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Understanding & Improving Music Spacing in Finale and Sibelius
Note spacing on the computer is basically achieved by a mathematical formula. But music spacing is more than just notes – at any point in time, it’s a complex pairing of notes and various other musical information. Think of all of the variables that affect how the music looks on the page: stems, flags, accidentals, articulations, ties, lyrics, chord symbols… the list is a long one.
In order to give the best and most flexible results, the software’s music spacing feature should be able to provide three basic things : (a) mathematically perfect spacing (b) additional “event” spacing or “padding” in order to prevent collisions of specific objects (c) lyrical spacing, where music is theoretically spaced to fit the words instead of the words fitting the music.
If you look closely at how music is spaced by various music publishers, you’ll see that while no proportions are universally accepted, as a general rule, all of them follow similar practices.
In traditional plate engraving, music spacing is called “Punctuation”.
Even though Finale and Sibelius do a fair job of music spacing, there is definitely room for improvement. Hopefully, understanding how music spacing works in both programs will result in better looking scores and parts, regardless of which program you are working in. Of course, you may find yourself wishing for improvements you didn’t know you needed!
Change Stubborn Text in Finale Quickly, Easily & Globally with Finale Script
In “Finale Text Sized, Placed & Styled – Document Options & the Category Designer“, we looked at how we can set up a Finale document’s overall font choices using the Document Options > Fonts and the Category Designer.
Changes to the Category Designer and Set Default Music Font affect your score in real time; however, some of the text objects in Document Options > Fonts can only be set prior to starting work on your score; problematic if your score is already completed, or you need to update your House Style after the fact.
So, since some of the Document Settings don’t update in real time in Finale, how do we change the font settings for text types such as Lyrics*, Measure Numbers*, Staff Names* and Text Blocks* which we have already entered?
This is where writing a few short lines of Finale Script can help you. Wait! You don’t have to be a computer programmer. It’s really simple, I promise. And it will save you hours of work over time with minimal effort up front.
Finale Text Sized, Placed & Styled – Document Options & the Category Designer
There are two main requirements for managing Text in any notation program. First, we want to be able to define in advance how the musical and text elements will look, so that our score is following the same appearance rules throughout. This is part of what music publishers refer to as a “House Style”. Secondly, we need to be able to “break the rules” easily for special cases (for instance, if the title is to be in an ornate font where text is otherwise a more standard serif or san-serif font.)
For existing scores, knowing how to set up defaults for Text in Finale will also help us quickly locate font, size and attribute information about a particular string of text, and quickly make changes, if needed.
SCORE SETUP
Initially, there are two main locations where we define Text in Finale. The first of these is found in Document Options > Fonts, and is the place where we determine the exact “look” of the music notation itself, as well as the default font, size and font attributes for some other Finale text.
The second “default setup” area for text is Finale’s Category Designer, where we choose the font, size, style and location of all instructional text for the piece associated with staves or systems. These categories include Dynamics, Expressions, Techniques, Tempo and Rehearsal Marks etc. Let’s take a look …
Center Grand Pause (G.P. & other text) in Sibelius – Lines Method
Sometimes, such as when displaying “G.P.” text in an empty bar of score, it is desirable to be able to center the text between the barlines. While Sibelius doesn’t explicitly offer a “center text between barlines” feature when inputting text, the ability to center any string of text attached to a Line makes this “centered in bar” justification possible.
In “Centering Grand Pause (G.P.) text in Sibelius – Symbols Method“, we covered a method of centering Grand Pause (G.P.) text using Symbols.
Sibelius has a “Centered Text” feature built into its Edit Lines dialog. You can immediately see this in action:
One Step Text Multi-Copy Shortcuts in Finale 2012 / 2011
The following Text Expression multi-copy shortcuts for Finale 2012 and Finale 2011 do not work with System / Score text Categories (e.g. Tempo Marks, Tempo Alterations and Rehearsal Marks), however, they can be used with Dynamics, Expressive Text and Technique Text.
Finale Tip : Quickly Delete Duplicate Unison Notes in the Same Layer
A PRIME NON-SEQUITUR
Jack Butler: “Gonna rip these walls out and, uh, of course re-wire it.”
Ron Richardson: “Yeah, you gonna make it all 220?”
Jack Butler: “Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.”
from “Mr. Mom”, 1983
Sometimes, after certain editing operations, or when importing a midi file, you’ll wind up with doubled unison notes with shared stems in a single layer:
While there are some cases where doubled unison notes (on the same stem / layer) are appropriate, it’s more common to see either stems up / stems down divisi in two Layers, or single noteheads, with technique text indicating “a2″ throughout the particular unison passage, like this:
Fortunately, there are several solutions for eliminating duplicate unison notes appearing in the same Layer in Finale:
- Finale’s Explode Music Tool
- TGTOOLS Process Extracted Parts Plugin
- JW Chord Manager . . . Plugin
Let’s take a look at how each works :
Five tips to improve your workflow in Finale 2012 / 2011
If you are like me, you’re interested in working more efficiently.
Here are 5 tips to improve your workflow in Finale 2012 or Finale 2011:
Grand Pause ( G.P. ) Text in Sibelius – Symbols Method
Q: I’m trying to figure out a better mousetrap for dealing with Grand Pauses (GP) in Sibelius. When I use tempo text to create a grand pause in the score, it doesn’t center over bar rests in the score or the parts, so it requires a whole lot of tweaking in both places. I’m hoping there is a smarter, less laborious way to deal with this?
A: Good question. There is actually more than one approach we can take to address this question, in the absence of a true Sibelius feature to center text within a bar. In this tutorial, let’s take a look at the Symbols method:
Aleatoric Elements : From Boxed to Out of the Box Notation In Finale
Music that supplies only the pitches while directing the players to improvise the rhythms freely is a common (partly) aleatoric device which gives the composer a desired degree of control over the tonality, while retaining temporal freedom.
The notation is typically indicated by surrounding a series of specific pitches with a square or rectangular box, along with a box extender line to indicate that the pitches are to be improvised on for a specific number of beats or a given number of seconds. The exact duration of the “box” can also be indicated as a text duration (e.g. 00:06″ etc).
In ”Creating Aleatoric / Temporal Boxed Notation in Finale, Part 1” we looked at how to create these semi-aleatoric directives.
Sometimes, the reverse is desired: the rhythm is notated, but the specific pitches are left up to the player. A common convention for this is to show stems of different lengths (without noteheads) to show the relative pitch relationships:
This is quite simple to do in Finale:
Creating Aleatoric Temporal Boxed Notation in Finale
Q: I would like to use Finale to notate the contemporary avant-garde works I am composing. In a score with a number of instruments, How do I encapsulate a series within boxes or repeat bars for only one instrument, while the others keep playing and counting normally, without the repeat sign?
A: Finale is very flexible in this regard. Start by entering the notes for the series you would like boxed. They can be quarter notes, or duplets or tuplets of any value. The note values you choose will determine the initial series width within a bar of score, and the relative width within the part:
If you are using tuplets, it is common practice to hide their numbers. Select the tuplet tool. Click the first note of the tuplet, and then double-click the little selection box that appears in the center of the tuplet. When the dialog opens, change the appearance popup menu to “none”, and do this optionally for the shape setting as well, then ok the dialog:
If you have multiple boxed notations on different instruments down the score which use tuplets, use the Mass Edit tool to select all the affected staves in your selected region, then go to Utilities > Change > Tuplets . . . where you can hide the tuplet numbers globally for the selected area in one pass.
As of this writing, there are several systems for notating boxed notation. To keep it simple, I will walk through one of the more common conventions . . .
Sibelius Word Menus
A useful, but often overlooked feature of Sibelius are Word Menus. Word Menus are built-in lists of useful words: terms, musical symbol text etc, available via contextual menu or keyboard shortcuts when you are entering various types of text.
Sibelius – Create Etude Numbers Using Instrument Changes
Etude numbers in published works commonly appear at the left edge of the first staff of each etude:
Since these occur in the same place as Instrument Names might in a score, (and since serendipitously, instrument names aren’t typically displayed at the left edge of systems in an Etude book), we can use the Instrument Name Text Style in Sibelius combined with Instrument Changes to create a series of Etude numbers. Here’s how: