this example:

more >> “Adding an Ossia Staff in Finale”

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Finale’s Text Tool : On-Page Alignment

SibeliusBlog author Philip Rothman recently wrote a helpful article on formatting title pages in Finale. While reading the article, I was reminded that while formatting music notation is very advanced in Finale, formatting text on a blank page isn’t as immediately intuitive as working in your favorite word processor.  (As notation programs go, Finale is not unique in this regard.)

In years past, on many projects done in both Finale & Sibelius, I admit to having taken the path of least resistance; simply cutting quickly to the chase to create dedication pages, composer notes pages and instrumentation pages in a more friendly word processor environment, saving them as PDF files and then prepending them to the music once it is finished.

The disadvantage, of course, is that you have multiple files floating around for something that really should be one project file. And, as it turns out, while Finale doesn’t provide the same familiar work space as your favorite word processor, or the level of detail of a desktop publishing software package, it is perfectly capable of getting the job done. Let’s take a look.

more >> “Finale’s Text Tool : On-Page Alignment”

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Finale tip : Use Layers to highlight specific noteheads

Q: I’m creating instructional handouts for students in Finale. Is there a way to color / highlight specific noteheads? Here’s an example, where I’m trying to show the student how to follow the movement of a voice on one string through a series of drop-2 inversions – it would be cool to have the other 3 noteheads “grayed out”.

A: Yes, for examples like the above, you can do this very easily in Finale with Layers. Enter the moving voice you want the students to follow in Layer 1. Now, go into Program Preferences > Display Options and change the color of Layer 2 to be whatever lighter shade of gray you want these to appear:

The remaining chord notes in Layer 2 will appear as “background”:

(For this type of example, you may also want to change the Display Color of your Smart Shape arrows to black)

Finally, when you are printing your handouts, be sure to check Print : Display colors in Finale’s print dialog:

 

That’s all there is to it!

~robert

for Brian Monroney

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Finale Plugin : Yada Tremolo version 2.01

Hot on the heels of the release of JW Yada Yada Tremolo for Finale 25  is a new version 2.01, which addresses some limitations of the first release:

* Supports percussion notation
* Speed improvements (typically around 30% shorter processing times)
* Added safety dialog when if settings have been modified.
* If a document region is selected when Apply or OK has been pressed, there’s now a user question if the settings should be applied directly to the region.
* “Scale Custom Spacing Relative to 24 Points” now scales with a bit more precision. It now uses the glyph height ratio instead of the point size ratio.
* Error message box for strange/non-existent FAN data has been redesigned
* When verifying fonts, the current document is now also checked for potential problems with tremolo
* Font list (in the tremolo font dialog box) is now sorted alphabetically
* Windows version can now rearrange items in the tremolo font list as well
* Numerous UI fixes on Windows

Download link for Windows/Finale 25

Download link for Mac/Finale 25

original post: Finale 25 Plugin : Yada Tremolo (v2)