>On 18 Sep 2002 at 8:52, Thomas Schaller wrote: >Well, I've rescued the score, and fixed all the problems.
Glad to hear it. >I guess I was lucky that, for whatever reason, the lyrics for the top >line of my score (the line that was messed) were, largely, the last >thing that I entered. In the EDIT LYRICS window, all the problems >were in the last block of lyrics. I'm guessing that if I'd entered >the lyrics in a different order such that the top line's lyrics were >in the beginning of the EDIT LYRICS window, that everything past that >point would have been screwed up. Maybe, maybe not. I think if you were to clear the assignments on the staff and leave the syllables in place the the Edit Lyrics window, you'd probably be OK. >Am I right in guessing that, when using TYPE IN SCORE, the EDIT >LYRICS window is populated in the order in which you enter the >lyrics, rather than in any logical order related to the score layout? >That is, if the first thing you enter typing into the score is the >bass line's lyrics, that will be the first thing in the EDIT LYRICS >window? I've forgotten which version of Finale you're using. In an earlier version, I believe type-in-score lyrics were always appended to the end of the verse, as you describe. In the current version, Finale has some sort of scheme whereby it tries to interpret the context and place the new syllables in the Edit Lyrics window accordingly. For a basic insertion, it gets it right. Often it puts it on the end anyway (eg, if you're in a separate staff). Sometimes it guesses wrong and puts it somewhere other than what you might consider to be the most logical order. Also note that if you have changed the "current verse", the new lyrics go into a separate window. I like to use a separate verse for separate staves, so I wouldn't have my bass lyrics in the same box as the soprano lyrics in any case. >If that is so, then the whole user interface is incredibly badly >designed from the get go! TYPE INTO SCORE should not work that way. That's why it has been changed in more recent versions of Finale, though it's still imperfect. >What I understand now is that the lyrics subsystem is designed around >a number of assumptions about the way lyrics ought to work: > >1. all voices will sing exactly the same lyrics at one time or the >other. No. >2. the punctuation and capitalization of the lyrics in all the voices >will be exactly the same. No. >Thus, you should enter the lyrics once, and then click assign from >the single statement of the lyrics to particular notes. Well, that's what I prefer, but it's not the only way. >I think this is a really poor assumption, for TYPE INTO SCORE is the >more obvious entry method, and it can't work that way. It creates a >complete jumble in the EDIT LYRICS window. It's much less of a jumble in the current system, though it's still impossible to get it perfect in every case, since that would require reading the user's mind in certain situations (as I've detailed in another post). >Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I'd try typing in the lyrics >and then click assigning. I understand the logic there, but the CLICK >ASSIGNMENT window has got to be the most user unfriendly window I've >ever seen -- the visual feedback is very poor, it can't be resized, >you can't really tell where you are, it's hard to go back without >losing your place. That's an excellent point. This could be made a lot more friendly. >I'm not sure I could do that with a piece where >there is lots of repetition of lyrics (as there is in Mozart's >Requiem). If I were setting Mozart's Requiem, I'd enter the lyrics in their entirety, repeats and all (using copy-and-paste within the Edit Lyrics window where appropriate), then click-assign them all at once with option-click and shift as necessary. By the way, it's the option-click that makes click-assignment more efficient that type-in-score. If you're assigning each syllable individually, there's no real efficiency gain. Option-click also makes it easier to avoid the user-unfriendliness of the window, since you don't need to maneuver within it so much. >My conclusion is that I'm not sure how to approach the problem next >time. Yes, I understand better how it all works, but I didn't get any >of that from the documentation (though I admit I have never done the >lyrics tutorial -- TYPE INTO SCORE seems too straightforward to need >a tutorial; lesson learned, I guess). And I really never got an >explanation from the responses here on the list. Sorry. We tried our best. It may have helped if I'd realized you were in an earlier version. In many ways that's easier to deal with, because although its behavior is stupider, it is much more predictable (ie, lyrics always appear in the order that you entered them). You're right about the manual. It's little help in explaining how lyrics work. Some time spent with the program doing methodical testing is far more informative. That's true for many features besides lyrics. It's how I figured out all the intricacies of articulation placement, for instance. Ditto for tie options. >In short, this subsection of Finale is a horrid mess. It is built >around a number of rigid assumptions about the way lyrics work in >real musical situations and because of the rigidity with which those >assumptions have driven the design of the user interface, the bolted- >on TYPE INTO SCORE feature (by far the most intuitive way to enter >lyrics, seems to me), which is very poorly connected to the >underlying data storage, very easily leads users into creating a mess >that will become corrupted very easily. I think the original assumption was that users who use Type In Score would never look at the Edit Lyrics windows at all. The fact that they did, with resulting complaints about the misordered text, is why it was updated so that Finale now attempts to logically order the lyrics within the Edit Lyrics window. This creates its own problems, but it's probably less offensive than the earlier versions. I had forgotten that you're using an earlier version of Finale. (When asking for assistance, it would be helpful if you remind us.) >One of the reasons my lyrics were such a mess is because I entered >them from an existing score, two pages at a time. That is, from one >opening of my source score, for example, I typed in the bass lyrics, >then the alto, then the soprano and then the tenor. That is a >PERFECTLY LOGICAL entry method. If the music is not homophonic, I would recommend separate verses for each voice. (A "verse" is simply a grouping of lyric texts. The word "verse" shouldn't be taken too literally.) For SATB, I routinely put soprano in verse 1, alto in verse 2, tenor in verse 3, bass in verse 4. That way, I can enter the lyrics in whichever order I choose. I think that's how most users do it. That's how it's done on the Finale sample files. See, eg, "de Lassus", which incidentally also belies the two "assumptions" you suggested Finale makes about how lyrics will always be. Putting all four parts into a single verse can get you into trouble with things like Shift Lyrics, since the program will assume that one text follows consecutively after the other. Likewise if you're entering lyrics page at a time and you've got a hyphen over the page turn. >But because the user interface is not >sufficiently abstracted from the data storage, this creates a huge >mess in the EDIT LYRICS window (the canonical text). In fact, it >seems to me that the canonical text is what displays in the score, >not what displays out of context in the EDIT LYRICS window. That's fine if what displays in the score has an obvious order, but sometimes it doesn't. As for next time, my recommendations are: (1) try out the option-click-assign and see if you like it. (2) Regardless of your input method, keep your separate parts in separate verses. You might have to alter a baseline, depending on what default document you're working from. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
