In addition to the things that were said already, I might add that the very first thing I personally noticed as an eyesore was that the page margins are different for each page, which is never accepted in published music (or even ANY publishing for that matter). Also, second last line: the grace notes are of incorrect stem length (flags going down into the ledger lines is incorrect).
There are many things in Finale that one can change globally but my experience shows that after a certain amount of tinkering with settings there will almost always be many situations which call for tinkering "by hand." Many of these situations have to do with spacing, slurs, and (less often) ties. Regarding spacing, people have mentioned that you can tinker with the options regarding spacing before and after the music at barlines. In such a piece as the one here, I would have gone a different route: in the unmetered sections I would set Finale to one measure for each line (hiding the time sigs) and then your spacing would require much less tedious tweaking. This, of course, would only be possible if you have planned your layout in advance. Also, I might add that using Letter sized paper for material planning to be sent to publishers (especially for this type of music) is not the best way to go, since Letter size is almost never used in hardcopy publishing. It is, however, widely used in internet publishing. Are you aware of the wonderful plugins available from Tobias Giesen and Robert Patterson? If you do not use these, then you are not really tapping into the power of Finale at all. I think it is quite evident by the distorted ties (almost horizontal lines) that you have not given this aspect enough attention. As for spacing, TGTools has some good functions, however, some of the behaviour is not as predictable as it may initially seem, especially if you get into more complicated rhythms with triplets and such. Answers: (1) It says "wannabe" in the sense that there is still much left to be desired. The page layout is a dead giveaway. Flat ties and slurs are no good either. (2) Mostly, at this stage, hand-tweaking is called for. You could run a few plugins though prior to that. (3) To be most honest, it demonstrates that the engraver is lacking in attention to style and final detail. Putting notes into Finale is not engraving. The fact that you emphasise that it took four hours means that you are stressing the value of your work in terms of speed, but you should know from the outset that most publishers value quality and it is up to us engravers to provide them with it, regardless of our individual speed. Once the work is published and exists in 5,000 copies on the bookshelves of msuic stores and on music stands, nobody's going to care how long it took you to do it. Upon making a portfolio, I would include comments about what was done (if applicable) but I would not discuss the length of time it took. Liudas ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keef" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2003 2:20 AM Subject: [Finale] Please have a look > Hi, gang. > > Please critique this pdf, a piano score (albeit a strange one). All > serious responses are welcomed and encouraged -- general impressions are > welcome as well. It is my best candidate for "modern" piano score, even > if the music is nearly 100 years old. Please note this is a total > knockoff, about four hours worth of my work (only two mugs of coffee), > intended as a break from the score I'm working on so my eyes won't go > completely buggy. The biggest slowdown was Finale's weird habit of > simplifying syncopations (any method of completely turning this off?) > I don't consider it perfect --- the ties need help, please advise as to > how you would go about resetting these -- however I do consider it > about 85%-95% correct. > > http://mysite.verizon.net/vze22zdy/alcotts.pdf > > or if you have trouble accessing it from there, try the link at: > > http://mysite.verizon.net/vze22zdy/index.html > > > 1. Is it in the realm of publishable? Does it say "professional" or > "wannabe" (be serious please)? Is this remotely impressive? What's > your initial reaction when the score pops up and you actually see what > piece it is? > > 2. What would you do differently, and how would you go about changing > it from this form (please give numerical numbers when talking about > resizing if you can -- i.e. this looks like it might want to shift a > XXX EVPUs, or this might want to be resized to XXX%)? Since most of > this piece is unmetered, and consequently there are no measure numbers, > please let me know which line you mean if you get specific, i.e, p.2/3 > or what a close marking is (and there's quite a few absolutely weird > ones that only occur once or twice). Oh yes ... the weird note > spellings are as written -- respelling isn't an issue. That's been > scrubbed to *death* considering the nature of this score. All voicings, > cross staffs, beaming, directions, marking placings, etc. are as the > composer intended, with the exception of two accent marks. > > 3. What do you think this would show were I to include it in a > portfolio? What value would seeing it have to you were you > considering employing me? Is it "too out"? Is it "just out enough"? > Does it demonstrate that I like a good challenge? > > Thanks in advance. > Keef. > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
