… music notation tips & tutorials by experts in this field.
Q: I would like to be able to ‘automatically’ align piano pedal markings horizontally in my scores. The TG tool appears to be useless when it comes to these.
A: There are a couple of different approaches you can use for this in Finale.
more >> “Aligning Piano Pedaling & Other Smart Lines in Finale”
Q: I’m trying to import a graphic onto my score, but whenever I place it where I want it, the multi-measure rest breaks in a way I don’t want it to. How can I place the graphic above the staff and keep the multi-measure rest at the full duration?
A: From version 2 of Sibelius onward, the Properties Palette has provided a good solution for controlling placement while keeping multimeasure rest integrity. In Sibelius 7, the Properties Palette was renamed “The Inspector”, but for all intents and purposes, it is still the same tool.
Suppose you want a graphic to appear in the score and parts at a location prior to the barline, over the multirest:
A solution to this problem would be useful to many music educators, who often present introductory music in fewer than five-line staffs, but want to acquaint students with the conventional symbols like repeat signs.
A: In Finale, moving the repeat dot locations is a simple matter of adjusting the vertical location for available “Top Repeat Dot” and “Bottom Repeat Dot” parameters in Staff Setup. However, while the method to achieve this in Sibelius is somewhat more circuitous, it is indeed quite possible, and in fact, once you’ve created the mechanism once, it is very fast to create in subsequent worksheets or even scores, via Export / Import House Style.
more >> “Create Custom Repeat Dots On 2 Line Staves in Sibelius 7 or Sibelius 6”
Proofreading is an essential part of music preparation, whether it’s engraving for publication, a recording session, or for performance.
It’s more than merely having an eye for detail. Good proofreading really boils down to having an efficient and methodical / systematic approach which allows every aspect of the music on every page to be examined consistently and thoroughly.
I recommend the method advocated by William Holab and David Fetheroff in “The G. Schirmer/AMP Manual of Style and Usage” as a great starting point. Once you’ve learned how it works, you may modify the process somewhat, as I have, but the gist is, you want to specifically target groups of musical elements one at a time in a methodical manner to produce consistent and accurate results.
In the G. Schirmer system, the proofreader prints out a copy of the score or part and pencils the following letters at the top of the page, crossing each letter off as that task is complete:
In Finale, with the slur tool selected, double click on the start note of the slur, but don’t release the mouse after the second click (down, up, down). Instead, drag the slur right to extend it. As it passes each subsequent note, it becomes highlighted, indicating that the slur will “snap” to that note. If you release the mouse while you see the highlight, the slur will be properly attached to the desired destination note.
While this technique will also work across systems, or even pages, it’s sometimes easier to enter phrase marks using Scroll View, since everything is linear in this view.
Bowings are a type of symbol used in music notation to indicate the use of the bow in string parts, which indicate the manner in which a note should be played. Finale and Sibelius share a standard way to create these; they treat bowings as articulations, which are automatically positioned in proximity to the notehead.
more >> “Articulation Alternatives for Staggered Bowing in Finale and Sibelius”
For Logic users there may come the time that one needs to get a file over to Finale or Sibelius to finish a project. Logic has its own proprietary notation display formatting and doesn’t currently support Music XML. However, you can export a Standard MIDI File (SMF) and achieve good results. To maximize compatibility before exporting a SMF, you’ll need to do some adjustments, as described below.
The important proprietary formatting items are Display Quantize, Interpretation mode and to a lesser degree, Syncopation mode. These items affect Logic’s display only – playback remains unaffected. You may also need to deal with pedal markings (these do affect playback). Let’s look at what they do, and how to pass along this information in a SMF.
more >> “Notation Workflow : Tips For Moving Logic Files into Sibelius or Finale”