Finale Forum

This forum as awesome, BTW. Here's my situation:

I'm using PM 2011 to write a SATB arrangement for a group of singers who are not all sight-readers (so I always supply them with an audio file of the arrangement along with the sheet music).

I have written vocal riffs comprised of notes that should be slurred together, not played individually. Visually, I want to use a smartshape for the slur--but playback does not seem to recognize smartshapes. So, I tie all the individual notes together, which sounds right in playback, but looks kinda' funky. At the moment I'm using both (ties and a smartshape), because it still looks more readable to me than a bunch of individual ties alone.

Is there a way around this? Can playback be set to recognize smartshapes? Or, can I at least "hide" the individual ties?

Thanks!

Chuck

There is a difference between ties and slurs. Are you sure you understand that?

I'm not sure what you mean by "Playback doesn't recognize smartshapes." Could you elaborate?

>>There is a difference between ties and slurs. Are you sure you understand that?

LOL. NO. I'm not sure of that at all. Musically, I possess more talent than knowledge (albeit only slightly more)

>>I'm not sure what you mean by "Playback doesn't recognize smartshapes." Could you elaborate?

Let me try to explain myself (and perhaps you can fill me in on the difference between the two terms):

The musical phrases I've written (which contain more than one identical note of different rhythmic values--i.e.: an eighth, a quarter and a whole spanning across measures) should be played smoothly, and it only sounds right in playback only when I tie all the notes together (but it looks kinda funky). If I only use the arc-shaped smart shape to envelop all those notes at once, (which I thought denotes tying the whole phrase together...?), it sounds clunky; the notes end up being played individually as opposed to sounding like one long note.

Does the arc-shaped smart shape mean something different than "tying?" (perhaps I have stepped out of the realm of PM into musicology in general--if so, please forgive).

I hope this makes sense. Thanks for trying to help me.

Chuck

The tie tool does what you want to do. It adds the value of each note to the next tied note, but it must be the very same note. However you find slurs in the SmartShape menu. The curved line that is created there is not intended to be a tie. A slur, when played by a wind instrument played is only tongued on the first note of the slurred section, all successive notes in the slurred section not being re-tongued (re-articulated). This sounds different from a non-slurred passage, where all notes are articulated. Also, the slur is used as a phrase indicator. If there is a large group of notes unter a slur, then the section is to be played similar to the way the a sentence, or at least the words between commas, are read, with a single breath, or at least a single breath implication.

Is there a way to have Finale tie notes as pictured in the attachment so that they do not re-sound when reaching the half note? It is a common enough practice but I have never been able to get the program to do this. I created the ties with the Smart Shape slur tool, but doing the ties in Speedy doesn't stop the notes from resounding.

Any help cheerfully accepted.

Thanks.

Ties created in the Speedy Entry Tool or the Simple Entry Tool should stop the notes from resounding.

Could you attach a .mus sample document that shows the problem?
Before you can upload a .mus document, you must compress it, e. g. as a .zip file.