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Controlling the Layout when using the Finale Score Merger. . .

Q: I have several short pieces for brass quintet which I have merged together using Finale’s ScoreMerger feature. The pieces are all appended in the correct order, but each short piece is now on a separate page, which is not ideal, particularly for the parts. I would like these to appear like movements of the same piece, with each new piece starting on a new system, but on the same page as the ending of the previous piece, if there is space available. How can I make the pieces look this way?

A: If you have the “Treat as Independent Movements” option checked in File > ScoreMerger. . ., this option automatically inserts page breaks between each merged  / appended piece.

In the main program, if View > Show > Page Layout Icons is checked, you will see the page break icons in the top left margin of each new page. To remove these page breaks, select the Page Layout Tool, then right-click on the little move handle at the left edge of the first system on each page. When the contextual menu comes up, select “Delete Page Break”, which will allow existing music to move to the previous page. If you’ve already merged the pieces, you will need to do this for the start of each new piece.

Note that if the “Treat as Independent Movements” option is *not* checked in ScoreMerger, the next piece will appear consecutively as if it were the next bar in the score or part. If you have merged the pieces *this* way, (and don’t want each piece to begin on a new page, but *would* like each piece to start a new system),  select the Measure Tool, then double click the first bar of each new appended piece and check “Begin A New Staff System”, which will force the music to a new line, but not to a new page.

That’s it! That’s all there is to it.

for Kevin Ball

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Take Control of Multirests in Sibelius and Finale

Let’s talk about rests. Multimeasure Rests, that is. You may not have given them much thought, but Multimeasure Rests play a key role in how your parts look. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to control multirest settings and also, how add a unique touch to your charts in Finale and Sibelius with custom multirests.

In modern charts, the standard type of multimeasure rest is called an “H-bar”. The defaults for Finale and Sibelius are nearly identical. Here are the Engraved Style defaults:

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Making Efficient Use of Linked Parts In Finale

It baffles me that there are still a number of commercial Music Copying Houses in LA, New York and elsewhere that are still not taking advantage of the benefits of Finale’s integrated score and parts. These copyists are still using an old method from the mid 1990’s, where a master parts template file is created, and each part is pasted into the template one at a time, then saved off as individual, separate files.

From a housekeeping standpoint alone, the difference between managing 1 master parts file or 30 individual files is a no brainer. Printing is also much slower, as each individual file must be opened up and printed vs. being able to take advantage of the batch printing option in recent versions of Finale. Factor in any sort of last minute edits, particularly those where notes from one staff are to be copied into another, or changes to the form of the piece, and it quickly becomes obvious that a few minutes to learn a technique which integrates all the parts into a single file would be invaluable.

Let’s take a look…

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