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Finale Quick Tip : Number Beats for Rhythmic Exercises

If you are a music educator teaching the fundamentals of rhythm, from time to time, you may find the need to count out beat numbers over the notation to help indicate various rhythms for your students.

Sibelius has a useful plugin called “Number Beats” (found in the plugins Text category) which does this automatically, but until recently, I wasn’t aware of a similar  plugin for Finale.

The JW Pattern plugin ( mac | windows ) will do the job nicely in more recent versions of Finale:

  1. Select a region
  2. Choose JW Pattern
  3. Drop-down the Sequences category
  4. Choose the “Numbered Steps” task.
  5. For “Step Method”, choose Beats in measure”

 

JW-Pattern-show-beats

Finally, you can choose one of Finale’s Text Categories from the Category drop down to control the text style and placement of the resulting text.

The JW Pattern plugin is available free of charge on Jari Williamsson’s Finaletips.nu website.

Thanks to my friend and colleague Gary Gibson for contributing this tip.

~robert

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Finale Quick Tip : Fix Incorrect Tied-to Pitches w/ Hidden Accidentals

Say you have a B-flat in one bar, tied to another B-flat in the next bar. In Finale, it is possible to (ahem, accidentally) enter the second B-flat as either a B-natural or a B-flat and it will look the same:

fin-destination-tied-note

Even thought there’s no visual indication that it’s wrong, it won’t play back correctly. And in a score with a number of staves, they are a nightmare to aurally locate for proofreading.

more >> “Finale Quick Tip : Fix Incorrect Tied-to Pitches w/ Hidden Accidentals”

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Create Parenthesized or Bracketed Hairpins in Finale

Finale has a lot of flexibility when it comes to creating Custom Smart Shapes. You can create a line shape of any thickness, make it solid, dotted, dashed or even invisible, control its start and end locations and add hooks, arrows or text to either end of the line and / or to the center.

Hairpin crescendo and decrescendo are sometimes bracketed (parenthesized) by publishers to show that they were added later by the editor – e.g. not in the original composer’s manuscript:

fin-parenthesized-hairpins

These types of brackets can also be used for other reasons; for instance to show that the marking is optional or implied.

In Finale, crescendo and decrescendo smart shapes have controls for line thickness and opening width, found in Smart Shapes > Smart Shape Options, but unlike the shapes available in the Smart Line Selection dialog, there is no obvious way to add a parenthesis to the start and end of these defined hairpin Smart Shapes.

So, how would we create this type of Smart Shape in Finale?

more >> “Create Parenthesized or Bracketed Hairpins in Finale”

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Finale TGTools 2.71 for Windows released

2/22/14 – Plugin Author Tobias Geisen today announced the release of version 2.71 of TGTools full / pro version for Windows.

The update is FREE and is recommended for all versions of Finale from 2010 thru 2014.

Concurrently, TGTools 2.71 for Mac has been released, which fixes the menu on German Finale versions and fixing smart shapes which could not be recognized in 2.70.

Like the Windows version, the Mac version is compatible with versions of Finale from 2010 thru 2014.

As a nice aside, Mac users may also note some cosmetic improvements in version 2.71.

http://www.tgtools.de/downdocs.htm

tools_L

 

 

 

 

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TGTools Pro for Mac compatible with Finale 2014 & Later

If you are a Mac user with the full (pro) version of TGTools who upgraded to Finale 2014; you’ll be happy to hear that versions of TGTools beyond 2.70 are compatible with the Mac OS.

An update for Windows users is expected soon. While version 2.61 of TGTools for Windows is compatible with Finale 2014, manual installation of the plugin is required. (The Mac OS version was non-functional, so the Mac updater was released first.)

Tobias Geisen quietly announced the update in a recent thread on the Finale forum:

“TGTools for Finale 2014 on Mac are now available on my web site as well as via the easy installation from the about menu of one of the bundled TGTools plug-ins.

www.tgtools.com/downdocs.htm

A paid upgrade may come a bit later with a more dedicated adaptation.

I am open to suggestions for further improvements (by email), and also whether further development should be for Finale 2014 only or also include Finale 2012.”

Cheers,
Tobias
tobias at tgtools.de

If you plan to continue to work in Finale 2012 as well as Finale 2014 (one reason might be the version of the operating system you use), note that Tobias is asking for people to weigh in on whether he should make future versions of the plugin compatible with Finale 2012, or only with Finale 2014. So, if you would want the option of using new plugin improvements which also could be used in Finale 2012, you may wish to email Tobias and let him know. Now’s the time.

Robert

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Finale : Six of One ; ½ Dozen of the other – the Simplify Key Conundrum

When working with scores in keys of four sharps or more, it’s frequently desirable for transposing instruments such as Bb Clarinet or Trumpet to show their respective transpositions in flat keys. For instance, the key of B major concert (five sharps) will automatically display in Finale’s Clarinet or Bb Trumpet staves as the key of Db (5 flats), rather than C# major (7 sharps).

This desirable behavior happens because in the Transposition Definition for these instruments, “Simplify Key” is checked by default:

fin-normal-transposition

Finale’s rule for “Simplify Key” is: always show the enharmonic key signature which displays the fewest accidentals when transposed. For concert keys of five sharps or more, Bb transposing instruments will always show flat keys (which, coincidentally, many wind and brass players prefer).

However, you may have noticed that “Simplify Key” doesn’t work in four sharps concert, because, technically, the two possible enharmonic key signatures of six sharps or six flats, are equally “simple”.

That being the case, how can we coax a concert key signature of four sharps (E major or C# minor) to appear as six flats (rather than six sharps) for Bb instruments?

more >> “Finale : Six of One ; ½ Dozen of the other – the Simplify Key Conundrum”