how to have different voices have stems go in opposite direc

[chill319]

When I add a second voice to a stave, Finale guesses that voice has a lower range than the first voice and changes all the stem directions in the first voice. That guess happens to be wrong in the passage I am writing. So to change stem directions, I select the first voice, highlight the area concerned, and set the stems to down (the correct direction). Now both voices have stems going down. So I select the second voice go through the same process and set the stems to up. Result: all stems in BOTH voices immediately point up. Oops. Silly me -- I had guessed it would be possible to work on one voice at a time by selecting it at the bottom of the input area.

How do I enforce standard stem direction rules and also choose the direction I want (so that the melody, in the second voice, points up and the accompaniment, in the first voice, points down).

[Peter Thomsen]

I suppose that you by the word "voices" mean Finale's 4 layers?

(and not the very special "Speedy Entry Tool" feature Voice 1/Voice 2)


Two solutions:


Solution 1:
Enter the melody in Layer 2, and the accompaniment in Layer 1.

This is the "standard solution" in Finale:
Always put the upper part in Layer 1, the lower part in Layer 2, no matter which part that has the melody.

For music already entered you can move music to another layer via
Edit menu > Move/Copy Layers...


Solution 2:
Go to
Document Options > Layers
and change the settings for each layer.