On 8/19/2017 1:47 AM, Michael Edwards wrote: > [Robert Patterson:] > >>> I don't agree it is "very complicated". You can achieve the result >>> you want >>> (mid-measure keys/timesigs) using a few extra steps. The result is >>> robust >>> and works exactly as you would wish it to, including playback. >>> >>> Finale does permit e.g. 3/8 in RH and 9/16 in LH, where the barlines >>> line >>> up. (I don't understand what you mean by 9/19 meter.) >> >> Did I type "9/19"? It was a typo; I meant 9/16. > > Oh - I forgot to add just now: it was both those in the left hand, > not one in the right and the other the left. I think that was when I > mentioned Scriabin's 10 Piano Sonata, which does that near the end. It > may sound confusing to read about, but the score is perfectly clear and > readable, and entirely logical. >
Most of what you want to accomplish can be done in Finale, but not all of the things will be easy. Dorico is on the track to being much more flexible than either Sibelius or Finale but it will be quite a while before it will be able easily to do what you are asking about completely. Some of the things you want can be accomplished now with Dorico. I've bought Dorico and played around with it some, but I find that Sibelius is my go-to notation app these days because it does so much so easily and 99% of what I do is old-fashioned standard notation. For example Dorico will allow different meters but the barlines won't line up. It does what many Finale users have wanted for many years -- different meters on different staves in the score result in different bar lengths. So, for example, a piece with some bars in 2/4 and some in 6/8 will have the barlines in different places because it will make the 8th notes be uniform between the two staves. However it has not yet been able to make the barlines line up creating different 8th note speeds (6/8 triplet-feel against the duple feeling of the 2/4 bars). So it can't do it all either. One thing that can help to understand how Finale works is to know that it comes from a database background -- not completely but basically. The underlying philosophy of Finale is that each measure is a record in a database and the contents of that measure are data in fields in that record. That's why the barlines line up between staves of different meters, which creates different speeds for the same note values in the differently metered staves. And that's why to implement mid-measure changes like key or meter you need to create two measures of smaller time signatures to equal the appearance of one measure of the prevailing meter. So much of learning any software program I've found lies in trying to understand as much as possible the underlying philosophy of the original program designers and then realizing that generations of programmers have added layer upon layer over that original design. Finale's code was supposedly completely rewritten several versions ago (either that or I completely misunderstood the publicity MakeMusic was putting out) to modernize it but I suspect that much of the original code was put back in place or at least in the modernizing of the code the programming logic of the original code was not changed at all. I remember when they moved the menu items around (and continue to do so, it seems) which made it very difficult for us long-time Finale users to find things (as you have mentioned from using the off-line manual for 2009 and trying to find things in the new version of Finale). Many of the changes made no sense at all to some of us but MakeMusic kept the changes so we simply had to learn new menu locations for what we needed. And over the years for some reason MakeMusic has been minimizing the use of Speedy Entry, trying to make Simple Entry more like Sibelius's primary note-entry method. But Speedy Entry has much to recommend it so I encourage you to keep on experimenting with it to learn it. And don't hesitate to ask things in this group -- it's got a broad spectrum of Finale users who do a wide variety of notational tasks and you can get good answers quickly. The best advice I ever got was in my early days on this list, trying to learn Finale 3.5 -- work through the tutorials provided and then try doing simple notational tasks on meaningless projects, like a simple instrumental duet, then a simple piano work, then a piece with a vocal solo line and piano accompaniment, then a simple short string quartet. Gradually increase the difficulty of the short projects and you'll eventually get (over a period of a couple of weeks) much more comfortable with the program. Don't try to do complex important notational tasks until you've worked with the program for a few weeks doing simple stuff. Many people think that installing a piece of very complex software should allow them to begin immediately working on their major projects. Unfortunately that's not the case -- that would be like starting driver's education and at the first behind-the-wheel driving lesson trying to drive across the country going through the heart of every major city along the way. As with everything concerning music -- learn, practice, learn more, practice, learn more, practice, practice, practice. Then go after the major projects. -- ***** David H. Bailey dhbaile...@comcast.net http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
