set default accidental spelling

[David M]

I know (I think?) I'm not crazy, I remember seeing a way to do this in a past version but now I cannot find it. HELP!

I'm writing serial music, naturally with no key signature. But I'm finding there are certain black keys that I almost always want to have a specific spelling. For instance when I play in a D#/Eb I want it to show as a D# almost always. Finale is defaulting this note to Eb; even if I edit it to D# then play another of the same note it does this Eb, even when I put a tie on the first corrected D# and play the same pitch. On occasion I'd want the Eb spelling, but I can edit those because they appear much less often than the D#. I'm also going to prefer C# over Db, and there are other cases. Incidentally I note that, if I enter a chromatic scale, F# is the only default sharp spelling. I of course see reason behind this, but sometimes I'll want to change such defaults for a piece.

I feel like I remember discovering a dialogue box somewhere, years back when I didn't really understand Finale at all. I tried opening 2009 today and couldn't find it (I think I owned 2006, could have been there?).

But I think there was a dialogue box with little buttons so you could pick between sharp and flat for each pitch class. Has anyone else seen this? Where? Or is there another way to specify accidentals prior to note entry?

Thanks!
David

[Peter Thomsen]

… I think there was a dialogue box with little buttons so you could pick between sharp and flat for each pitch class. Has anyone else seen this? Where? Or is there another way to specify accidentals prior to note entry? …

The general solution:
Finale menu > Enharmonic Spelling > Use Spelling Tables

The next step is that you define your spelling table:
Finale menu > Enharmonic Spelling > Edit Major and Minor Key Spellings…
or
Finale menu > Enharmonic Spelling > Edit Modal or Chromatic Spellings…

… when I play in a D#/Eb I want it to show as a D# almost always. Finale is defaulting this note to Eb; even if I edit it to D# then play another of the same note it does this Eb, even when I put a tie on the first corrected D# and play the same pitch. On occasion I'd want the Eb spelling, but I can edit those because they appear much less often than the D#. I'm also going to prefer C# over Db, and there are other cases. Incidentally I note that, if I enter a chromatic scale, F# is the only default sharp spelling. I of course see reason behind this, but sometimes I'll want to change such defaults for a piece …

The “default spelling” you experience, is the default spelling in C major; all chromatic notes are spelled “as they sound” over a C bass.

From your description it sounds like you need a default spelling of
C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - Bb - B
- right?
To get this as the default spelling, just set the key signature to A minor.

[David M]

Finale menu > Enharmonic Spelling >

Thank you for the reply. I'm in Finale 2014.5 on my Mac and I don't see this Enharmonic Spelling menu under File. ...?

[David M]

Sorry, I misread. It's under the Finale menu. Thank you!

Also I see now in the help file online: "Edit Modal or Chromatic Spellings dialog box... Finale uses this table if Use Spelling Tables is selected in the Enharmonic Spelling submenu and Finale detects a mode or chromatic key created in the Nonstandard Key Signature dialog box."