… music notation tips & tutorials by experts in this field.
Hi Robert,
A quick question: A student of mine was told that seeing each 16th note in bar like the attached pic is clear:
My proposed solution was to use fewer 16th notes and rests for the same effect, e.g. an 8th with a staccato dot plus 16th rest and 16th note, all beamed together:
What’s your take on this? Thanks much.
Patrick
FinaleScript™ can be used to create fairly complex changes to your score, but you can also use it to do simple tasks like call a single menu item quickly and easily. Since FinaleScripts can be mapped to keystrokes, you can use this to fill in the gaps in MakeMusic’s own shortcuts.
This post builds on concepts presented in these previous tutorials:
more >> “Finale Concert Scores @ Written Pitch : Using Nonstandard Key Signatures”
In orchestral scores, it is common to combine two similar instruments onto a single staff:
Text indicators like “1”, or “2” are used to show when a specific player plays a particular portion of the line. Following a passage where one player rests while another plays, a directive like “a2” or “tutti” shows that both / all players play the same line in unison from that point. By default, these text indications appear in both the score and parts, making it easy to identify who plays where.
Note the hidden text expression “both”. This technique serves a useful purpose, which I’ll explain in a moment.
more >> “Hide Notes to Create Multi-rests in Voiced Linked Parts Using a Staff Style”
Back before there was such a thing as computer notation software, commercial music copyists working with pen and ink used a technique called “Advancing the Layout”.
To illustrate, I’ll use French Horn parts in an orchestral score. In this hypothetical score, there are a lot of commonalities between the four horn parts:
To advance the layout, common elements such as Page Text, Key and Time Signatures, Rehearsal Marks and other System Text, Barlines, Repeats, Endings are laid out in ink on the page. Next, any common unison passages are copied into the chart, as well as any common rests for homophonic chord passages.
The copyist then takes this “master page”, which functions as a partially filled-out template to the photocopier and runs copies so that the notes for each part can be filled in. As you can imagine, this technique of capitalizing on the commonalities within the parts saved hours of work, back in the day.
Before photocopiers, the ozalid process was used to reproduce music for commercial recording sessions and concerts.
These days, because of the way Finale automatically applies music spacing as you go, the page layout can change dynamically as music is entered into your score. A byproduct of this is that user attention to page layout is typically at the end of the workflow rather than the beginning. This reorganization of workflow is not a bad thing as long as you are, in fact, paying attention to the page layouts at some point!
In more recent versions of Finale, the business of having to ink different notes into a copy of a parts template, or copy and paste notes from the score into a separate part staff or file during the part creation stage has largely been replaced with Linked Parts; specifically the “Voicing” feature in the Manage Parts… dialog. You can enter diads or triads in a line of score, and then for any given part, choose rules for Finale to select which specific notes from that staff will display for that part.
However, even though we can control which notes go where using this dialog, the page layout for the parts themselves is not addressed in the Manage Parts dialog.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to create the layout for Horn 1 and then copy that layout to the other Horn parts so we don’t have to recreate this page layout manually 4 different times? Turns out, there is a plugin for this very task.
Enter the very useful “JW Copy Part Layout…” plugin by Jari Williamsson. Once you have manually created your layout for the first part, with the second (or subsequent) part frontmost, run the plugin. The dialog looks like this:
The plugin displays the name of the Current (open) Part which will inherit the new layout. You select the part you want to copy the page layout from in the instrument list.
Note there are a couple of useful options in this dialog besides the Copy Layout button. If you have sections where the Multi-measure rests are not identical you can uncheck the “Multi-measure Rests” option so that the majority of the layout will still be copied. You can then manually adjust the layout of the region with the differences manually.
You can switch to a specific part while the plugin dialog is forward by selecting a part, and then clicking the “View Selected” button. This will bring the selected part forward. Note that the “Current part:” name will then change in the dialog, allowing you to Copy the Layout from any other selected part in the dialog.
JW Copy Part Layout is free (donate to the developer if you would like), and works with Finale 2012 or newer. While there is no direct link to individual plugins provided by the developer, you can download the JW Copy Part Layout plugin here:
For Finale 2011 and earlier, a good solution is the Transfer function of the full (paid) version of the TGTools plugin suite to copy locked measure groups (measure layout) as well as system margins and attributes between parts..
~robert
Q: I’m composing a piece for full orchestra plus large percussion ensemble / steel band). In order to save space, I’m using shared staves for most of the winds (two of each, and usually tutti).
Ordinarily I really like this feature in Finale that allows each player to see their own part, but it isn’t properly spacing the music within each part…specifically the grace notes (of which there are MANY).
Furthermore, because Note Entry tools are disabled when looking at the part from a shared staff, I can’t simply manually drag the notes left to make the proper space. Have you run into this?
And, as you point out, there is no way to manually edit an individual note’s horizontal location (note spacing) in the part once Specify Voicing is active for the part. Fortunately, for these cases there is an excellent workaround.
Seattle composer Bill Panks posted this question about missing notes during Sibelius score playback on the Seattle Composer’s Alliance Discussion email list, which I thought I would share here:
Hi All!
When playing back scores in Sibelius 7.5, I frequently have notes cut off suddenly throughout a score. This is especially a problem with larger scores (30+ instruments).
My guess has been that given the number of midi channels available, multiple instruments are placed on each channel, and instruments on the same channel occasionally play the same note – and the note-off signal from one instrument is cutting off both/all of those unison notes. (For example, a harp arpeggio might cut off a sustained choral note on the same channel).
My question is whether there is a quick work around for this, or do people generally custom-route their instruments to channels in a way that avoids conflicting notes (i.e., pair bass instruments with treble – but then might you encounter key-switch conflicts when you export to a DAW for mockup? – so perhaps pair instruments that share similar rhythms and would therefore have similar note-off times if they do happen to cross)? (To date, I’ve been using the channels that Sibelius automatically assigns to each instrument – maybe that’s my mistake).
Or, do others not experience this? Is there something else happening that’s causing the notes to cut off?
I appreciate any thoughts or feedback.
Thank you,
Bill Panks
Hi Bill,
Regardless of whether you are using the Sibelius 7 Sounds, Sibelius 7 sounds (light) or Sibelius 6 sounds, only one iteration of the Sibelius Player can be included as a sound set. This shouldn’t be a problem, though, since the Sibelius Player supports up to 128 channels. Check Preferences > Playback > Sibelius Player Options to make sure this hasn’t been inadvertently changed to a lower value:
