Dolet 6 Music XML Plugins for Finale & Sibelius are now Freeware

Yup, that’s right: Just in time for Christmas, MakeMusic is offering the Dolet 6 Music XML plugin for both Finale and Sibelius on their website as a free download. Here’s the link:

http://www.makemusic.com/Products/MusicXML.aspx

Cool, right? But wait, what is a Sibelius plugin doing on the Finale website?

In case you missed the official announcement, on November 2, 2011, MakeMusic entered into an agreement to acquire selected assets of Recordare® LLC, the Internet music publishing and software company.

Under the terms of the agreement, MakeMusic purchased the MusicXML™ open format and Dolet® software technology, including copyrights, source code, and trademarks. MakeMusic also announced that the founder of Recordare and inventor of MusicXML, Michael Good, would join MakeMusic as the Director of Digital Sheet Music.

In case you want to read the official MakeMusic press releases, here they are:

  1. November 28, 2011
  2. November 2, 2011

 

Additionally, the Recordare site has more information about the future of Music XML.

  1. Recordare FAQ
  2. More about the MakeMusic Acquisition

Both Finale 2012 and Sibelius 7 already have decent Music XML integration built in, allowing you to import and export Music XML files for collaboration with others, or, in the case of Finale, for back saving to a previous version of Finale.

The Dolet 6 plugins use the latest Music XML 3.0 technology, with support for additional musical symbols and lots of other goodies, so even Finale 2012 and Sibelius 7 users will benefit. And, if you are using and earlier version of your notation software, such as Finale 2010 or Sibelius 6, it’s a huge step up, essentially giving users a comprehensive file exchange feature.

robert

Collision Avoidance in Finale, Part 1 : The Little Things

Q: What method(s) do you use to avoid collisions in “busy” scores in Finale, i.e: a tutti section with dynamics, hairpins, accents, chord symbols, etc… I have messed with the Avoid Collisions plugin but that doesn’t seem to do the trick for me.

A: For me, regardless of the notation program you are working in, there are a couple of basic “small things” that make a piece of music look “clean”. The first is a consistent amount of white space between any two objects that are close together on the page. The amount of minimum white space between any two objects is usually a matter of personal taste; a “house style” decision.

The second is that wherever possible, the vertical alignment of similar grouped objects such as dynamics, chord symbols or lyrics should remain consistent. Horizontal alignment should also be consistent. For instance, if you decide that techniques like “arco” and “pizz.” should be right aligned with noteheads horizontally or centered over notes, then you should locate these markings consistently in that position as much as is possible.

more >> “Collision Avoidance in Finale, Part 1 : The Little Things”

Finale – Type Harp pedal markings as text into your score

Q: “In Finale, I have notated the starting and ending notes of a gliss which is in C minor. The full version of TGTOOLS has the Harp Pedaling… plugin, but since I’m not displaying enough pitches at this point in the score to outline the C minor tonality, I can’t get the plugin to work. Can I manually type in the harp pedal marking for C minor as text into Finale?”

A: Yes. To indicate the pedal changes at the start of a piece or new section, there are two standard conventions:

more >> “Finale – Type Harp pedal markings as text into your score”

Notating Fingered Tremolos in Finale and Sibelius

Fingered tremolo resembles a trill, but often with a larger interval between the fingers. The notation shows the tremolo marking between two notes rather than intersecting stems, or directly under or over a whole note. The convention is to show the full value of each of the notes in the tremolo pair.

Fingered tremolo is very straightforward to create in both Finale and Sibelius:

more >> “Notating Fingered Tremolos in Finale and Sibelius”

Horizontal Split Points : Split a single measure across a system break in Finale

Q: I have a Finale file which has one long measure with about 20 notes in it, and it’s somewhat cramped.  Is there a way to “split” the bar into two systems without adding an extra bar, and without adding a bar line in the middle? Also, if this is in a score with integrated parts, can I do this without altering the score or other parts, etc.?”

A: Split measures are often found in published hymnals, with pickups into the start of a new verse or chorus appearing at the end of a previous system to keep the music symmetrical. Cadenzas are another example, where there may be a large number of notes within a single “bar”.

Finale’s “Allow Horizontal Split Points” feature is designed to split a single measure across a system break.

With the Measure Tool selected, double click on the measure you want to split. When the Measure Attributes dialog opens, check “Allow Horizontal Split Points”:

finale-allow-horizontal-split-points

OK the dialog. This adds a 3rd selection handle below the other two at the measure’s right bar line. Click the new handle, and you’ll see a strip running the length of the bar. Double click where you want the break to occur. You can actually split the bar into more than 2 segments if you want, and you can drag these split points anywhere along the horizontal placement strip:

fin-measure-split-handles

Now, update the layout, and this measure will appear split across two systems as you’ve defined it.

This technique works great for a hymnal piece, or any music where the score and part share the same layout. The same technique is a little tricky with an integrated score and parts, if you only want the split to appear on one particular part (for instance, a cadenza). It will work as long as you don’t update the layout anywhere except where you want the split. 

However, it is pretty easy to update the layout accidentally, so I would recommend completing the layouts for the score and all parts except for this one part containing the (e.g. cadenza) bar which requires the split. Extract this part *before* you do the split. By dealing with this split point in a separate file, for the one instrument only, you will maintain the integrity of the layout in your score and the other parts.

Now that you understand how to do this manually, try Finale’s Split Measures plugin which automates the beat where the split occurs, the bar line style, and can also move the second part of the split measure to the next system. Found in : Plugins > Measures > Split Measures.

~robert


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