… music notation tips & tutorials by experts in this field.
Q: In this screenshot, you’ll notice that the G natural accidental in the third bar is colliding with the previous F sixteenth note between the two layers:
I have tried all sorts of ways to fix it, using the Document Options’ minimum spacing, space between, etc. I have tried Note/Beat/Time Sig. Spacing, all the JW note spacing alternatives and nothing fixes this issue automatically. Is it only fixable manually?
Q: I am dealing with bar lines that go through multiple parts in a score. I would like to group the instrument choirs rather than having bar lines running down the entire score. Is there an easy fix for this in Sibelius and / or Finale?
A: Yes, absolutely.
In Sibelius, click at the bottom of the staff right at the point where the bar line joins the bottom staff line. A box will show up. Click and drag the box down and the staves will become joined or separated.
In Finale, in Staff Attributes there is an attribute called “Break Barlines between staves” which controls whether the bar lines join with the staff above that particular instrument.
That’s all there is to it.
~robert
A wildcard is a special kind of text object that can insert text from somewhere else. For instance, Sibelius has a number of useful wildcards for various page text elements (title, subtitle, composer, copyright etc). When you change the information in Score Info, the text on the page will automatically update.
The syntax for text wildcards is a backslash, followed by a dollar sign, then the wildcard label and finally, a closing backslash. Case does not matter; they can be all upper case, all lower case, or mixed case.
Sibelius also has some formatting change wildcards, which work exclusively within the Score Info dialog. The syntax for these is simply the command encased in a pair of backslashes.
Text wildcards are designed to appear on the page; as stated above, formatting wildcards (such as for bold, italic, new line etc) can only be used in Score Info.
Here is a list of the available text wildcards for Sibelius:
\$PARTNAME\ evaluates to a list of the instruments in the part, each instrument separated by a carriage return.
\$HEADERPARTNAME\ evaluates to a list of the instruments in the part, separated by a comma and all on the same line.
\$TITLE\
\$COMPOSER\
\$COPYRIGHT\
\$ARRANGER\
\$PUBLISHER\
\$ARTIST\
\$InstrumentChanges\
\$MOREINFO\
\$USER\ – current logged in user
\$DATELONG\ – full date in locale-specific format, e.g. “March 4, 2005”
\$DATESHORT\ – short date in locale-specific format, e.g. “04/03/05”
\$FILEPATH\ – full path to the current file
\$FILENAME\ – filename of the current file
\$FILEDATE\ – full date that the current file was last saved
\$TIME\ – current time (insert this, then zoom in and out every second!)
\$PAGENUM\ – current page number
\$YearOfComposition\
\$ComposerDates\
\$OpusNumber\
\$Subtitle\
\$Dedication\
\$Copyist\
\$NumPages\ – total number of pages (as of Sib 7.13)
Here are the available formatting wildcards for Score Info:
\n\ New line
\B\ Bold on
\b\ Bold off
\I\ Italic on
\i\ Italic off
\U\ Underline on
\u\ Underline off
\fArial Black\ Font change to Arial Black (for example)
\f_\ Font change to text style’s default font
\s123\ Size change to 123 (units are 1/32nds of a space, not points)
More information about Wildcards is available in the Sibelius Reference, starting on page 260.
Did you know that you can enter chords on your MIDI keyboard to create Chord Symbols over the staff?
If you would like Finale to recognize MIDI entry to generate chord symbols, choose Allow MIDI Input from the Chord Menu. For many of Finale’s existing chord libraries, this is all you need to do; with the Chord Tool selected, you’ll be able to play in (typically root position) chord voicings on your MIDI keyboard to produce chord symbols at the bar and beat locations you specify.
Depending on the chord library you choose, you might find that an existing chord library or a particular chord symbol within the library doesn’t recognize your chord entry.
Only chords that have been defined for MIDI entry will produce Chord Symbol text.
Fortunately, it is straightforward to enter new MIDI chord definitions which can be used to generate a specific chord symbols:
more >> “Finale Quick Tip : Use MIDI Input To Create Chord Symbols”
The Contextual Menu for Smart Shapes makes quick work of aligning hairpins, trills and other measure – attached smart lines in your score. For instance, to align trills so their line start and end points match down the score, click and drag-lasso them so their selection boxes are all highlighted, then right – click one of the highlighted selection boxes, and select “Align Vertically” from the Contextual menu.
This tip applies to all measure-attached Smart Lines in Finale, so it can be used with hairpins, trill extensions, ottava lines, bracket lines or custom measure attached smart lines you create.
If you have the full version of TG Tools, be sure to also check out the Align-Move plugin which automates this functionality over a larger selection area.
It used to be that in Finale, if you wanted divisi stems up / down, you had to enter (or re-enter) each part in as a separate Layer in two passes, or resort to multi-step workarounds. No more. It’s a single step with the freely available JW Explode Layers plugin. And merging two Layers into one is also a single step with JW Merge. Visit the above link, and navigate to Downloads for your OS.
Finale supports six+ different units of measurement :
While Millimeters aren’t specifically listed as an available unit of measurement in Finale, you can enter mm values when using Centimeters by simply moving the decimal point to the left (25.4 mm = 2.54 cm).
You set the measurement unit from Preferences > Measurement Units in the Finale Menu, but that doesn’t mean you always have to think in those units. Some places in Finale, such as the Document Options and Page Format dialogs, have a handy Units popup menu which apply only within that dialog:
But Finale gives you even greater control. You can enter values in any unit of measurement in any numeric field of any dialog by simply adding the first letter of the unit of measurement after the number.
For example, if you need to “think in inches” for a moment, regardless of the current unit of measurement setting, type in “1.75i” (“i” for inches) and Finale will enter the measurement correctly, and convert the number to the current unit of measurement for you.
On the off chance you should ever need to enter a value in picas this way, the shortcut is “p0” (“p” is reserved for “points”.)
.5i, 6s, 144e, 1.27c, 36p, 3p0 are all the same value, just entered differently