In various posts, David W. Fenton wrote: >This is completely unacceptable behavior -- it is basically >completely unusable in any fashion, by any of the various methods. > >What the hell am I going to do here?
I'm coming into this discussion a day late, so probably you've solved everything by now. If I had read your original post when it first came out, my immediate advice would have been to clear out ALL the lyrics in the entire file and re-enter them all from scratch in a logical fashion. I know that sounds draconian, but it's important to keep your syllables in good order. Once you've accidentally mucked them up, going back and trying to make repairs usually leads to further problems; chances are, you'll spend far more time (and frustration) chasing after every little bug, and when you're done you still won't be sure that everything is fixed. Re-entering all the lyrics from scratch seems like a lot of wasted time, but it's really not such a big deal. Indeed, if for some reason your file is still giving you lyric problems, that is STILL my advice: Clear out all the lyrics from the entire file and delete them from the Edit Lyrics windows, then start over in an organized fashion. -- >It's as though I've got two sets of lyrics on one baseline, and one >is a big long word extension. That's exactly what you've got. >When I choose EDIT LYRICS, this text is not even there! It's in there somewhere, probably a duplicate of a syllable you're using elsewhere. If you really want to find it, use the type in score function to change it to something ridiculously large and watch to see what else changes along with it. When syllable assignments aren't consecutive, Finale gets confused. This is why it's a bad idea to copy and alter syllables haphazardly. -- >That's a bloody stupid default setting, seems to me. > >It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are >that I'm going to change. True. That's why you shouldn't change these lyrics at all. You should clear the copied assignments and enter new ones. Your initial problem resulted from this. Your subsequent problems with hyphens, mixed up syllables, and so forth resulted from trying to go behind the scenes and patch together repairs. >It also means that I now have to jump through hoops to not lose the >changes I've already made to the musical text (the rhythm is not the >same). Yes, that's unfortunate. When you make an error which corrupts a file irreparably and then you proceed with further work not realizing that the file has been spoiled, you're going to lose all the extra work when the error is finally discovered. In your case (and in most cases like this), the best course would have been to clear out all the lyrics and re-enter them. That way your changes to the music would be preserved. >Could someone explain to me *why* this default is a good idea? And >why it can't be turned off? The fact that mass copy creates aliases to the lyrics as opposed to new ones is not illogical at all. It is exactly analogous to how articulations and expressions work. If you were to copy several measures of music complete with all the expressions, and then went in to change individual instances of "mf" or "cresc" to "mp" or "dimin.", you would make a hash of your expression list and foul up other instances of those same expressions in the same document. The difference is that with lyrics, with its type-in-score function and no separate window for the changes, this process is less obvious to the user. Hence, a user unfamiliar with how the lyric system works is more likely to screw things up without realizing it. (This, incidentally, should set off alarm bells for the plan -- advocated by many in this group -- of devising a type-in-score scheme for expressions. Under the type-in-score expression ideas we've sketched out here, I could very easily imagine some unwary user doing a similar mass copy, followed by type-in-score alterations to the markings, leading to chaos of the exact same sort that you encountered with lyrics.) I think we all agree that the lyric system is somewhat clumsy and confusing. I do agree that Coda would do well to make it more "idiot-proof" so that newbies can't so easily get themselves into trouble[*]. But I would not join with those who think that copy should default to creating a whole new set of syllables. Unless you're revamping the whole lyric scheme altogether, that would be illogical and inconsistent with how the system works. Would you have it do the same thing for expressions? Once you have a feel for how the program keeps track of lyric syllables, it's pretty easy to get the results you want. Like many things in Finale, it takes a few jobs to get the hang of it. If you're copying music to make a second verse with different lyrics, the sensible course is to do the mass copy, then clear all the lyrics in the new version, then enter the new lyrics from scratch. If it's a different set of lyrics, it's logical and easier to enter them separately rather than revising the wrong text syllable by syllable. Making alterations to the first set of lyrics is asking for serious problems, because -- as you now realize -- what you're really doing is futzing around with the entries you've already made elsewhere. Incidentally, we've had threads in the past where users have discussed their preferred methods for entering lyrics. I was surprised at the wide variety of techniques, but the one thing we all had in common is agreement on the importance of proceeding in a logical, systematic fashion. Entering and changes syllables haphazardly is what leads to confusion. It's sort of the same idea as writing ad hoc spaghetti code with no documentation. [*] One thing that would make all these problems go away is if it were changed so that it's impossible to assign the same syllable more than once. In other words, every syllable in the list is used once and only once. Personally, I wouldn't mind this one bit, since that's how I operate anyway. (On occasions when I really do need the same lyrics more than once, I make a fresh copy in a new verse box, just in case I ever want to change them in one place but not the other.) I would, however, miss it if the whole system of indirection were scrapped. I do very much appreciate the ability to enter and edit the syllables directly in the Edit Lyrics window and then make the assignments to the score separately. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
