Tag: editing

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The Convolutions of Hidden & Independent Key Signatures in Finale

UPDATE: If you have updated to Finale 2014, take a look at the new Keyless Scores feature which is related to the issues covered in this post.

Q: I’m formatting a Timpani part with key signatures hidden. The score contains a number of keys changes / signatures. The timpani part itself is fine with all accidentals in place.

However, I need cued notes from other parts to appear in the Timpani part. The source parts all show key signatures. I used the TG Tools Add Cue Notes… plugin to make the cues, but none of those accidentals appear in the timpani part. For example, the flute is in the key of G major, and has a passage with F-sharp in it. If I cue that passage in the timpani part, Finale doesn’t show the sharp to indicate F#.

I can’t believe this is an uncommon problem. How can I globally make these diatonic accidentals appear in a part without Key Signatures?

A: As you are already aware, historically, Classical scores displayed some instruments without Key Signatures. Timpani and French Horn are probably the most common of these “keyless” instruments, although you will find examples in the repertoire for Trumpet and even Clarinet.

For Timpani, since it is not a transposing instrument, one would think that all you’d need to do to hide the key signature is to uncheck Key Signatures in Items to Display of the Staff Attributes, and any diatonic accidentals would then automatically appear in the staff:

fin-items-to-display

However, to see how this really works (and how it doesn’t), let’s (1) define a Key Signature, then (2) set our Timpani not to display the Key Signature as above:

fin-set-key-sig-and-hide

(3) Now, enter some notes using your MIDI keyboard. If you enter a sequence of non-diatonic naturals, you get (redundant) naturals displaying on every note; if you enter notes that are diatonic to the hidden Key Signature, the accidentals aren’t displayed at all, neither of which is very useful:

fin-midi-entry-w-hidden-keysig

So, as you can see, simply hiding the Key Signature isn’t really an ideal solution at all. If you’ve already entered music in the staff with “Items to Display>Key Signatures” unchecked, there is a partial solution for showing accidentals more correctly after the fact, which I will cover at the end of the blog post. But first…

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Creating Big Time Signatures in Finale which include the Cut Time Symbol

Q. Do you know if there a solution to the omission of a Cut Time option in Finale’s Engraver Time font?

A. As you know, the Engraver Time font is a vertically “stretched” narrow font specifically designed to display large time signatures in scores:

finale-time-signatures-dialog

However, inexplicably, Finale doesn’t provide the Cut Time symbol in the Engraver Time font; the character slots “c” and “Shift-C” in Engraver Time have been left blank. It’s unclear why a vertically stretched Cut Time symbol was not included with the Engraver Time font.

Finale’s Document Options > Time Signatures dialog can control positioning of the abbreviated Cut Time symbol vertically separate from the regular meters. 

I have logged a feature request with MakeMusic to add the Cut Time and Common Time Symbols to the Engraver Time Font (if you would like to request this as well, refer to case #130919-000264)

In the meantime, if you also happen to own Sibelius 7, you can use the “Opus Big Time Std.” font from Sibelius which *does* have a version of Cut Time and Common Time symbols. Make sure the Cut Time option is checked in Document Options > Time Signatures.

(Hint: if you don’t own Sibelius 7, ask a friend who does to email you the Opus Big Time Std. font, or you can download the Sibelius 7 30-day free trial, which comes with all of the fonts.)

Once you install the Opus Big Time Std. font, depending on the font size you choose for your big time signatures, you will likely need to separately adjust the vertical positioning for the Abbreviated Cut Time symbol so that it appears properly related to the positioning of your regular time signatures:

finale-big-time-sig-settings

You can vertically adjust the three fields for Abbreviated Symbol, Top Symbol and Bottom Symbol to where you think they look best based on the size of your time signatures.

for Susan Pascal

Related:

  1. Finale Blog: Creating Large Time Signatures in Conductor’s Scores
  2. Finale Manual – Document Options-Time Signatures dialog box
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A Simple Finalescript™ To Create Rhythm Cues in Drum Parts

Frequently, in jazz charts, drum parts are written with rhythm cues included so the drummer can catch specific accents and phrases the band is playing. These cues might look something like this:

fin-rhythm-cue

Finalescript™ can help speed up the process of creating these cues, automating the following steps required to create cue notes in drum parts:

  1. Move cue notes to Layer 4 in drum staff (Layer 1 is used for slashes)
  2. Transpose all pitches in selection to space above the staff
  3. Change to cue sized notes
  4. Change stem direction of cue notes to stems up
  5. Change tie direction of cue notes to “over”
  6. Move Rests up, parallel with notes in Layer 4
  7. Apply a custom slash notation style that allows the cue notes in Layer 4 to show

The script is designed to create rhythm cues using the Normal Notation Style. However, I’ve also had luck with using it with a drum staves using the  Percussion Notation style, although as outlined below, in newer versions of Finale there is an additional step required.

Before starting to create rhythm cues, you will need to paste the Finalescript lines below into a new Finalescript. Copy and paste the script lines from “//start script” through the line that says “//end script”. In Finale, the script editor can be accessed from the plugins menu: Plugins>Finalescript>Finalescript Palette.

Here is the Finalescript:

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Convert Straight Quotes & Apostrophes to Smart Quotes via FinaleScript™

“Smart”, or curly quotes are in common use in published works of all types, including books, music and even modern web sites. For music scores, these “smart quotes” give a more refined look than the “flat“ or “straight“ quotes do. The difference is subtle, but appreciable.

You can enter these “smart quotes” on the fly in Finale, using the standard keystrokes recognized in Word and many other applications. On Mac, these are Option-[ for the curly start quote and Option-Shift-[ for the curly closing quote.

Presumably, on Windows the corresponding keystrokes are ALT-[ for the curly start quote and ALT-Shift-[ for the curly closing quote.

Sometimes, however, it would be nice to be able to quickly convert all existing quotes and apostrophes in a Finale score in a single operation. And, as it happens…

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Finale : Cross-Layer Accidental Positioning

Q: In a score where two instruments share a single staff (in my example, Horn 1 and 2), I have an issue when it comes to accidentals. Here is  a picture of a printed score with an example of how this should look:

But here is Finale’s default placement:

I know that I can independently move both the accidental and the note, but I am wondering if there is a simpler method I am overlooking here?

A: In Document Options, locate the Accidentals category right at the top of the dialog, and after selecting it, look for “Use Cross-Layer Accidental Positioning”. Uncheck this option, which is on by default:

Your Finale example should now look like this:

That’s it! That’s all there is to it.

~robert

See also:

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Staying Organized with Finale’s Category Designer

Q: I have a Finale template file that I use often for orchestral music, and I have created several new expression categories with the Category Designer tool. However, I created these categories as they were needed, and they are now arranged in the Expression list without order. I would like to rearrange the order of the categories, but I cannot seem to find a way to do so. Do you know of any way that I can rearrange the order of these categories? Or am I coming up against a shortcoming of this software?

A: More recent versions of Finale have the ability to manually reorganize (sort) Text, Shapes, Lines and Articulations via the “Move Down” and “Move Up” buttons in the Expression Selection, Articulation Selection, Shape Selection and Line Selection dialogs. These sorting buttons also appear in the Document Setup Wizard, Reorder Staves, and in Manage Parts, to allow the user to change a particular instrument’s position in the score.

Unfortunately, Finale’s Document  > Category Designer has no such sorting feature. For those that only use the Default Categories, this doesn’t represent a problem, but for those of us who make use of the ability to create custom categories, the ability to sort them would be useful.

Fortunately, there are a few ways you can reorganize these expression categories. Let’s take a look…

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Create true equidistant measure widths in a Sibelius score

Q: I am currently engraving an orchestral score by a living composer in Sibelius 7.1.3 and he is asking me for evenly spaced measures in the score (regardless of note content). The score itself is very complex and I would like to know if there is any other way other that filling a bar’s second voice with 64ths and then hiding all of them. This would solve the problem in the score but then I would have to repeat the process for every single separate sheet.

A: The quick and easy solution is to use Sibelius’s Auto Layout feature which locks a specific number of measures per system regardless of content. For instance, each system (or score page) can always be 4 bars, or 2 bars, or even a single bar. In Sibelius 7, use Auto Breaks in the Layout tab fix the number of measures per system / page. (Auto Breaks are found in the Layout Menu in Sib 6). You can use this feature in both the score and parts.

This “container lock” method works just fine in many cases. With this method, measure width essentially overrides note spacing. However, there are certain situations where you not only want equidistant width of the measures themselves, but also more exact control of the spacing of the notation content within these bars. (see the score example at the end of this post).

Sibelius factors the content of every staff vertically down the score into its note spacing routine, with the most active staff taking precedence. You can use this to your advantage if your goal is to create wide, even spacing in a score or part.

To see the effects of this clearly, turn off Auto Breaks in the Layout tab (or Layout Menu in Sib 6).

In a passage where you have more note density in one staff than another, (or more notes in one voice than another), the overall note spacing will adjust to accommodate the busier music. Note how the whole notes in the top staff become spaced further and further apart as the staff below it becomes filled with smaller and smaller note values:

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