Re: [Finale] More about blank notation

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 20, 2004, at 3:15 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

The workaround here is very easy, though (putting in an explicit
rest), but it could be a pain if you have to do it for a number of
measures (though hiding other layers and copying could get it done
pretty quicly).
Even quicker is the Coda-provided plug-in -> Note, Beam, & Rest Editing 
-> Change to Real Whole Rests

mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: old Mac disks

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 19, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Phil Daley wrote:

>Or just transfer them to PC Format disks, Macs with superdrives 
(pretty much
>any Mac after the SE) can format and write PC disks.

And newer Macs can read the old 800K disks?
My recently defunct Mac could read both PC disks and old 800K Mac 
disks.  I had a pile of ancient 800K floppies which I recycled and used 
for backing up small files.  I also used PC-formatted floppies to carry 
files to and from the PC I used at a part-time job.  Come to think of 
it, that's how I printed several chapters of the Finale 2k2 manual, 
which for some reason I couldn't get to print from my home computer.

That was a Power Macintosh 6100/66.  It finally gave up the ghost last 
fall.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Re: FinMac2004

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 17, 2004, at 6:03 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

I guess I'll have to recreate my preferences again.  I *hate* doing 
that.  I just hope the problem doesn't keep coming back.
Do you have to recreate ALL of them?

Funny, I'm sloppy about backing up other things, but I make frequent 
backup copies of my preference file, especially when I'm messing around 
with settings. If something goes wrong, I just find the file from a few 
weeks back and start from there.  Usually there's only a couple of 
things I've changed since then and I can remember what they were.

I too have "Save Preferences on Quit" turned off, but I still found 
myself occasionally going places I didn't like and wanting to get back.

mdl

P.S.  Curiously, in a recent bad crash experience not long ago -- Darcy 
knows this story -- I managed to lose ALL of my computer's preferences, 
because that was a folder I had foolishly neglected to back up.  
Finale's was the one preference file I *didn't* lose, because I had it 
backed up elsewhere.

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Re: [Finale] Re: FinMac2004 (going OT)

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 17, 2004, at 5:36 AM, Javier Ruiz wrote:

Ha! that´s a word that I don´t think exists in Spanish. And we need it,
yeah...
Darcy wrote (among other things):
innumeracy
It's a recently coined word, and it probably hasn't arrived in most 
dictionaries yet.

About five years ago, someone wrote a book with it as the title.  I 
forget the author's name (something Greek-sounding), but I'm sure it's 
easily found.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Re: FinMac2004

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 17, 2004, at 2:21 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Also, some people -- like Mark Lew -- are particular about the 
distance between staves -- when they increase or decrease the distance 
between staves, they always do so by multiples of one staff space, 
e.g., 24 EVPUs.  It's not possible to get this kind of precision by 
dragging, but it's very easy in the Staff List Manager -- it's just a 
matter of memorizing the most commonly used [multiples] of 24, e.g., 
168, 192, 216, 240, 264, 288, etc.
Well, I generally set my default measurement unit to points, so I only 
have to memorize multiples of 6.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] MacFin2002b Feedback

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 16, 2004, at 10:25 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Well, strangely enough, I liked the old way Finale copied music -- it
copied clef changes by default (I'm talking about the COPY EVERYTHING
situation).
[...]
For me, the old way was far preferable, because I copy "horizontally"
a lot more often than "vertically."
I too prefer clef changes to copy by default.  I'm almost always 
copying either to the same staff or to another staff with the same clef 
situation.

In any event, I'd sure prefer it as an option for COPY EVERYTHING. I
guess I could do it by choosing COPY ENTRY ITEMS and selection COPY
ALL, but I'll never remember to do that!
Wow, thanks for the tip.  For some reason I had it in my head that 
copying clef changes was just not possible, so all this time I've been 
re-entering them after a copy.  It never occurred to me to go looking 
for a way to do it.  I guess I just figured if it wasn't done under 
"copy everything" there wasn't going to be a selection for it, since 
"everything" should be ... well, everything.  Now that I know, I'll try 
to remember to go in and choose all entry items whenever I'm copying a 
passage with clef changes.

I have no recollection of it working differently in past versions.  I 
made the upgrades for 2k0 and 2k2. The 2k0 was a while ago, but not 
that far back, so I think the change was probably between 97 and 2k0.

I can see how others might prefer the other way, so obviously it's good 
to have the choice.  It would be nice if somewhere in the Options there 
were a check box for "Copy Everything does/doesn't include clef 
changes".

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Enter key, undo shortcut bugs in MacFin2004

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 15, 2004, at 2:42 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

I get the feeling most people on this list are steering well clear of 
MacFin2004.  I probably should as well, but it's like when you force 
yourself to sit through a bad movie you've rented -- I've been 
anticipating it for years, I paid good money for it, so now I feel 
compelled to use it.  Gah.
For me it's not so much "steering well clear" as procrastination.  I'm 
not the sort of person who likes upgrading a lot.  It's a hassle, and 
there's a learning curve, so it's something I tend to postpone.  I need 
motivation to get me past that hump.  Usually it comes in the form of 
prospect of new fixes or features that I want, or else something wrong 
with the old version that I need to move beyond.

In this case, there are a few new features that sound interesting, but 
the problems I keep hearing about tend to balance against them.  I know 
I'll upgrade eventually, but it keeps being easier to put it off until 
tomorrow.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Fermata Or Not?

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 15, 2004, at 1:49 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I hope I don't show my ignorance here, but I am working on a 
composition in which the composer used a symbol that looks like a 
fermata, but with 3 dots underneath.  I am interpreting this as a 
fermata, am I correct?  Or is it something different entirely?
Sounds like a slurred triple staccato to me. Is it a string part? 
What's the note length?  Are there bars through the stem?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] syllabification

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 11, 2004, at 4:27 PM, John Howell wrote:

Hey, read my message again.  We're on the same side, here!  I was 
simply making the point that there are different criteria for printing 
than for singing.  Non-singers may not know that.  And singers often 
get hung up trying to write down the words as they would sing them (as 
i've discovered teaching vocal arranging!).
Ah, I see now. You're right, of course. Sorry for not looking before I 
leapt.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] syllabification

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 11, 2004, at 1:10 PM, John Howell wrote:

I should also point out that Mark's suggestion makes reading the words 
much quicker and intuitive.  But of course a singer isn't going to 
actually pronounce them that way.  Tacking the consonant onto the 2nd 
syllable is good vocal practice:  "may-keth," "lee-deth," 
"re-stoh-reth," "pre-pa-rest."  In other words, the rules are 
different for printing (to make the word clear) and for singing (to 
make the words clear!).
We've been through this before.  Of course the singer is going to 
pronounce the consonant at the beginning of the next note -- that's one 
of the first things any choral singer is taught -- but it doesn't 
follow that every consonant should be printed after the hyphen.

If you follow that reasoning to its logical conclusion you'd end up 
with absurdities like "ha-llo-wed", "ki-ngdom", "te-mpta-tion", etc.  
(Lord's Prayer on my mind this morning...).  If you're making a 
pedagogical score for a class, maybe that makes sense, but for normal 
publishing it's just not done.

There's also the matter of final consonants on a one-syllable word, 
which good vocal practice will have the singer tack onto the beginning 
of the next word. Are you going to print it that way, too?  "O - n'ea 
-rth'a - s' i- t'i - s'i -n'hea-ven".

mdl

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Re: [Finale] syllabification

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 10, 2004, at 4:53 PM, Ryan Beard wrote:

I'm working on a choir piece based on Psalm 23. I'm
having trouble finding the correct syllabification of
some of the King James English words like "maketh,"
"leadeth," "restoreth," "preparest" all those "-eth" &
"-est" words. The dictionaries I have don't include
these particular forms of the words.
You can treat -eth and -est exactly as you would treat -ing or -er.  
Your instincts are right: split before the suffix.

There is one school of thought that says always split after a long 
vowel, in which case you would have "ma-king".  I've seen that in some 
19th century British editions, but I think it's pretty much rejected 
now.  If you agree with "ma-king" then you should also do "ma-keth" to 
be consistent. I mention this only to be thorough, I definitely don't 
recommend it.

By the way, am I the only one who has noticed lots of nonstandard 
hyphenations in _The Economist_ magazine over the past few months?  Are 
they trying to make a statement, or is it just a crappy hyphenation 
program?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Dolet Light versus Full

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 6, 2004, at 5:04 PM, Richard Yates wrote:

This did not help much. It does not describe differences between light 
and
full version. Maybe I should be more specific. For instance:


After a long period of deserved skepticism about music scanning 
technology
in genereal I am willing (and beginning) to be convinced that the 
price for
the full version is reasonable. I would guess that many here would 
like to
be convinced also.
Doesn't Recordare offer a free 30-day trial period?  I think you can 
download the full version and try it out yourself.  Then if it works 
well enough you can buy it permanently.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] MAJOR FILESAVE BUG in Finale 2004

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 6, 2004, at 3:01 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Specifically, what happened was I quit Finale 2004 when several files 
were open.  Normally, Finale would have asked me if I wanted to review 
unsaved changes, but this time it didn't.  And Finale also decided to 
overwrite one of the open files I'd been working on (a 77-page file) 
with another one -- a two-page file.  (Thank god I had a recent 
backup.)

That's obviously very, very bad.
Ouch!  It sure is!

As you know, I'm a compulsive file closer, so I usually don't have 
multiple files open at once anyway.  This story makes me determined to 
keep it that way.

That's assuming I install 2k4 at all.  I've had it for more than a 
month now, and it's still sitting on the shelf.  What I'm reading on 
this group is only encouraging my procrastination.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] File Crashes My Finale Reliably

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 4, 2004, at 6:13 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

New development: I tried deleting everything in the first two
movements, and when you get to the same measure, Finale dies. So, it
has nothing to do with the length of the file, and everything to do
with something in that particular measure.
If you keep deleting and isolate the problem pretty narrowly, maybe you 
can send the trimmed file to winsupport and have them figure it out.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] TAN: Rave Act protest scheduled

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 2, 2004, at 2:08 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Joe Lieberman is not really a Democrat.
Touché

But this is not a political list, so we should probably not go any
further with this. . .
Good point.  I'll resist the urge to follow-up on Darcy's post. Either 
that or we can take it elsewhere.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] time signature change

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 2, 2004, at 1:44 PM, Bob Florence wrote:

This section is for 4 trombones. Trombone 1 plays 6 bars. He repeats 
his
phrase and is joined by trombone 2. They continue their 6 bars and are
joined by trombone 3. They continue and are joined by trombone 4. This 
is
a total of 24 bars. I added 24 bars to that section to make it 48.
I tried the method down below. It worked for trombone 1. It did not 
work
for the other parts. Do I have to do each part separately because of
their staggered entrances?
You mention "staggered entrances".  Does this mean there are empty bars 
in the passage?  If so, you'll need to convert these to real whole 
rests before converting all the notes 200%.  Otherwise all the notes 
double but the whole rests don't.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] TAN: Rave Act protest scheduled

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 2, 2004, at 11:40 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

The RAVE act is absolutely not an urban legend.  Go to the ACLU's web 
page to find out more.  The Republicans have been trying to pass this 
for years, and they finally got it by appending it to the AMBER alert 
bill (otherwise known as the Elizabeth Smart act), a very popular bill 
which no one wanted to vote against.

Also, I would think after all his years on the list that you would 
have more faith in Andrew Stiller than that.
I've known very intelligent and responsible people to be taken in by 
urban legends before. I don't think that questioning whether the Act is 
real -- and you have to admit, it's pretty incredible -- constitutes 
questioning Andrew in any way.

By the way, you and David have both mentioned Republicans.  While it's 
true that the Republicans who control Congress have provided much of 
the support for the RAVE Act, it's really not a partisan issue. The 
sponsor of the bill is a Democrat, Sen Joe Biden of Delaware, and Sen 
Joe Lieberman is among the co-sponsors.

Sen Biden is the driving force behind RAVE. He wrote the bill, he 
introduced it, and he's the one who got it passed. It was Biden, and 
not any Republcan, who attached RAVE to AMBER in the conference 
committee.

Personally, I think any bill with a cute acronym should be rejected on 
principle. It's almost always a disguise for something not so cute 
inside. RAVE = "Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy"; AMBER = 
"America’s Missing: Broadcaster Emergency Response"; PROTECT = 
"Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children 
Today"; USA-PATRIOT = "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing 
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"; ad 
nauseam.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Time Signature question

[Mark D Lew]

On Apr 1, 2004, at 10:56 AM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

Assuming Ken hasn't started yet, he could create a blank score of N
measures, set up the first two with the changing signatures and correct
barlines (dashed if needed), drag&drop the 2-measure pattern forward 
N-1
times, then highlight & hide the subsequent times signatures.
Even if he has already started, he could still use the same trick with 
Mass-Mover -> Copy Measure Items -> Tempo Changes.

If the time signature is invisible, I'm not sure why you need to change 
it anyway. It adds up to the same amount of notes either way. I 
understand that you want visual indications so that the musicians know 
to count it that way, but I don't see why it matters how it's being 
counted internally -- unless you're just using it as a short-cut to 
create a visual difference (eg, beaming).  But is the invisible time 
signature change going to make any difference in playback?

mdl

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Re: Plugin index, was: Re: [Finale] Split Points in Imported

[Mark D Lew]

I'm no expert on this stuff, but it seems to me that this could be a 
job for scripts.

Surely a script has the capability to call up any item on the menu, 
right?  If so, then you could make a very simple script for every 
plug-in you use. Then you could name and arrange those scripts however 
you like and put them into a single menu of your own.

But I'm just guessing.  Does anyone out there know if this is feasible?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Sibelius survey

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 31, 2004, at 12:29 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

This kind of NDA (non-disclosure agreement) is very common -- I 
imagine the same sort of restrictions apply to Finale beta testers, 
for instance.  It stands to reason that if they're paying people to 
collect this information, they want to keep the information private.  
I don't think there's anything insidious about that at all, although 
obviously others may differ.
That's more or less what the Sibelius guy told me.  I guess I'm just 
oversensitive to that sort of thing.

I really don't think anyone should take the survey and then post a 
recap to the list -- that would be a blatant violation of the NDA, and 
I don't think it's ethical (or legal) to agree to Sibelius's terms 
with the intention of violating them.  The NDA is a binding contract 
-- if you don't like the terms, don't participate.
I completely agree that it would be wrong to agree to the terms and 
then violate them.I don't like signing things like that at all.  
Obviously, I won't be participating with Sibelius on this.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Sibelius survey

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 31, 2004, at 12:48 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

That's all true, of course, but I think the weird thing is the whole
idea of applying an NDA to a survey, especially one that involves
questions about a *competitor* product.
Beta testers, sure, as it's pre-release software.

But a survey?

Ridiculous!
The reason it seems odd to me is that the survey is completely 
voluntary and you're doing the company a favor by participating. If I'm 
doing paid work for someone, and some sort of agreement is in the 
contract, sure, that makes sense.

I don't mind giving away marketing information for free -- we do it 
here on this List all the time, and Sibelius or anyone else is free to 
come along and look for ideas.  But if someone is asking me to sign 
away rights, I want to know what I'm getting in return.

mdl

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[Finale] Sibelius survey

[Mark D Lew]

Did others on the group receive the email from a guy at Sibelius, 
inviting them to participate in a survey to discuss in a telephone 
interview how they use notation software?

I was especially intrigued by this sentence:

Because of the
nature of this endeavour, if you would like to help us, we will ask you
to keep the subjects of our discussions confidential.
I'm not quite sure what that means, but I don't like the tone.  My 
feeling is that open discussion of what is good and bad about both 
programs is healthy.  If someone is telling Sibelius what it can do to 
be better, I'd rather that Finale hears about it, too -- and vice 
versa.  That way both programs get better, and all users benefit.

What is Sibelius worried about?  Are they worried that MakeMusic is 
going to steal their ideas and implement them first? Suppose someone 
does participate in their survey, and then posts a recap of the 
discussion to this list. I think that would be great.

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but it sounds to me like Sibelius is saying 
"either you're with us or against us".  If that's their attitude, I 
doubt they'll get much cooperation from users of other products.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Another Music Spacing Issue

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 27, 2004, at 5:38 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:

An example where this makes sense is not common, but not inconceivable 
either. Imagine that [...]
Reviewing this, I see I'm overthinking it.  A more common situation is 
this:  In the RH piano, the upstem voice is following the melody but 
with chords built around an octave on the melody note.  At some point 
there is an inner voice that moves while the melody holds.  If that's a 
dotted half on the downbeat, then you're going to want the downstem 
quarter note to the right, so that it doesn't break up the inner line.  
The dot has to be between the two stems.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Another Music Spacing Issue

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 27, 2004, at 3:28 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Yes, apparently. But it's spotting *something* and I don't quite
understand why it thinks what it's seeing is the right thing to do --
I can't conceive of circumstances where the spacing it provides would
ever be correct, accidentals or dots notwithstanding.
I think it's spotting two overlapping chords, and it's not smart enough 
to recognize when the dot could be moved over.

An example where this makes sense is not common, but not inconceivable 
either. Imagine that your RH part has a slow melody in the upstem layer 
with chords on the beat in the downstem layer. The melody and chords 
are written in such a way that the RH can play both (assume LH is doing 
something else). Assume further that the chords sometimes extend above 
the melody.  (You wouldn't like have a chord over the melody note when 
it's attacked, but such a chord still might coincide with a tied note 
in the melody.)

With all that in mind, suppose that you're in 3/4. Somewhere along the 
way the melody has a Bb over two measures so that it's two dotted 
halves tied. Coinciding with the tied note, the downstem voice has an 
EC chord.  How would you write this? You can't very well push the dot 
all the way to the other side of the chord.  In this case, the dot has 
to be between the note and the chord.

I think this is what Finale thinks it's seeing in your example, even 
though in your case the dot could be adjusted over.  That said, I think 
Finale adds a touch more space than necessary in this case.

I have no explanation for the accidentals.  That's just dumb.

The major problem is that you have to get rid of the extra space
allocated in the measure, and the only real way to do that is to
remove the chord notes, space, and then add the real notes back,
since the only alternative is adjusting the beat chart manually,
which is more of a pain than deleting and re-entering the notes.
Another technique which is occasionally useful is to pick the busier 
layer, choose Edit -> View Active Layer Only, and respace for just the 
one layer.  I don't do that often, but sometimes it's just what's 
needed.

Revisiting the measure and applying spacing an additional time gives
Finale a chance to compound it's error.  (If you have dotted notes in
separate layers a second apart, and you repeatedly swap layers,
respacing after each swap, the notes and dots will continue to move
farther and farther to the right.)
Well, at least I hadn't encountered *that*.
No reason you should.  I offered it only as an illustration of how 
adjustments to note position and dot position are additive with each 
respacing.

No, you have to move the note, then move the accidentals and the
dots.
But removing the chord note and spacing then gets it right, so you
can add back the chord notes and it comes out all right. The only
exception to that might be accidentals on the deleted chord notes,
but those can be easily adjusted.
You're right about needing to move the dot.  I thought you were talking 
about moving an incorrectly adjusted dot back to where it started.

I'm having fits with putting the stems-up notes in layer 1, as my
musical sense tells me that the lower notes should be in layer 1. But
I'm finally getting used to thinking about it Finale's way instead of
thinking about it as music.
This is probably also a result of not having used layers in the past. 
For me upstem=layer 1 is entirely intuitive, but I'm sure it was Finale 
use that created that intuition. Before Finale I wouldn't have thought 
about layer numbers at all.

If you really like your layer 2 to be upstem, you could switch the stem 
behavior under Layer Options, but then I guess all your seconds would 
space wrong.

This is another frustrating place where Finale is anti-musical and
behaves too much like a computer program. I know it's not possible to
get the musical idea right all the time (it would require extremely
sophisticated artificial intelligence to do so), but it's a constant
frustration to me to have to think non-musically. Maybe that's
testimony to how musical most of Finale happens to be, that the
points where it's not annoy me so much.
I think that's a good analysis.  A lot of the spacing decisions for 
multi-voice stuff is very complicated, and any of us would be 
hard-pressed to state all our rules algorithmically.  In some 
particularly complicated pieces (typically, piano reductions of 
orchestral music) I've even had places where if I sit down and study 
the music for a bit I realize there's a better way to organize it to 
make it more readable.

It's not practical to expect the software to figure all that out for 
you, and the fact that we expect it to is a tribute to what a good job 
it does on all the easier passages.

mdl

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extra lyric hyphens (was Re: [Finale] Grace Notes)

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 26, 2004, at 8:27 AM, George Ports wrote:

Had a problem with text.Can't seem to eliminate some 
hyphens
(- - - - -) that appeared in a couple of measures.  It is sorta hard to
explain but, they are from typing in text, I'm sure. Hope I don't have 
to
re-do the measures all over again.  Is there a way to highlight them 
and
delete somehow?
Hyphens of this sort result from a series of lyrics in which a 
hyphenated syllable is not followed in the score by the syllable which 
follows it in the lyrics text.  Without going into the gory details, 
the gist of it is his: The first syllable knows that it is supposed to 
draw hyphens connected to its partner syllable, but if for whatever 
reason if never finds that partner, it will just keep drawing hyphens 
to the end of the page.

If you've entered your lyrics in an orderly way, this should never 
occur, but unfortunately the sloppy implementation of type-in-score 
leaves plenty of ways you can get yourself into trouble by entering 
lyric syllables haphazardly.

For your immediate problem, the way to get rid of the hyphens is to 
identify the syllable that is originating them. It should be somewhere 
immediately to the left of the string of hyphens.  In lyrics 
type-in-score mode, select that syllable, then type the space bar. That 
should make the hyphens disappear.

Depending on how you got into the situation, that might now leave you 
missing some hyphens that you did want.  If that's the case, it's hard 
to prescribe without seeing the exact situation. Sometimes, the best 
thing is to clear out all the lyrics and re-enter them. I know some 
consider that draconian, but if you've munged your lyric data somehow 
you could be looking at further lyric problems if you don't.

But you should never have to clear out any of the notes. Just the 
lyrics.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Another Music Spacing Issue

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 26, 2004, at 12:36 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Here's the problem:

If layer 2 is a chord instead of a single note, the spacing is
completely wrong -- the layer 1 note is spaced by itself and the
layer 2 chord is spaced way out to the right, as though the two
didn't occur in the same metric position. [...]

Can anyone confirm this?
Yes. That matches experience in Fin Mac 2k2.  I don't remember this 
ever working perfectly.  In the old days, Finale didn't try to fix 
spacing for seconds in separate layers at all, so that the noteheads 
were just on top of each other.  Later, spacing for seconds was added, 
whereupon it gets it right some of the time but often gets confused by 
more complicated situations.

In the given example, I assume the problem is that Finale has an 
algorithm associated with spacing a second, and it's only smart enough 
to spot a second when it's one note in each layer.

I'm working on piano music and this kind of thing is quite common,
and it's causing me to do far more manual editing than I ever had to
do in the past, and I'm having to move the notes, the accidentals
*and* the dots.
Do you have automatic music spacing turned on?  If not, it seems to me 
you shouldn't ever have to move the dot.  In the procedure you spelled 
out, the dot got moved only because you spaced it once and Finale 
figured it right, then you added and spaced again and Finale got it 
wrong.

Revisiting the measure and applying spacing an additional time gives 
Finale a chance to compound it's error.  (If you have dotted notes in 
separate layers a second apart, and you repeatedly swap layers, 
respacing after each swap, the notes and dots will continue to move 
farther and farther to the right.)

Better is to enter all the music first and then apply spacing just 
once. That way either it will get it right or it won't. If it doesn't 
all you have to move is the note.

Accidentals are a separate matter. I've found that they frequently 
don't place where I want them even on a one-layer chord.  (Even flats 
on a sixth are too far apart for my taste.)

I concur with everyone here that the spacing algorithm for multi-layer 
chords with dots has room for improvement.  I guess I'm just used to 
it.  I tend to take it for granted that in dense piano music with 
multiple layers I'm going to have to move some notes around 
horizontally.  If there's three layers and/or unisons it gets even more 
hairy, and I never expect Finale to space it right.

By the way, in case you don't already know, Finale will always push the 
note in the higher-numbered layer to the right, regardless of which 
note is higher on the staff or which way the stems are going.  It's 
helpful to know that sometimes.  There are times when I choose my 
layers assignments specifically so that Finale will space it correctly 
without me having to go back and revisit.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Word Extensions_____what gives?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 24, 2004, at 10:41 AM, Randolph Peters wrote:

I'm seeking the collective wisdom of this list.

Shouldn't word extensions only apply to moving notes and not to tied 
ones?

It seems as if the word extension plugins (both Finale's and TGTools) 
on FinMac 2k3 are spotty and inconsistent AND they give me a lot of 
lines on tied notes where I  don't want them.

What does the list think? Shouldn't this at least be an option?
Word extensions to tied notes is standard.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Re: New Time Sig Metatools

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 23, 2004, at 9:34 AM, Clay Zambo wrote:

Now with the metatools, with time signature tool selected you hold a
metatool key and click a measure, and the new signature is popped 
right in.
Wow!  Now I _really_ can't wait for the os9 version!
It works on Fin Mac 2k2, as I described in an earlier post.  I think 
the only difference is that the tools aren't preprogrammed.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] New time sig metatools

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 22, 2004, at 5:52 AM, David Froom wrote:

I just discovered the time signature metatools, Are they new to Fin 
2004?
Wow.  I just tried this in Fin Mac 2k2 and it works there, too.

It's slightly different from what you describe, though.  Possibly it's 
just my own template, but I found none of the time sig metatools 
preprogrammed -- but I can program them myself.  Also, to apply a time 
sig metatool, I have to double-click, not just a single click like the 
other metatools.

For me, it's not a gigantic improvement, since I don't change time 
signatures all that much, but it's still nice.  I'd update my template 
to program a bunch of them, except that I expect to upgrade to 2k4 soon 
anyway. (I bought it a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to 
installing.)

 I found this feature in the Keyboard Shortcuts part of the online
manual, under the subheadings "To Program a Time Signature Metatool" 
and "To
Use a Time Signature Metatool."
When I first got 2k2, I found that reading the Keyboard Shortcuts 
appendix in the manual was extremely useful in discovering little 
tricks, but I don't remember seeing that one.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Italian

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 19, 2004, at 9:19 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

Mozart asks the singers to sing "-o e il" on a single note. The note 
is a long one, but you will never hear a singer  divide it in three; 
rather, it usually comes out "Quest' e 'l fin" or "Questw'il fin"
You're right that it usually comes out as one or the other, but I'd 
argue that the first singer got it right and the second got it wrong.  
To turn an "o" into a "w" is distinctly anglophone.

I should add the caveat that I'm familiar with opera and art song 
singing from roughly 1750 to the present.  If conventions were 
different before then, I might not know it.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Italian

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 2:16 PM, John Howell wrote:

I believe that each vowel gets its own note, unlike languages like 
English which are full of diphthongs and triphthons.  You often find 
bisyllabic Italian words on a single note, and the singer has to know 
to divide the note in 2.
Perhaps it's just semantics, but I'd say you're conceiving this exactly 
backward.  What you call "bisyllabic" is truly a diphthong.  Thus, it 
is a one-syllable word which can sometimes be separated to go on two 
notes, as opposed to a two-syllable word which is usually combined to 
go on one note.

It sounds like a trivial distinction, but I believe that your concept 
of "the singer knows to divide the note in two" is a contributor to bad 
Italian diction among English speakers singing Italian -- and 
especially so among amateur singers (like the volunteer opera choruses 
I used to direct).

Comparing to a similar diphthong in English is instructive.  Of course 
a singer needs to be aware that the diphthong in "joy" is really two 
separate vowel sounds, and if you've got a chorus singing it together 
on a held note you'll probably want to specify exactly where the "ee" 
sound comes in.  But that's not the same as conceiving the word as 
bisyllabic.  As soon as the singers start thinking like that, it's 
going to sound like "jo-ee", which is wrong.

A similar reasoning applies to Italian diphthongs -- not just the ones 
that have similar analogs in English, like ai, oi, au, etc., but even 
one-syllable words which look especially bisyllabic to anglophones, 
like tuo, sia, Dio, etc.  These too should be conceived as a single 
syllable.  If you've got "Dio" held out over a long note, you can't 
just tell your chorus "cross out the whole note and write in a two half 
notes", because then they'll sing it like two half notes.  If the 
composer wanted that, he would have broken up "Di-o" and written in as 
two half notes.  Sometimes they do split the syllable (as in Dennis's 
"ma-i"), but usually they don't. There's a reason they don't, and it's 
because the word is conceived as a single syllable.

It's a subtle distinction, and for many choruses you'll have far worse 
concerns to address, but it's still something that I'd like to see done 
right.  About on a par with dentalized t's, I'd say.

By the way, a well-known example of "mai" as two syllables is the 
"giammai" in Stradella's "Pietà, Signore".  Here the bisyllabification 
is deliberate.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Spacing with blank notation in Layer 1

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 10:38 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Well, you can tell by starting with it unspaced, check for beat
chart, then space using metatool 4. If there's a beat chart then and
it includes handles for the hidden note values, then it's doing what
Johannes said (so far as I understand him), and what I'm seeing as
well.
And as Barbara observed, it wouldn't be good spacing if the notes
were visible, as it's way too tight.
Yeah, mine matches that.  There is a beat chart, and you're right: it 
is too tight when made visible again.  This is on Fin Mac 2k2.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Spacing with blank notation in Layer 1

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 7:44 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Now, can we get a rundown of which versions exhibit the problem? It
looks like it's still there in Finale2K4, if Johannes is seeing it. I
think somebody had Finale2K2 and said the problem was there? Can
anyone confirm this?
In FinMac 2k2 blank notes achieved with the blank notation staff style 
do affect spacing.  I don't know if it's the same thing that Johannes 
was describing with the beat chart.  That doesn't sound familiar to me, 
though I haven't explored it carefully.  All I know is that they do 
affect spacing, and it's true whether I apply beat spacing or note 
spacing.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 18, 2004, at 7:40 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

EDUs make me crazy (the man behind the curtain is exposed), but I can
deal with them.
EDUs don't bother me much, and sometimes I even like them.  Even so, I 
think it would make a lot of sense if Finale allowed for use of any of 
its units in any field by adding the proper suffix.  For example, if 
your default unit is inches, "0.25" would give you a quarter inch, but 
so would "1.5pi" or "18pt" or "72evpu".

Something similar could apply to units of time. I don't know what the 
unit would be called, but you could have something where a whole note 
equals one, so for a quarter note you could type either 1024edu or 0.25 
of whatever the new unit is.  There might also be another unit where a 
quarter note equals one.  (For that matter, why not just have a unit 
for every note size? So if you want a 64th note you can just type "1sx" 
rather than working out the decimal fraction.)

Mark, back when I had lyrics problems, you were the one who helped me
most with that, and now you've come through, again. Thank you so
much! You're a real asset to this list!
Thanks for the kind word.  Others here have helped me tremendously, 
both on the list and off.  I'm glad to be able to give back.

In this specific case, it was Michael Good who first showed me how to 
use the MIDI tool for appoggiatura playback.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 11:14 PM, Mark D Lew wrote:

I assume you know how the Edit Frames box works, given your response 
to the other message about the Playback field there.
Oops.  I mean your other comment about the *Spacing* field there.  
Playback is the one you would change in this case.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 6:44 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

[answering me]

. . . For classic appoggiaturas, I redefine
the note lengths with the MIDI tool. . . .
Can you explain that in more detail? I'm not getting what you're
referring to here (I'd sure like a plugin to create on-beat
appaggiaturas!).
Sure.  Suppose you've got a quarter note appoggiatura followed by a 
half note, and you want it to play back like two quarters.  Select the 
MIDI tool and double-click in the measure. At the bottom of the window 
you'll see a picture of the bar with handles on each note. (Not very 
good UI here, alas, especially if the bar is crowded.)

When you double-click on a note, it gives you a window with a field for 
start time and stop time.  Both numbers are defined as EDUs.  Thus, for 
the appoggiatura, you want to change the stop time to 1024, and for the 
half note you want to change the start time to 1024.

Any field left at zero will default to where the note would normally 
start or stop. That's why it isn't necessary to define the stop time of 
the half note.  The appoggiatura is a little confusing; you'd think the 
intitial state would have shown a negative start time, but it doesn't.  
As far as I can tell, the global definition for grace notes is applied 
to any grace note which is unaltered in the MIDI tool, but once you 
alter it that overrides the grace note definition and it then plays 
like a normal note (with whatever alteration you entered).

Whatever the reason, the trick works.  Determine the length of the 
appoggiatura in EDUs, and enter that number as the stop for the 
appoggiatura and the start for the note that follows.

. . . For cue notes, I turn off the
playback in the Edit Frames box.
More info, please. If I could do this instead of setting key velocity
to zero, that would be preferable. So far as I can see from it,
though, you have to do it entry by entry, which is none too
attractive. If I could turn it off measure by measure, that would be
super.
As far as I know, you have to do it entry-by-entry.  Yes, it's a 
nuisance, but I generally only need it for a couple of notes at a time. 
 I use it in the voice staff when cue notes reflect different scansion 
in a second verse.

I assume you know how the Edit Frames box works, given your response to 
the other message about the Playback field there.

For a piece like that I put all the playback notes into a single layer
for which I turn off spacing in the layer options. Everything in that
layer is seen and not heard; everything in the visible layer is heard
and not seen.
Don't you mean exactly the opposite of what you just said?
Oops, you're right.  I mean vice versa.

When working on a file like this, I enter all the visible stuff first,
then copy the entire visible layer into the invisible playback layer,
then make the necessary changes to the playback layer.  That way, all
of the playback for the entire piece is coming from invisible notes,
not just in some bars.
Well, I can't see doing it that way. If copying between layers were
easier, perhaps. If you're doing notation in a style where you're
like to have that throughout the whole piece (say a continuo
realization), it makes sense. But for pieces where less than 10% of
the measures have playback that is different from the visible
notation, it seems a pain.
The piece I remember most vividly had those repeater beams through the 
whole piece.  I copied all the music to an invisible layer, then passed 
it through the Rhythmic Subdvisions plug-in a few times.  It was 
tricky, but once I got the right scheme worked out it was a huge 
improvement on typing them all out separately.

For pieces in which only a few bars need a playback layer, you might 
consider defining layer 3 as no-playback and layer 4 as invisible. Then 
you can use layers 1 and 2 for most of the piece, switching over the 3 
and 4 for the bars that need altered playback.

Well, that's a pretty radical departure, and my problem with it would
be that it's too easy for the two layers to get out of synch with
each other (you change the visible layer and forget to alter the
playback layer).
That's definitely a hazard of my method.  You have to be well-organized 
and keep careful track of what you've done.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 5:05 PM, I wrote:

Try it and see.  If you make a TG tremolo, then go into the playback 
layer and make all the notes visible, they still don't affect spacing.

There must be something else about them that's different. But what is 
it?
Aha, I found it.  In the Edit Frames box, the bottom item in the third 
column is "Spacing".  Uncheck this box on an entry and that entry 
doesn't affect spacing.

This is a handy little trick.  It could solve just about any spacing 
problem one runs into, if you don't mind the tedium of going in and 
fixing every single one.  The question is whether there's some way to 
clear this flag for an entire passage at once, or better yet 
incorporate it into a staff style.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a way to do it.  Perhaps someone 
could write a script or plug-in for it.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Cross staff notes and artics

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 4:31 AM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

Well, then it's gotten worse in 2004. In order to get the artic to 
move down, I have to drag it up, and vice versa.
Now that you mention it, I remember encountering this behavior before, 
too.  Something to do with stem directions, I think.  I wasn't able to 
duplicate it on FinMac2k2 just now, but I know I've seen it before.

Are you saying that all articulations on cross-staff notes behave this 
way in 2k4?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 10:53 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

The puzzling part for me is that others are reporting that they can't
replicated it. Here's how to get it to happen:
I can replicate it.

I'm in Fin Mac 2k2 and my experience matches yours exactly.  I too am 
finding that Finale always spaces the blank notes.  Like you, I 
remember it being different in previous versions, though in my case I 
don't actually have an old file in front of me to prove it.  I think 
you're right that something has changed, probably when blank notation 
staff style was introduced.

--

On Mar 17, 2004, at 11:17 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Am I the only person who prepares files for playback in this fashion?
I'm pretty sure I got this technique from recommendations made by
members of this list.
I use invisible layers for playback sometimes. It can be tricky, and 
there are times when I have to think carefully how I want to organize 
it, but I've yet to run into anything where there was a problem so long 
as I proceed in an orderly fashion.

For tremolos, I use TG's tool.  For classic appoggiaturas, I redefine 
the note lengths with the MIDI tool.  For cue notes, I turn off the 
playback in the Edit Frames box.

The closest thing I have to your situation is when I have a piece where 
the piano accompaniment has repeated chords that are displayed on the 
page with repeater beams through the stem instead of spelling out the 
repeated chords. (Not sure what the technical name is for those beams.)

For a piece like that I put all the playback notes into a single layer 
for which I turn off spacing in the layer options. Everything in that 
layer is seen and not heard; everything in the visible layer is heard 
and not seen.

When working on a file like this, I enter all the visible stuff first, 
then copy the entire visible layer into the invisible playback layer, 
then make the necessary changes to the playback layer.  That way, all 
of the playback for the entire piece is coming from invisible notes, 
not just in some bars.

Usually, I'll have the other two layers be visible and play back as 
shown. If necessary, I could instead have two visible layers and two 
playback layers. If I were to need two playback layers AND a third 
visible layer, I'd have a problem, but so far that has never come up.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 1:27 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

[answering me]

I still think there's something I'm forgetting.  When you run TG
tremolos on a bar and it creates invisible playback notes in layer 4,
those notes don't affect spacing. Why not? What is TG changing that we
could change manually?  There must be something.
That's different: Those notes are individually hidden I believe, not 
hidden
with a staff style.
Yes, I know, but under normal circumstances individually hidden notes 
also affect spacing.  But the TG playback notes don't.

Try it and see.  If you make a TG tremolo, then go into the playback 
layer and make all the notes visible, they still don't affect spacing.

There must be something else about them that's different. But what is 
it?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Feature request: stack windows instead of tiling

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 17, 2004, at 6:48 AM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:

I thought I was odd before (or had an old monitor) but I see I'm not 
alone. I use 150% so often that I wish it was hardwired like 100%, 
50%, 75%, etc. are now. One key zoom, yeah baby!
On my old Mac, I used 150% most of the time.  On my new PowerBook, 150% 
is a little small, so I use 200% most of the time, but still go to 150% 
occasionally.

I think it probably is a function of the old monitor.  My old monitor 
had larger pixels, so the same resolution appeared smaller in real-life 
measurement.  That's why 150% on the old computer looked bigger than 
150% on the new computer.

I too used to wish that 150% had a built-in shortcut.  I guess I still 
wish it now, but not as ardently.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Feature request: stack windows instead of tiling

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 16, 2004, at 4:09 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Don't you ever do any find positioning? I believe that Coda has told
us that to get absolutely accurate positioning (i.e., so that what
you see onscreen is precisely what you get in printouts), you need
only position at 400%.
If they do say that, they're wrong.  Hyphens between syllables which 
almost have room but not quite is one example of something which 
requires zoom larger than 400% to ensure a match between screen and 
print.

I too find it odd that someone never zooms larger than 100%.  I usually 
do speedy entry at 100% in scroll view.  Almost everything else I do at 
200%, or sometimes 150%.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Cross staff notes and artics

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 16, 2004, at 3:39 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

I have a piano staff with notes entered in the treble staff and some 
of them dragged down to the bass staff. I find I am unable to get 
articulations positioned correctly on the cross-staff notes -- even 
when I drag them to where I want them, they bounce to some completely 
different position when I do a screen redraw.
I'm still on 2k2 (bought 2k4 but haven't installed it yet) but it's 
probably no different. Articulations on cross-staff notes have been 
screwy for as long as I can remember.

When you drag an articulation on a cross-staff note, the display 
routine during the dragging doesn't take the cross-staff into account 
properly, so during the drag (or nudge) you are in non-wysiwyg mode.  
The adjustment you make to the articulation is nevertheless applied 
correctly to the true position of the articulation.

Therefore, when you drag or nudge the articulation, you need to ignore 
how it appears on the screen during the drag and only think in terms of 
how far you're displacing it from where it appeared before the drag. 
Then when you think you have it right, do a redraw and see if it landed 
where you want.

This is a nuisance, but I find it much less disorienting with nudging 
than with dragging. (Also, it seems that dragging sometimes messes with 
the display position of the handle as well, whereas nudging doesn't 
have that problem.)

mdl

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Re: [Finale] No one has advice on spacing with blank notation?

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 16, 2004, at 1:37 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Well, don't hesitate to tell us, as I may be ignoring something
obvious. What I've been doing is spacing with with time-signature-
based spacing, then adding the handles necessary to manually space.
It's not horribly difficult, but the big problem is that once you've
done that, it's hard to get systems spaced naturally again.
I was thinking of solutions based on switching layers, which I think 
you already rejected.  For example, under layer options you can turn 
off spacing for the entire layer throughout the piece. If you always 
put your invisible stuff in that layer, it could work.  But then you've 
got whatever complications arise from changing layers (playback, etc).

I still think there's something I'm forgetting.  When you run TG 
tremolos on a bar and it creates invisible playback notes in layer 4, 
those notes don't affect spacing. Why not? What is TG changing that we 
could change manually?  There must be something.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Speedy bug in WinFin 2004b

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 8, 2004, at 1:57 PM, K. Kastning wrote:

I'm seeing a truly annoying new bug in WinFin 2k4b (Win XP).  In 
Speedy, using a MIDI kbd. for input: enter notes in a measure, fill 
the measure, cursor goes to next bar, previous bar with new entries 
now goes totally blank.  Ctrl + D or Ctrl + U will show the notes, but 
this has to be done after every bar!  Otherwise you now have a trail 
of empty measures in your wake.  Has anyone else seen this?  I'm 
getting it every time; no matter if it's a new 2004 file or a previous 
version file opened in 2k4.
I used to see something like that occasionally in FinMac 2k2, back when 
I was running it on a very old and slow computer in OS 8.0.

I had lots of intermittent minor display problems there.  A simple 
screen redraw always cleaned them up, so I never thought much of it.  I 
don't think I've seen it since I switched to a modern machine, but I'm 
not sure I would have noticed.  I got so used to redrawing the screen 
anytime something looks fishy that it's second nature to me now.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] FinMac2004, MacSupport, and speed issues

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 9, 2004, at 8:48 AM, David Froom wrote:

Who knew being "smart" also means being slow?
Anyone with experience on old, speed-challenged computers. Any feature 
that is constantly updating on the fly is going to slow down the 
program.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Double sharps, douible flats

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 8, 2004, at 4:22 AM, Crystal Premo wrote:

Am I correct in my assumption that the double sharps and flats which 
frequently appear when you transpose a piece are actually the *correct 
pitches*?  However awkward they may be, and however appropriate it may 
be to simplify them through editing (as opposed to changing to an 
equivalent key), they are still technically correct.  Am I right?
Depends.

If the accidentals were written "correctly" on the original, you're 
transposing by the appropriate interval, and the piece is reasonably 
tonal to begin with, then yes.

In my experience, it's not too uncommon for one of those not to be the 
case.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Accidentals after transposition

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 6, 2004, at 1:51 PM, John Howell wrote:

I assume that was a typo, Crystal.  A minor 3rd down from Eb would be 
C.  But choosing between C# and Db I would take Db every time.
Not me. Not every time.

I would tend to prefer Db, but you've got to consider the specifics of 
the song. Suppose it's a song that starts in major but has a section 
where it modulates to minor with the same root note.  For something 
like that I'd rather start in C# major.

mdl

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OT: Plurals (was Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions)

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 6, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

So wave goodbye to phenomenon, bacterium, datum, criterion, medium (of 
 communication), and doubtless others I can't think of right now. All 
of these were in common use 30 years ago, but are now disappearing 
rapidly, and I imagine they'll be gone completely in another 
generation. Note, BTW, that in all of  these cases it is the singular 
that is  dropped. Also, the replacement forms are still not regular, 
but invariant, like "sheep": phenomena, bacteria, data, criteria, 
media all used as both singular and plural. Whether, like "agenda," 
they then take the next step to form the regular plurals phenomenas, 
bacterias, datas, criterias, medias will be up to our grandchildren.
There's really two different processes here.  When "agenda" gained its 
own plural, it was only after it had changed its meaning to be a sort 
of collective nouns.  That is, today's "agenda" is synonymous with 
yesterday's "list of agenda".

If "criteria" and "phenomena" gain plurals it won't be by changing its 
meaning to become the collective, but rather by simple mistaken 
identity with the singular.  When someone says, "the third criteria", 
he's not envisioning the "criteria" as a collective; he's simply saying 
the more familiar word instead of the "criterion" he means. That's not 
the case with "the first item on the agenda", where "on the agendum" 
would simply be wrong.

"Media" shows signs of moving in the direction of "agenda", so that one 
might talks of the "print, radio, and TV medias".

On the other side of the coin there are singulars which have become 
plurals and then gained new singulars, such as "kudo" or "pea".

--
[Andrew again, in a separate post]
I have always enjoyed thinking that a box of kleenex contains numerous 
kleenices.
That's cute.

One can reasonably argue that a pluralization rule can be adopted into 
another language qua a rule, separate from any specific word.  Thus 
"plural of -ex is -ices" might be considered an English rule which can 
be applied to a word independent of any Greek origin.

The case is stronger for "plural of -us is -i".  I think that "octopi" 
is sufficiently established as an English plural that it can be 
considered correct (even preferred), in spite of the fact that the 
Greek doesn't support it.  The same might apply to "platypi".

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 6, 2004, at 12:06 AM, Mario Aschauer wrote:

In fact, I did learn English as a second language. Instead of trying to
be an "odd individual who thinks himself clever for using the obsolete
irregular form" I simply used a German plural form in my English
sentence without much thinking. If anyone's offended be this I deeply
apologize and promise to try much harder next time.
No need to apologize.  I find this sort of exploration of language 
fascinating.  I hadn't known that German maintains more of the Greek 
plurals than English does, and I'm richer for having learned that.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 5, 2004, at 4:13 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Just to try to head this one off at the pass... I was unclear.  I 
didn't mean to say that "celli" and "concerti" were incorrect as such, 
just that they are subject to the same trend towards regularization as 
other foreign loan-words in English, and that the irregular's days are 
surely numbered.  Already, as you note, "celli" and "concerti" sound 
fussy and pretentious.  Fifty years from now, they will likely sound 
as bizarre as "stadia" or "aquaria."
OK, consider it headed off.

By the way, "stadia" is the proper plural if you're talking about the 
ancient unit of length.  I've seen it quite a bit in history texts. 
"Stadiums" would be quite wrong in that context, though admittedly it's 
a pretty narrow context.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 5, 2004, at 3:40 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Regardless of the Greek derivation, the English word is "commas."  See 
also, "stadiums" (not "stadia"), "forums" (not "fora"), "one agenda, 
two agendas" (not "one agendum, two agenda"), etc -- notwithstanding 
the odd individual who thinks himself clever for using the obsolete 
irregular form.
I agree with you on all of these, though I wouldn't have been surprised 
if there were some other specialized definition of "comma" (something 
mathematical, perhaps) in which the archaic plural persists -- rather 
like there can be "geniuses" or "genii" depending on which sort of 
"genius" is being pluralized.

[And, of course, "cellos" and "concertos," etc.]
I typically use the more anglicized plurals for words like this -- 
including "librettos", where I am very much in the minority among my 
opera-community colleagues -- but I think it goes too far to call the 
fancier plurals incorrect.

Clearly there are words in which the foreign-derived plural has become 
well-establiished in English (eg, "theses"). There are many more words 
where it most certainly has not. And finally there are several words 
where both forms enjoy some usage.  For these in the middle, one must 
make a choice.  My observation is that inclining too much toward the 
fancier plurals is often associated with pretentiousness. Since I'm a 
devoted anti-snob, I lean in the other direction.  But one should save 
one's preaching for real offenses.  If a choir director prefers to say 
"soprani", I'll say he's being ridiculous. If someone prefers 
"concerti", that's just a different preference.

Context is relevant, I think.  "Celli" doesn't sound nearly so unusual 
in the classical world as it probably does in the non-nonpop world.

Like all things in language, it's entirely a matter of convention at 
what point the regular plural becomes "correct" and the irregular, 
foreign-language derived plural is dropped.  But in this case, English 
language convention is pretty firmly in favor of "commas" as the 
plural of "comma."  "Commata" is just ridiculous.
None of the -mata forms has much support left except in narrow 
technical terms (eg, "stigmata" referring to a miraculous manifestation 
of Christ's wounds).  I had never heard "commata" before at all.

I was assuming that Mario learned English as a second language, so I 
wondered if some outdated source was inadvertently teaching archaic 
plural forms which are no longer idiomatic.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Accidentals after transposition

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 5, 2004, at 2:51 PM, Crystal Premo wrote:

I do a lot of transpositions of Broadway and pop tunes for people to 
use at auditions, and I have a question about what happens with 
accidentals.  Sometimes the new key is rife with double flats and 
double sharps.  Is it acceptable to simplify those accidentals.  If 
so, is there a way to have Finale do it?  I don't usually get 
complaints about it, but with a Sondheim tune that has no guitar 
chords, it could be problematic.
First of all, you should be able to avoid most of that my simply 
choosing the right transposition interval. For example, if a piece is 
in Ab and the singer says she wants it taken down a major 3rd, you 
really want to make that a diminished 4th.  If the piece has a 
modulated section, you may need to transpose that section differently 
from the main piece.

Beyond that, I myself would not hesitate to simplify the accidentals.  
The way I figure it, if you're transposing a song, part of your job is 
to make whatever adjustments are necessary to make it work well in the 
new key.  When I do transpositions, I'll often make adjustments to 
clefs or cross-staffing as well, and occasionally fingering-related 
adjustments.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Instrumentation Description Criteria

[Mark D Lew]

I'm updating a database which contains instrumentation description and 
got to decide the most suitable criteria (regarding the linguistic 
aspect) for instrument's composite names. Which, between the 
following, would you find most correct:

 1. Diatonic Soprano Xylophone
 2. Soprano Diatonic Xylophone
 3. Soprano Xylophone (Diatonic)
 4. Xylophone (Soprano Diatonic)
I like 1 or 3.  The others sound wrong to me.

I think my three-year-old niece has one

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Mar 5, 2004, at 1:29 AM, Mario Aschauer wrote:

Carus puts the commata etc. right next to the syllable it belongs 
before
the word extension. That will look okay, too, I think.
Wow.  I've seen "stigmata", "dogmata", "lemmata", and even "melismata", 
but "commata" is new to me.  I can see the logic, since "comma" does 
indeed derive from Greek, but to a native Anglophone it looks very odd. 
 Are there dictionaries where they teach the "-mata" plural for any 
Greek-derived "-ma" word?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Funny message

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 29, 2004, at 11:44 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Actually, based on the response on this list (and my own personal 
reaction), I think it's fair to say that people don't like spam 
whitelists, PERIOD.  I received *12* junk emails from your 
"spamslammer" telling me I needed to fill out a form to get on your 
whitelist.  I think it's very bad policy to try to reduce your own 
junk mail load by increasing everyone else's.
I disagree.  This only became a hassle because of how the whitelist 
combined with the Finale mailing list.  When I get a whitelist message 
in response to an individual email I've sent to a specific person, it's 
no big deal.

I think all whitelist software AND all mailing list software ought to 
have some sort of warning about this in the window where one subscribes 
to either.  That is, the whitelist software says, "If you subscribe to 
any mailing lists, be sure to include them among your 'safe' 
addresses", and the mailing list software says, "If you subscribe to 
this list and you use whitelist software, be sure to add the list to 
your 'safe' addresses".

That would help others to avoid the careless mistake Klaas made.  I 
don't think anyone does something like that intentionally.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Secondary beam problem

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 29, 2004, at 5:39 AM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

I worked out an interesting kludge of my own which looks great for 
this particular combination of rhythms; I'm not sure whether it could 
always be used.
Excellent idea.  I hadn't thought of using dots and hiding them.  Your 
way is about as kludgy as ours, but a lot less work to set it up.

Even if it doesn't work for every case, it's good to have one more 
trick in the bag for when it does work.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Funny message

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 29, 2004, at 10:17 AM, Klaas de Jong wrote:

For your information: the program itself generates the text, so I'll 
give the owner a hint, that people don't like the 'aggressive' 
content...
Some of the whitelist messages I've received from others must allow the 
user to enter his or her own text, because I've received ones that are 
clearly personalized.  Not personalized to the recipient, of course, 
but obviously written by the person subscribing to the service.

If this service doesn't allow for that, it ought to.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Secondary beam problem

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 29, 2004, at 2:16 AM, Mr. Liudas Motekaitis wrote:

Anybody know of an easier method?
Well, I don't know if my method is *easier* -- they're probably about 
the same -- but I'm more comfortable with it.  I get nervous with 
anything that relies on pushing an element off the edge of the page.  
Maybe I'm just being uptight over nothing, but I worry about what's 
going on in the Postscript data and whether it's going to come back to 
bite me some day.

It's a shame we even have to discuss kludges like this.  The fact that 
you can't extend complete secondary beams over rests without extending 
secondary beam stubs to the rests as well is bizarre.  And anyway, 
there ought to be a tool for adjusting secondary beam length.

I wonder how Sibelius does with a rhythm like this.  Are the beams 
right by default?  And if they aren't is it easy to fix them?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Secondary beam problem

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 28, 2004, at 7:52 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

I may be missing something obvious, but I can't find a document 
setting to get Finale to do what I want, and I also can't find a tool 
that will let me adjust the length of secondary beams within a 
measure.

Am I missing something?
I've always thought that the behavior of secondary beams is uncommonly 
stupid when "extend secondary beams over rests" is checked.  Does 
anyone ever like those ridiculous oversized beam stubs?  I know I 
don't.

I agree with your assessment of what it ought to look like.  I would 
have thought that this could be achieved with some combination of the 
special tools, but after playing around with it for a while, I'm as 
stumped as you are.

The best I can suggest is a kludge, with your example 3 as a starting 
point.  From there, you can fill in the incomplete beam either with a 
shape expression placed just right, or else -- my choice -- a 
non-playing second layer made up of 16th notes defined as tuplets so 
that they exactly overwrite the actual notes (ie, one 16th in the space 
of three 32nds, then one 16th in the space of one 32nd, etc.). You'll 
also have to move the beams up vertically on the kludge layer to get 
them lined up right.

I can spell it out in more detail, but I think you get the idea. It's a 
pain in the butt, but I believe it yields the result you want.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Funny message

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 28, 2004, at 1:54 PM, gj.berg wrote:

Ahhh, I get it!  It's interesting that the wording of this letter (by 
Mark and Ilesa I presume) actually assumes that I am a guilty spammer 
and my only hope for non excommunication (BLACKLISTED!!! say it ain't 
so!) is to prove I'm human.
The moral question is-- Why write an insultingly worded 'SlamSpam' 
that can insult a human while seemingly trying to scare a machine?

Does the machine care?  If not ( I assume everyone is with me on that 
point)-- why not word it as sweetly as possible.  The machine still 
won't be flattered.  :)

All that programming and so much aggression.  Terrifying.
That's a good point.  I've gotten "whitelist" messages before, from 
real human beings whom I am acquainted with, and they've always had 
very polite wording, apologizing for the rudeness and inconvenience.  
This one is so rude that even if K.P. Dejong were someone I was 
genuinely trying to contact, I'd be tempted to tell him to buzz off.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 28, 2004, at 2:33 AM, d. collins wrote:

I don't quite agree, because I see three reasons for putting it 
before, and none for putting it after (whereas in the example you give 
of quotation marks it makes no difference):
- traditional practice, from what I see both in most of the scores I 
own and in all my reference books.
- more important: a singer might change his intonation depending on 
the punctuation, just as you change your intonation in regular speech 
depending on the punctuation mark (or the absence thereof) - question 
mark, exclamation mark, comma, period (full stop), etc. It makes no 
sense to have the singer wait until the end of the extension (and 
possibly turn a page) to discover this.
- it's easier in Finale.
Well, I wasn't trying to convert anyone to the punctuation-after-line 
style.  I don't even use that style myself.  I was just objecting to 
your statement about what the logic in favor of that style is, which I 
thought (and still think) was an oddball logic that no one who favors 
the style actually believes.

As for your three reasons, the second one you mentioned in an earlier 
post, and I think it's a good argument in favor of 
punctuation-before-line. The third reason is an artificial one, but, as 
I acknowledged in an earlier post, it's the reason that I converted.

Your first reason I think is weak. If you were to change it to 
"convention" you might have a better point, since it does seem as 
though the punctuation-after style has come to dominate.  But by citing 
"tradition", you imply that everyone has always done it that way, which 
really isn't the case, as Johannes's Bärenreiter example illustrates.

I think this is another case where one style gradually became dominant 
and then once it became secure, history was rewritten to imagine the 
tradition is more complete than it really is, sort of like the notion 
that tempo marks are always in bold.

I would say that tradition is in fact the greatest reason in favor of 
the punctuation-after style, since the minority that still prefers it 
that way does so mostly because that's what they're accustomed to 
seeing in the musical niche they most frequently inhabit.

As for the comparison to comma and quotation marks, I can point you to 
another forum where all would strenuously disagree that "it makes no 
difference".  There is a vigorous and perpetual debate among editors 
and the like about whether to put punctuation inside or outside quotes. 
 Non-engravers, even including most singers, would probably tell us 
that punctuation before or after the line "makes no difference".

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 27, 2004, at 11:26 PM, d. collins wrote:

Well, the logic of having the punctuation after the extension is based 
on the fact that the punctuation should come only once you've finished 
singing the syllable. Pushing that "logic" step further, the last 
consonant should come after you've finished singing the vowel(s), i.e. 
at the end of the syllable also, just before the punctuation, and 
after the extension.
Thanks, Dennis.  I think I understand your thinking now.  Or rather -- 
since I gather you don't accept the logic yourself -- I think I 
understand what you think others are thinking, even though I wasn't 
thinking that.

It never occurred to me to think of the line as representing the vowel 
sound and the punctuation -- much less a consonant -- occurring 
"before" or "after" it.

The way I think of it, the line is just a line.  You don't "sing" the 
word extension line any more than you sing any other punctuation mark.  
The question of which mark comes first is sort of like the same 
question for a comma and quotation marks.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 28, 2004, at 12:52 AM, d. collins wrote:

I just tried it: there's a box to tick that says "Allow punctuation 
marks to be placed on last note of word extension", and another box to 
fill in with the punctuation marks affected by this. The only problem 
is that it seems to have absolutely no effect. I removed my word 
extensions, and created new ones with this option, and the punctuation 
remains before the extension. I tried a couple of times, just to be 
sure. I guess the plug-in must be reading my mind ;-).
I notice that the label only says "allow" punctuation marks, not that 
it actually places them there.

The basic kludge for putting punctuation after the line is to attach 
the punctuation mark to the final note, as if it were a separate 
syllable.  I assume the option discussed here is simply to inform 
TGTools that that's what you're doing so that it will know to draw the 
lines accordingly.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Punctuation and Word Extensions

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 27, 2004, at 8:36 AM, d. collins wrote:

I'd never noticed that the NBA did this, but you're right, I just 
checked. I also checked my four reference books, and all agree that 
this is wrong. I find it very weird to have a ; or a , after a word 
extension, but I'd be interested in hearing other opinions.
Doesn't seem weird at all to me.  I think of punctuation after the word 
extension to be just as respectable a style as punctuation before.  One 
of my clients routinely does it that way in her handwritten 
manuscripts, and several old publishers do as well.

When I first started engraving, I had a mild preference toward 
punctuation after the line, but since there was no easy way to do it in 
Finale, I switched, and now I'm used to seeing it Finale's way.

I'm intrigued by the comment that TG Tools can do this.  Is there 
anyone out there who uses that feature regularly?  How well has it 
worked for you?

Following your logic, the final consonant of should also come after 
the extension - since the extension is necessarily sung on a vowel.
Huh??  I don't see how this has anything to do with punctuation.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] One More tuplet question...

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 27, 2004, at 3:28 PM, Fisher, Allen wrote:

Are tuplet brackets allowed to fall inside the staff? (as you can
probably tell, I do very little with unbeamed tuplets...)
I don't know what the authorities say, but I think a tuplet bracket 
within the staff lines looks horrible.  I avoid it.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Note duration change problem

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 26, 2004, at 11:01 AM, Jamin Hoffman wrote:

The problem is that any notes I entered into layer 2 do not get
moved correctly.  The problem seems to be with the whole rests in
the measures that I didn't enter any layer 2 notes.  While Finale
does change the duration of the notes, it doesn't change the
duration of the empty measures in layer 2.
I haven't tried this, but it seems like it would work:

1. Select everything. Run Plug-In -> Note, Beam & Rest Editing -> 
Change to Real Whole Rests.  This will put a real whole rest into every 
empty bar.

2. Select everything. Run Mass Mover -> Change -> Note Durations.  
Choose Change Selected Note Duration from whole to half.  This will 
change all the whole rests into half rests. (It would also change any 
whole notes, but since you're in 2/4 to start with I assume there won't 
be any whole notes.

3. Select everything. Run Mass Mover -> Change -> Note Durations again. 
This time, choose Change All Note Durations by 200%.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] How do I make Finale's interpretations go away?

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 24, 2004, at 11:04 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Since when are dynamics and articulations so incredibly unimportant
that you wouldn't want musicians learning them *from the beginning*?
Hm.  On the one hand, I completely agree that dynamics should be 
emphasized right from the beginning.  In my chorus director days, I 
always made a point of that.  On the other hand, it still seems 
entirely natural to me that if you're creating a playback file for the 
chorus you'd want it at a constant dynamic.  It's just a more useful 
tool that way.  Even when I used to make practice tapes for the chorus 
by playing out the notes on the piano, I would still play at a constant 
dynamic.

Based on the original poster's descriptions, I assume we're talking 
about experienced volunteer chorus singers, like the sort you have in a 
typical community chorus, or low-level opera or symphony chorus. Those 
are the types I've worked with.

The point is that you want to break it down.  Yes, you want to work on 
the notes AND the rhythm AND the dynamics AND the words, etc, and you 
don't want to neglect any of them, but with amateur chorus singers the 
most effective way to do that is to take each element one at a time, 
taking turns between them until you're ready to start putting it 
together.  The MIDI file, which many amateur singers rely on to learn 
their notes, is about pitches and rhythm. It doesn't include the text 
(obviously), it's probably not at tempo (unless the piece is slow to 
begin with, it omits all dynamics, and it probably omits most of the 
other parts, or at least turns down the volume on them.

If you're interested in the dynamics, text, and what the whole thing 
sounds like put together, that's a different tape.

I used to be more idealistic and theoretical about this sort of thing 
before I became responsible for a chorus. Then I became interested in 
what works.  Different singers learn in different ways. A lot of them 
want a tape that drones out their notes, and if I provide them one, 
they'll use it. Then they come to rehearsal knowing their part better, 
which means I can spend more rehearsal time working on the real music 
(including dynamics) and not waste it all banging out notes on the 
piano. It's usually a pain in the butt to make the tape, but I've found 
that it's worth the effort in terms of results.

I understand the concern about singers learning their parts 
metronomically without any sensitivity to the music, but in my 
experience, making an un-nuanced tape does not worsen the risk of that.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] How do I make Finale's interpretations go away?

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 23, 2004, at 7:59 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:

You could also use Mass Mover to clear these things. In Mass Mover, do 
Select All (which *does* select all measures), and then Clear Items | 
Only Selected Items | Entries | etc. Make sure you look under Measures 
(for measure-attached items) and Notes (for note-attached).
Well, since this is a throw-away copy of the file for MIDI purposes 
only, another way to delete all the expressions and articulations is to 
forget about the score and just delete everything in the Expression 
list. That way you'll know you've gotten everything. Ditto for 
articulations.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] How do I make Finale's interpretations go away?

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 23, 2004, at 8:06 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Of course, I can't quite conceive of why having dynamic marks and
articulations in playback would interfere with aural proofreading, as
one person said, or why you'd want to redo everything in the score
from scratch in a hand-edited MIDI file, but I have very little
imagination, I guess.
On my old system, anything less than mp was inaudible, unless I turned 
the volume up so high that ff was deafening.  My client wanted the 
dynamic markings defined, and he chose the key velocities that worked 
well for him.  If I wanted to do aural proofreading, I'd have to edit 
out the playback definition and then edit it back in.

My new system has much more reasonable playback, but it's still easier 
to do an aural proofread at a constant volume. I'm not listening for 
overall feel here, I'm listening to make sure that every note is 
exactly right -- no missing accidentals which appear right but play 
wrong, all ties implemented properly, etc.  These little nuances can 
get lost if the dynamic is too low.

In the larger scheme of things, it's not a top priority, but it would 
definitely be useful if there were a checkbox that allowed one to 
override all key velocity settings for playback.  And another checkbox 
to override all tempo settings.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Hyphen under rest?

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 22, 2004, at 9:18 AM, d. collins wrote:

I have a word that begins with a melisma on the first syllable, 
followed by a rest before the second syllable. The hyphens continue to 
run under the rest. Is that how things should be, or should the 
hyphens stop after the last note, before the rest?
Hyphens continuing under the rest is correct.  I wouldn't call it rare. 
 I've even seen it in pop music.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 20, 2004, at 12:49 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Well, if even if my proposed improvement to the staff tool is 
implemented, you needn't use it!
Perhaps I gave the wrong impression.  I wasn't objecting to your 
proposal at all.  I thought you were trying to persuade me to start 
using dragging instead of my accustomed method.

Well, that's a pretty good batting average, but how long did it take 
you to get there?
Years, probably, and I had a head start from many more years before 
that in non-wysiwyg typesetting.  Visualizing the page is second-nature 
for me.  Continuing to do it even when it's not necessary probably 
reinforces the skill. There's a lot of things which I could initially 
place with point-and-click but I generally don't. (I anticipate this 
might change for measure expressions with the new features added in 
2k4.)

And shouldn't we be trying to make Finale easier for new users, as well
Absolutely.  I'm all in favor of making improvements for everyone, 
whether they're things I myself use or not.  I know full well that I'm 
an atypical user in my habits, and like most of us I focus on a 
particular type of work to the neglect of much of the rest. I'm sure 
that more than half of the program is stuff that I never use.

Also, IIRC, you don't work with orchestral scores much.
True. My experience is primarily with three-staff piano-vocal, and most 
of the rest is some sort of choral or vocal ensemble that rarely goes 
beyond six staves.  I'm sure I'd develop a different set of procedures 
if I were to do a lot of orchestra scores.  I certainly wasn't 
suggesting that my own rules should be imposed on everyone else.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 20, 2004, at 12:04 AM, d. collins wrote:

Why? And what do you mean by "exact increment". A whole number of 
spaces? Or do you accept fractions?
Yes, I mean a whole number of spaces, which is 6 points, or 24 evpus. 
(I sometimes switch to evpus for smaller numbers or inches for larger 
ones, but my usual preferred unit is the point.)  I would accept a half 
a space in an extreme situation where my vertical situation is 
difficult, but I honestly can't remember if I've needed to resort to 
that.

Why?  Well, I suppose a lot of it is just that it appeals to my sense 
of order.  I'm sort of a control freak, and I like to carefully manage 
where everything appears.  If I see a page of piano music where in one 
system the staves are 84 points apart and in the next they are 82.75 
points apart, my gut reaction is "why?"  In a larger sense there's no 
real harm in it, but I can't help thinking that the gain of 5 evpus 
cannot possibly make up for the distastefulness (to me) of the 
inconsistent placement.

I think there is aesthetic value is consistency of sizes and distances. 
 I feel the same way in non-Finale design.  If I'm composing an 
advertising flyer, it would offend my aesthetics if one line were set 
in 61pt type and another were in 59pt type.  If the two lines are 
equal, they should match; if one is to be bigger than the other, the 
difference should be significant.  I don't much care for eyeballing and 
approximation.

Given my orderly approach to almost everything in Finale, there are 
conveniences of keeping to my one-space grid in moving staves.  Several 
things are easier to do when the staves are predictable like that, and 
a few things are very problematic when they aren't.

For example, it simplifies the math in balancing the space between 
systems to make the bottom system of the page at a constant vertical 
position; it facilitates orderly and attractive vertical placement of 
dynamic markings that appear between the piano staves; etc.

For the latter, doing a two-staff arpeggio mark is one thing which 
would be nearly impossible if the two staves aren't placed at a proper 
vertical distance.  Otherwise the wiggles cross the staff lines at one 
position in one staff and at another in the other. For me, that's 
unacceptable.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 20, 2004, at 1:47 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

First off, Johannes is right, you should definitely start using 
TGTools Staff List Manager (with the "relative" box checked) instead 
of the Staff Usage dialog.
Thanks, that's now on my list of TG tools to investigate.  I've been 
busy with other things and haven't done any significant Finale work in 
about a month, and the next project on my list is to update to 2k4 
(especially since the upgrade price expires in nine days).

Second, dragging (with auto-adjustment of subsequent staves) could 
easily compliment the Staff List Manager .  You could use dragging to 
get the staves roughly where you want them, resolving collisions, 
etc., then use the Staff List Manager to make sure that all of your 
distances were set to a multiple of 6 EVPUs.

After a while, you do get used to making good guesses when you type 
numbers into the Staff List Manager, but it would still be a huge 
improvement to be able to actually see what you are doing, while you 
are doing it.
Certainly not a "huge improvement", possibly not an improvement at all. 
 Using your method, I would still enter the Staff Usage numbers in 
every case, plus I'd be adding the step of dragging before it. Thus the 
question is whether the addition of this small precautionary step is 
worth it in exchange for what it saves in having to do the numbers 
twice if I miss the first time.

As you say, with experience one gets used to visualizing the system 
without needing to see it.  I'd estimate that I get the placement right 
the first time about 85% of the time.  Does that work out to a gain in 
efficiency if I drag first?  Maybe, but probably not much.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 19, 2004, at 11:45 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

You should use TGTools. It doesn't let you drag the way you want, but 
it
does let you enter numbers in a much more convenient way.
Thanks, I'll look into it.

For many years I was working on an old system on which TG Tools was 
inoperative, so I developed most of my habits without it.  Since then, 
I've obtained TG, but I've only started using the few I really need and 
haven't explored the rest.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Resetting Tuplets

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 19, 2004, at 6:02 PM, Richard Yates wrote:

Sorry, but I apparently do not understand how what you want to do is
different from what Change--Tuplets does.
What he wants is to be able to use Change -> Tuplets with all the 
settings entered to match his Default Tuplet Definition.  For a single 
tuplet definition, the Reset button does that, but in Change -> 
Tuplets, the Reset button instead sets all parameters to no change.

What would be helpful is if there were a second button under Change -> 
Tuplets that sets all parameters to match the default, but there isn't. 
 As it stands, to do what Brad wants to do, one must call up the 
Default Tuplet Definition, make a note of all the settings, then 
re-enter the same numbers and checkboxes under Change -> Tuplets.  
That's a lot better than changing each one individually, but still not 
as convenient as it might be.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Vertical spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 19, 2004, at 5:52 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

 I don't know about anyone else, I almost never want to move one staff 
up or down and have all the subsequent staves hold their positions.
For me, I wouldn't say "almost never".  However, when it does happen, 
my thinking is always something like:  I want to add 6 points between 
staves A and B, and I want to subtract 6 points between staves B and C, 
so -- how convenient! -- I can just move B and the others stay put.

By the way, I never move a staff by dragging, and I always use the 
Staff Usage dialog instead, but it's the same problem there:  I have to 
go through the whole system adding the same number to each staff from 
the one I want all the way down to the bottom of the system.

I suppose what I'd really like is if there were a way -- or maybe there 
already is? -- that I can set a minimum increment for vertical 
positioning of staves.  Then I'd nudge them instead of goiing to the 
Staff Usage dialog.  Currently, dragging is unacceptable to me because 
I want my distance between staves to always be an exact increment of a 
space, and I can't be that precise with dragging.

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Re: [Finale] Customizable zooms

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 18, 2004, at 10:30 AM, Richard Huggins wrote:

Would anyone else besides me like to have the ability to customize the 
zoom
percentages, so that using the zoom tool took the zoom to a 
user-determined
pecentage? For example, 200% on the first click might work for my 21"
monitor, but doesn't for my laptop. I'd like to be able to set the
percentages myself so that I can use the Zoom tool to stage up / stage 
down
the percentages aaccording to my prefs.
I would like that.  In particular, I'd like a key for 150%, which I use 
quite a bit.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] TAN: binding oversize pages

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 15, 2004, at 4:33 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

This may be a stupid question, but when creating center-stapled parts, 
what do you do when you have a single middle page, like for instance 
in a five-page or six-page part?  Since it can't be stapled, how do 
you attach it?  Do you just leave it loose?  Do you only create parts 
that are multiples of four pages, and leave the last pages blank?
I don't know about in music, but in other publishing it's commonplace 
to always have a multiple of four pages (or even eight, depending on 
the method).  Try finding any magazine that doesn't, for instance.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Adjust Syllables

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 15, 2004, at 4:21 AM, d. collins wrote:

Thanks, Mark, for this and your other reply on the hyphens. It's 
interesting to have your opinion as a singer. It's also interesting to 
hear that this is the standard style in opera.
I probably should clarify:  It's not so much a matter of opera vs pop, 
as old vs new.  The point is that in opera we're accustomed to looking 
at music that was engraved 100+ years ago. Even the new editions 
usually are just reprints of old plates.

Among recent editions which are re-engraved, most switch to the 
flush-left way (eg, Schirmer) though a few stick with the tradition 
(eg, International).  Note that by "recent" here, I'm still talking 
about 10-25 years ago.

Singers who sing exclusively pop might find the older style odd.  
Anyone who sings anything classical -- eg, anyone in a typical 
community chorus -- will be probably comfortable with either style. 
Strict traditionalists would presumably object to the flush left for 
the same reason that they object to eighths on separate syllables 
beamed together, but I think they're a small minority now.

But going back to the original question that started all this, in my 
own work I treat centered as my default for a syllable that starts a 
tie or melisma, but I will always nudge a long syllable a little bit to 
the right, just not all the way to flush left.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Adjust Syllables

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 15, 2004, at 2:52 AM, d. collins wrote:

Gerou-Lusk: "Another help in reading melisma is the proper alignement 
of the lyric. The word or syllable, instead of being centered under 
the note, should be aligned flush left with the left edge of the 
notehead."

Ross: "I personally see no musical advantage to [this] rule."

How do others feel? Does it help or not the singer to have the 
melismas and tied notes left aligned?
As a singer, I can read either without distraction. Centered feels much 
more "normal" to me, but that's probably because of my background in 
opera, where the centered style is the standard.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Adjust Syllables

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 15, 2004, at 12:06 AM, d. collins wrote:

Does this mean that in certain cases you do away with the hyphen? I've 
often been tempted to do this, but many singers have told me this 
makes the music much harder to read. Has this prompted any complaints 
from the singers?
I've never heard complaints.  Of course you only put the syllables 
together when the notes are close enough to warrant it.  I find I do it 
quite a bit in German Lieder, where one often has long syllables on 
short notes.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] 1st and 2nd Endings -- Automatic Dots after the numbers,

[Mark D Lew]

Obviously I'm not understanding everything you're talking about here.

Isn't this "dot" just a period that you type after the number when 
setting up the repeat?

As for the various bracket alignment issues, can't you fix most of that 
under Document Settings -> Repeat Endings.

I vaguely remember working on the  first and second endings *once*.  On 
my first try with a Coda template they came out crappy looking. Then I 
spent some time to fix them up on my template and everything was fine 
after that.

What am I missing here?

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Adjust Syllables

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 14, 2004, at 8:36 AM, Richard Huggins wrote:

Well, not to press the point --but I'm sure I am-- I'd like to hear 
what it
is you and Clay are using Adjust Syllables so often to fix. Working as 
often
as I do with choral scores but almost never needing to use Adjust 
Syllables,
I'm wondering what kinds of situations I apparently am not 
encountering or
somehow are pre-solving. Are you moving the syllables left or right to 
avoid
stems or other musical elements, up or down to line up with something 
else,
something having to do with chant-type music, or...?
I discussed this at nauseating length in another thread only a few days 
ago.  To summarize, in approximate order of frequency:

- The one thing that I do on every vocal score I do is I nudge to the 
right any syllable that ends with a period or comma.  I also make 
similar adjustments for other punctuation marks.

- If music is tight and syllables are long, I will make adjustments to 
both the spacing and the syllables, in order to obtain an optimal 
balance between spacing of the music and spacing of the lyrics. 
Typically, this will mean nudging long syllables away from each other. 
The basic idea here is that the eye can tolerate a small amount of 
offcentering and it's worth using this to maximize even spacing of both 
note and lyrics without allowing one to cause imbalance in the other.

- If two syllables in a hyphenated word fall at a distance where they 
are too close for a hyphen to fit comfortably between but too far to be 
flush, I will fix this by either adjusting the syllables, the music 
spacing, or both.

- For syllables which start a melisma or tie, my default position is to 
center the syllable under the first note.  If the spacing is such that 
this results in a word extension line which is too short to leave alone 
and too long to omit, I will nudge the syllable to the right and omit 
the line.

- If a short syllable falls under a downstem, in certain contexts it 
creates an illusion of offcentering, and I'll adjust to compensate.

There's probably a few others I'm not thinking of, but those are the 
main ones.

By the way, I never use Adjust Syllables to move them up or down. If I 
need to move lyrics up or down, I do an entire system-verse at once 
using Adjust Baselines.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Adjust Syllables

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 12, 2004, at 12:05 PM, Clay Zambo wrote:

From: Richard Huggins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Sorry for the delay...I've been wanting to check my own Finale on my
computer but it's being moved. My recollection about adjusting
syllables is that while two handles appear, the bottom handle is the
only one you need. I do not actually know what the top handle is for.
I've always just clicked the handle nearest the syllable itself and
then moved it.
The top handle is used for the alignment and justification functions, 
which by definition apply to the whole stack of syllables.

Curiously, if you select a single syllable you cannot access alignment 
or justification through the menu, but you *can* access it right-click 
contextual menu (in which case your selection applies to the whole 
stack).

Most of this is meaningless if you only have one verse, which is 
probably why you never noticed.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] lyric and chord spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 10, 2004, at 9:23 PM, Don Hart wrote:

Thanks, Mark and Christopher.  You guys and a few notable others 
always seem
to take the time to help out even (maybe especially) when Finale is 
having a
little trouble holding up its end of the bargain.
Thanks for the kind word, but to the extent that I "take the time to 
help out", it generally means I'm (1) out of work, or (2) 
procrastinating. (And sometimes both!)

Seriously, I too have been helped quite a bit by members of this group, 
both on the List and in private email, so it's good to be able to give 
some back.  And if the repayment goes forward to someone new rather 
than back to the same individuals who helped me, so much the better.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] lyric and chord spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 10, 2004, at 8:33 PM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

Thanks for posting your procedure -- I don't have too much experience 
with vocal music, so I'm still trying to figure out what works and 
what doesn't.  As I turns out, I guess I must be doing at least 
something right, because my procedure is pretty much the same as your 
first four steps.  However, once I've done that, I have previously 
been reluctant to move syllables around too much -- maybe a couple of 
nudges here or there (especially on hyphenated syllables), but I 
mostly try to resolve problems by making the whole measure wider, or 
sometimes widening the problematic half of the measure with TGTools -- 
or, of course messing with the beat chart.  I was sort of surprised to 
find that it's kosher to make major adjustments in syllable 
positioning.  Do you have a maximum threshold for how far you can get 
away with moving syllables?
Not mathematically, no.  Basically, my rule is that I won't push it any 
farther than what looks good.  More precisely, I'm trying to achieve 
maximum readability, and even spacing of the notes themselves (ie, how 
they'd appear if no lyrics were involved) is an important consideration 
to the extent that it can be achieved with the lyrics still fitting 
well.  I've seen plenty of published songs -- always newer stuff -- 
which are obviously spaced with the lyrics checked under music spacing 
options and frankly I think they look like shit.

Now that you mention it, I don't really make "major adjustments" in 
syllable positioning. If a bar needs more than a minor adjustment, I'll 
revisit the spacing of the notes instead, whether it's adding to the 
measure width, tweaking the beat chart, respacing it with lyrics turned 
on again, or whatever.  I also frequently make small adjustments to the 
beat chart to get something to look good.

Even so, I'll also do a lot of *minor* nudging syllables.  I think of 
two or three nudges at 200% to be perfectly reasonable on almost any 
syllable if there's good reason for it. If I've got a fairly tight 
measure where proper spacing of the notes (ie, with lyrics ignored in 
the spacing) leaves the lyrics crowded but not actually running into 
each other, I will push them around a nudge or two this way or that to 
get a more even balance of the syllables. My feeling is that slight 
advantage to the eye of better spacing between syllables more than 
makes up for the even slighter disadvantage of slight offcentering from 
the note. The other main reason to nudge is when a hyphenated word is 
too close for a hyphen but too far to be flush. Then you've got to push 
it either in or out. If it's way off, it'll have to be addressed in the 
beat chart, but

Context matters a lot. I don't actually center syllables to the vowel, 
as some older styles recommend, but I'm definitely more liberal about 
nudging a syllable in the direction of centering the vowel. What sort 
of note is above the syllable makes a big difference in how the eye 
reacts to offcentering. For example, a syllable under a downstem eighth 
note which finishes a beam is generally going to appear too far to the 
right, because the beam going left and not right creates an optical 
illusion. For a short syllable in such a situation I'll sometimes nudge 
it a touch to the left just for that, and in any crowded measure, such 
a syllable can bear being pushed left more than would a syllable under 
other conditions. The same is true to a lesser extent under any 
unbeamed downstem note.

I know that some styles ask for syllables to be left-aligned on a note 
which starts a tie or melisma.  I don't follow that style; I center all 
such syllables. Nevertheless, I'm more wedded to the illusion of 
centering than to mathematical centering, and for that reason I'll 
often nudge such syllables a bit to the left, particularly if it's a 
long syllable or the measure is crowded. (This is what I had in mind in 
responding to Don's query, since he described such a measure.)  I'll 
typically nudge such a syllable rightward about four arrows at 200%.  
For a similar reason, the first syllable of a system sometimes respond 
well to a slight rightward nudge.

I always left-nudge any syllable that ends in a punctuation mark, a 
little more so if it's a period or comma, and a little less for 
something taller, and a lot more for a dash or ellipsis.  I think most 
engravers do this, though we might vary on the exact amount. (This, at 
least, is something which seems like it could be automated with little 
difficulty.)

There's probably other things I'm not thinking of right now.  My only 
real rule is to make it look good, and any patterns I cite are 
descriptive not prescriptive. I've been doing piano-vocal music for 
many years, so it's sort of instinctive for me. Part of my routine to 
go through and entire song and touch up all the lyrics. Although there 
are definitely patterns, everything is pretty much an eyeball judgment. 
For instance, if 

Re: [Finale] lyric and chord spacing

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 10, 2004, at 2:36 PM, Don Hart wrote:

I'm using finmac2k2 and I'm trying to deal with the space eating way 
Finale
spaces a lyric or chord attached to the first of two tied notes.  Does
anyone know of some setting I'm missing or a non-labor intensive 
workaround
for this?  I've known about and worked my way through the chord 
situation
before but hadn't until today noticed virtually the same problem for 
lyrics.
You're not alone. The type of music you describe is particularly 
problematic for balancing music spacing and lyric spacing 
considerations.  With the partial exception of the TG Tools, I don't 
know of anything that would really qualify as non-labor-intensive.

Perhaps someone will show me otherwise, but in my experience is that if 
you want really good spacing for music with lyrics you need to go 
through and set it yourself. If you're interested, I could share some 
general techniques which I've found useful in reducing the work.

In your case, the first thing I would recommend is this:

(1) Space the entire piece just as you've described;

(2) Ignoring the ugly spacing for now, check that the page layout is 
how you like it, and lock all the system breaks;

(3) Go into Music Spacing Options and uncheck Lyrics;

(4) Respace the entire piece, and update layout.

This will put all the notes pretty much where you're going to want them 
to be.  Now you can go through the piece and push syllables left or 
right as needed (mostly right).

If you're a perfectionist like me, you'll also make additional spacing 
adjustments to certain bars on a case-by-case basis -- especially if 
nearby bars have wide variations in note/lyric density.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] comparing finale/sibelius - subset: Finale lies?

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 9:44 AM, Phil Daley wrote:

Note bene:  I am not familiar with note scanning software.

I am _extremely_ familiar with character scanning software.

"95% accuracy" in scanning conversion to text produces a useless 
document.  It is more work to clean up that mess than to retype it 
from scratch.

95% "sounds" good.  In reality, it produces an illegible (and 
unreadable) text document.
That also matches my experience, from my days as typesetter for a 
weekly journal that reprinted numerous press releases.  Unless the 
accuracy is up around 98% you're going to spend more time futzing with 
the file than you would retyping it.  Part of the problem is that you 
don't know where the 5% errors are, so in addition to fixing the 
errors, you have to double-check everything.

Admittedly, an important factor in this equation is how fast a typist 
you are.  If retyping is a slow process for you, then your threshold of 
accuracy to make scanning worthwhile is going to be lower.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] comparing finale/sibelius

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 4:28 AM, David H. Bailey wrote:

There's actually FOUR kinds of lies, to paraphrase Mark Twain (I think 
he originated it): 1) Lies, 2) Damn Lies, 3) Statistics and
4) Marketing.
The line appears in Twain's autobiography, but he himself attributes it 
to Benjamin Disraeli.  More precisely, he characterizes the phrase as 
"attributed to" Disraeli, so perhaps he's just claiming that others 
have made the attribution.

There is no evidence that Disraeli ever used the phrase.  It was, 
however, used (in slightly different form) in an 1895 article by 
Leonard Henry Courtney, in which he characterizes is as "the words of 
the Wise Statesman", which presumably led to the misattribution.

See .

Not mentioned there is that the same quote has been attributed to Henry 
Labouchere, another articulate Liberal MP of the same time period.  I'm 
not aware of any evidence for this attribution, either.

Two possibilities here:  (1) One of these fellows really did use the 
line, and that's where Courtney got it, but no earlier written evidence 
has survived.  (2) Courteney was just being rhetorical, and others 
later had their own interpretation of who the "Wise Statesman" must be.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Triplet question

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 5:06 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

In 4/4, one normally "shows" beat 3 of a measure when it contains 
eighth note values or smaller.

However, I've run into a situation where my source has the following 
rhythm:
[...]

In other words, an eighth-note triplet starting on the "and" of two.
[...]

What say you all?
I say it depends on the context and the style of music.  I do stuff 
strongly in the classical tradition, where there is a stronger 
expectation of not having syncopations go across a major beat.  Thus, 
in my context, I'd spell it out the detailed way, with two smaller 
triplets and a tie across the beat.

I'm less familiar with pop and jazz, but my impression from the scores 
I've seen is that in those traditions it is far more common to have 
various sorts of syncopated rhythms that cross a major beat, and I 
assume readers of that sort of music aren't fazed by them.  So if I 
were transcribing music in that sort of tradition, I'd write it with 
the single eighth-triplet starting at beat "2.5".

(I still think "2.5" is a very strange way to label the 'and' of two.  
I only call it that because you do and Finale does, but it feels very 
much like 1.5 to me.)

mdl

P.S. You posted from Earthlink again

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Re: [Finale] Another tuplet question

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 9, 2004, at 6:12 AM, Darcy James Argue wrote:

What is the standard way to notate a sixteenth quintuplet when only 
the final note is played?  What do you put under the bracket:

A quarter rest followed by the sixteenth note?

Two eighth rests followed by the sixteenth note?

Four sixteenth rests followed by the sixteenth note?
Perhaps I'm an inferior musician, but I confess I would have difficulty 
playing this any different from an ordinary 16th note pickup, unless 
the tempo is REALLY slow.

For the engraving question, my gut instinct is the middle option.  No 
real logic there, just a sense that it would be least distracting when 
sight-reading. I'm open to persuasion on that point if others feel 
differently.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Dot beyond barline (Was: Re: comparing finale/sibelius)

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 8, 2004, at 10:49 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

3. things that one takes for granted as taken care of by default in
one program that need futzing around in the other.
All of those are issues that have an impact on usability, and the
balance may be very different for different repertories.
And different personalities of users, too. Some people don't mind the 
futzing around, and might even like it if they're control freaks. 
Others hate it.

Myself, I find there are certain things I'll happily futz over at great 
lengths, and others I don't want to mess with at all.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] 2k5 features (was Expression Metatools)

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 8, 2004, at 12:22 AM, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

but I solve this problem by using a "hard" hyphen rather than a hard 
space, so that on the first note after a system break in WIN FIN, I 
would use an "alt - 0173" hyphen as the character to which the 
additional hypens in the succeeding system are attached.
That sounds like it works on Windows.  Your "hard" hyphen is a separate 
ASCII assignment for the same character, which doesn't exist on Mac.  
The opt-hyphen recommended by the Finale help is actually an en-dash, 
which looks different.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] 2k5 features (was Expression Metatools)

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 6, 2004, at 9:29 PM, Harold Owen wrote:

I'm just getting up to speed with FinMac2k4. There have been only a 
few changes since 2k2. Now [...]
Thanks for the updates. The fact that the lyrics window still has no 
zoom is just insane. Any normal sized lyrics are going to look tiny on 
the screen under the current scheme.  The other changes sound nice, 
though nothing really significant.

The Edit Lyrics box still shows the lyrics in the actual font, size, 
and style.  You can't zoom in, which my poor eyes would very much 
appreciate.
Anyone's eyes.  It's horrible that they still haven't fixed this.

Lyric spacing still has problems when two notes are assigned to a 
syllable. The second note is invariably spaced too far to the right. 
[...]
That's sort of inherent in the program's simple algorithmic thinking. 
The syllable is x wide, and spacing measures from the widest part of 
each item.  It makes for ugly results, of course, but I can see that it 
would be more than a simple tweak to make it work respectably well.

The TG Tools plug-in is a large improvement, but it still doesn't get 
things right enough that I'm not going to go back and make adjustments. 
 Frankly, I think that really good lyric spacing would be extremely 
difficult to program.  I know that when I make adjustments to beat 
spacing and syllable adjustments, it's highly contextual. It would take 
an extremely sophisticated algorithm to match all the considerations 
that go into it.

That said, there are some simple improvements that would go a long way.

mdl

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Re: [Finale] 2k5 features (was Expression Metatools)

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 7, 2004, at 12:34 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Meanwhile, since I'm stuck with WinFin2K3, what's the usual technique
for getting hyphens into a score after line breaks? I have never
figured out how to do it.
Many recommend putting a hard space under the first syllable after the 
system break.  I don't like that for two reasons.  First, the leftmost 
hyphen appears too far to the right unless you drag the hard-space 
syllable leftward.  Second, if you're not careful about how and when 
you enter the hard-space, you could end up with your syllables out of 
order in the lyrics database, in which case you've opened the door for 
messed up hyphens if you rearrange things later.

I use a measure attached expression.  My templates each include an 
expression for just this purpose, sized and spaced to match my regular 
lyrics exactly.  I know the H and V coordinates to place the hyphens 
exactly where I want them, and I can choose the number of hyphens by 
editing the text of the expression (duplicating if I need another one).

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Re: comparing finale/sibelius

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 6, 2004, at 1:26 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

This is, of course, wrong, as PICKUP MEASURE is not one of the
choices under Document Options. This stymied me for quite some time!
Instead, it's just OPTIONS | PICKUP MEASURE.
My Fin Mac 2k2 doesn't have either of these menu items.


This uses the method that Finale always uses, which involves the
MIRROR tool. The results are quite problematic [...]
Yikes, I should think so.

Seems to me that changing the time signature of the bar is the 
eminently sensible method, and if anything is going to be done to 
simplify the process it would only be a plug-in does the exact same 
thing but automates it for you (including adjusting the measure 
numbers).

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Re: comparing finale/sibelius

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 6, 2004, at 11:30 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:

Finale's original pickup measure solution was (and still is)
terrible, so I think most of us just use measures in different meters
to accomplish the task.
I never even knew there was another "pickup measure solution".  I've 
done it as a "display 1/4 as 4/4" sort of thing for as long as I can 
remember.  How else would you do it?

mdl

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[Finale] 2k5 features (was Expression Metatools)

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 6, 2004, at 1:39 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

I don't know whether the feature set for 2k5 has been decided yet, but 
it
certainly wouldn't hurt to send those feature requests to MakeMusic 
now.
It's going to be a few more weeks before I get around to upgrading to 
2k4 (Mac), and I never did see 2k3, so I hope it won't be too late by 
then.

Can someone tell me what the situation is with the Lyrics windows 
currently?  I know that my more extravagant thoughts about how Lyrics 
ought to be aren't really practical, but at the very least I'd like to 
see something done about the atrocious UI that the Edit Lyrics and 
Click Assignment windows have in 2k2 (no zoom, resize, etc.).

mdl

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Re: [Finale] Global setting for a collection

[Mark D Lew]

On Feb 5, 2004, at 12:15 PM, musighi wrote:

I am preparing a collection of 30 children's piano pieces for 
publishing and would like to create a unity of appearance throughout 
the book. I find going through each piece one at a time and setting 
standards for layout, margins, system spacing, fonts (textblocks, 
lyrics, copyright), etc., extremely time consuming and tiresome. Does 
anyone know if there is an easier way or a global setting for this 
kind of work? By the way, I am running Finale 2004 on Windows XP. 
Have the 30 songs already been set?  If not, the obvious thing to do is 
create a template file that has all the settings you want for every 
piece, and then use that as your starting point for each individual 
song.

mdl

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