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Finale : Using Linked Parts, Finalescript & House Styles for Commercial Parts

Back in 2011, I posted Making Efficient Use of Linked Parts In Finale which outlined a few of the advantages of using Linked Parts in Finale vs. the “old school” method of individual part extraction, or pasting parts into a separate template file.

Recently, a conversation with an industry colleague made me realize that even 6 years after the introduction of Linked Parts in Finale, some of the very best veteran professional music copyists working in LA and elsewhere still are not taking advantage of Finale’s Managed Parts feature.

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Bar Number Flexibility for Score & Parts in Finale & Sibelius

In both Finale and Sibelius, one simple and common way to separately control bar number size, location and frequency is to save off a separate copy of the final score as a Parts Score. However, while this is one way to achieve precise control, for bar numbers, at least, this isn’t really necessary, since both programs offer plenty of flexibility for displaying different bar number settings between the score and integrated parts.

Typically, bar numbers appear somewhat larger in the score than in the parts, and sometimes, bar numbers are bold or italic in one view, but not in another. As an example, for an orchestral pops chart or a film score soundtrack where a tabloid score and 9×12 parts are specified, bar numbers frequently appear nearly twice as large in the score as they do in the parts, and bar numbering may appear on every bar of both the score and parts, or on every bar in the score only, with the parts showing bar numbers at the start of every system.

Once you know where everything is, it’s quite straightforward in both Finale and Sibelius to create a separate score and parts “House Style” for bar numbers:

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Alternate Key Signatures for Transposing Instruments

One thing we take for granted with music notation programs is that, for transposing instruments in a transposing score, the software automatically displays the correct key signature and transposes by the appropriate interval.

Most of the time, we don’t have to think about it. Both Sibelius and Finale will even, by default, “wrap” the key signature of the transposing instrument to prevent unnecessarily complex or remote key changes, ensuring that, for instance, an Alto Sax playing in the concert key of B major will display the key signature of A flat instead of a very unusual G sharp.

Occasionally, though, we need to display an enharmonic key signature other than the one the program chooses. Consider a B flat Clarinet playing in the concert key of E major. Both Sibelius and Finale will show the transposed key as F sharp (6 sharps), but we may want the key instead to be G flat (6 flats). Here’s how to do it:

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Centered dynamics between staves on braced grand staff instruments

Q: I can never get the placement of dynamics to align nicely to the middle of the grand staff in piano parts. Because they are connected to the treble or bass clef stave, they tend to move towards that stave. But it would be nice to have them in the middle, centered between the 2 staves. I can’t find an option in to automate this.  What’s the best way to center these dynamics?

A: I’ve found that consistently attaching dynamics below the treble clef staff really helps with dynamics text / hairpin positioning on a braced (grand staff) instrument. Both Finale and Sibelius offer a mechanism to center dynamics between grand staves as a group, but in order to move as a group, they have to be attached consistently to the same staff.

Generally, dynamics should be placed as close as possible to the notes they refer to. However, in keyboard music, a convention is to center the dynamics between the staves, as the dynamics most typically refer to both the left and right hand. As with parts on one staff, keep dynamics on the same horizontal plane where possible.

The following techniques can also be helpful when entering music in a dense score for an instrument with ledger lines. 

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Proofreading

Proofreading is an essential part of music preparation, whether it’s engraving for publication, a recording session, or for performance.

proofreading

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:

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Show Active Layer Only : What You See Is What You Edit in Finale

In Finale, sometimes it is desirable to copy only the material from one Layer (e.g. voice) to another location. However, while you can use use the settings in Edit > Edit Filter to control which elements are copied, all Filter settings apply to all visible Layers. But Finale has a very powerful feature hidden in the Document menu : “Show Active Layer Only”.

All you have to remember to use this feature is “If you don’t see it, it won’t get copied”. So, to copy only the music from Layer 2 onto the clipboard, make Layer 2 active, then select “Show Active Layer Only”.

Keep in mind that you can use this in connection with your settings in the Edit Filter to get very precise control of what gets copied to the Clipboard, for instance, copy just articulations attached to Layer 2…

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Create a Divisi or Chorded Instrument from Two Separate Staves

In my post “Keep it Together in Finale or Sibelius : Score & Parts in the same file“, we looked at methods of exploding chorded or divisi parts in the score into individual lines that, would be hidden in the page view of the score, while still available as single line parts.

Often, just the opposite workflow is required: the score already contains individual instrument staves that need to be combined for the score. That is, rather than allocating the contents of a divisi or chorded staff into individual instrument staves,  the requirement is to merge data from two or more independent staves into a single combined staff.

Let’s break it down.

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