Finale Forum

Below are two Pictures. The first one is how the notes appear on the sheet. The second one is how they appear after I input them into Finale. They are all sixteen notes. I hope

Not sure why, but easy to fix. Select the second note of the group, and tap the / key to break the beam. Repeat for each group.

It seems to me that Finale is correct, but the original engraver may have had their reason. Maybe someone with a better grasp of piano can explain it. Possibly easier for the left hand to play the first note and the right hand to play the other three?

Thanks just curious.

It looks like the lower of the 2 pictures is a scan of a piece of sheet music. The image on top looks like Finale. In the original (image below), it looks like the reason for the breaking of the beam is to show alternating hands. It's hard to read the text, but my best guess.

Zuill

Thanks, Zuill. That’s sort of what I thought, so I’ll go with it!

The second example, which shows the original version, even has l. h. and r. h. (left and right hand) indications to show that the hands alternate. It also has two errors: there should be no rests in the lower staff, since the left hand is playing in the upper staff, and the sixteen secondary beams should not be broken between the second and third sixteenths of each group.

I tried reading the picture and my assumption was l.h. and r.h., but the picture was too small for my eyes.

Zuill

I enlarged the picture to make out the l.h. and r.h. symbols, which are also not properly placed in relation to the appropriate notes. The original is definitely not well-engraved.

So as copyists, is it our job to correct things like that, or do we just tell the customer, and let them decide?

When I worked for A. Arnstein in NYC copying for the major composers, we corrected all obvious errors. That was considered part of the job. Of course, anything iffy required a call to the composer. The composers were very grateful for this service, which was one of the reasons "Arnie" was their copyist.

As John said, catching composer mistakes and correcting them is part of the job. Although it worked differently in different circumstances.

When I would copy jingle recording sessions, I would automatically make the corrections and get the music on the stands. Time was of the essence.

But when I copied concert pieces, then I would stay in constant contact with the composer and would give him/her a list of anything that looked questionable to me before making any corrections.

They usually appreciated my efforts although once in a while there would be a composer who felt their music was written in stone and I would not make any corrections in these cases.