Finale Forum

Doesn't seem to like more than three examples in a post. Here is the last one:

Here are my slur contour settings.

I agree about the imprecision, Anders, and use the standard way except for special cases, like very large compressed intervals, where it sometimes the only way to do it. Motet, I agree. It's nothing I've ever seen, since placing the articulation inside the tie, as one usually sees it, does the same ...

To me it looks more correct to put the staccati outside the slur, when there's no slur+staccato articulation (portato-staccato) intended. If not the spacing in big downwards leaps forces you to put it inside on the second note. Slurs and staccati.PNG I've never seen it done that way, Anders. I have...

You are right, Anders. Slightly smaller size notes are commonly used to solve spacing issues in piano music and pianists probably don't even notice. At least I didn't until I started doing it myself, although I've never gone down as much as 80%. I stay above about 90% and use it very rarely. See the...

Looks great, Ian. That's a great way to learn about the various factors that produce good-looking engraving. There are settings to change the default shapes of the slurs that you could experiment with. Here are mine. They seem to work pretty well to avoid too much hand work. There's also slur contou...

It's the one on the right for sure. Never saw the thing on the left. Looks like a something from an EKG.

Very funny, Hector, thanks for the video!

Someone once called it "leaking". Some of the feeling that should be going into the music, leaks out. In some cases though, it seems to be compensation for what't not going into the music.

There's a version where you just gesture with your head and the software turns the page. This constrains the emoting, which could be a good thing these days.

I think that differences may also have to do with various settings in both. Finale's slurs, once the tip thickness is increased, look much better than Dorico's. But Dorico's slurs can be made to look almost as good with various setting changes. Finale's line thickness settings are too thin for many ...

David, I would be less concerned about having the two scores identical in layout than having good turns, but that might be my PTSD. Of course, the publisher is going want one layout, and I would let that be the piano layout. In preparing my scores "ohne turner", I felt honor-bound never to leave out...

My distaste for page turners reached its height at the beginning of a performance of the Brahms Piano Quintet. The page turner turned the first page and the music slid off the music rack, down on top of my hands, and then down to the floor. I continued on, there was no noise in the recording, and no...

Hector, please try to incorporate good page turns. Not every page has to be filled, some can be empty, you can even have fold-out pages. Anything but a page-turner.

Another possibility. I think that preserving the continuous beaming is important for immediate comprehension of the rhythm:
Or the beam could be centered, as mentioned previously.

You are very welcome, Ian. I confess that I have a "thing" about the style of pedal indications that combine the ped. with the bracket, feeling that it combines the worst of both styles. I use bracket- only pedal indications in educational editions for intricate pedaling that has many quick changes ...

For me the Dorico version is clearly superior, except that: 1. With Finale everything hinges on the settings. I suspect that if I were using mine, the initial result would be better. 2. Dorico's piano braces are unacceptable to me, and while they can be replaced with a glyph from another font, their...

Just to verify what Motet said: Engraver "Flag spacing" is set at 24 EVPU's by default on my system (Mac) and is only correct at that setting.

First, thanks for the compliment back a few posts, Anders. We are so often on the same page. Second, my impression is that the developer's goal is for Dorico to do as much as it can automatically. They use a "semantic approach" and are trying to hardwire in the "rules" of "proper" music notation as ...

Hector, the way you have it is the way it is normally handled. If you want the pedal to release on a rest, the pedal release appears below the grand staff directly below the rest. The rest can be in either hand or both. (See Beethoven Piano Sonata op. 57 third movement measure 5 and other measures l...

Continuing my litany of things I love about Finale, disliked about Dorico during my two trials, and would hate to give up: I love Finale's layout system, and particularly the ability to move measures from one system to the next by using the arrow keys. I find this essential to be able to quickly com...

So, I love Finale even with all its flaws :) Aside from the flexibility that you mentioned, I love Finale's slurs. With just a little bit of adjustment of the settings one can produce the best-looking slurs in the business. I would have a hard time giving that up. Now if only the slurs could have m...

John, given that the 'tools' in the side panels are entirely dependent upon what mode each window/tab is in, having them independently floating makes no sense. You can show or hide the side panels at the touch of a key; again per-window or tab. Why do you need to modify them? (Once you've learnt th...

Michel, by "workspace" I meant that one can't break Dorico up into one window for the score and have separate floating palettes for tools and such whose shape one can modify as needed, so that one can arrange everything conveniently on the monitors. So it felt like I was being forced to adapt to Dor...

There are several such issues that prevent me from using Dorico.

But a bigger one for me is the inflexibility of the workspace as compared to Finale, since I often have multiple sources open simultaneously on two monitors as I work. Michel, do you feel comfortable with the Dorico workspace?