Finale Forum

How do I achieve a rhythm "quarter, quarter rest, quarter, quarter rest, quarter, quarter rest" in a 4/4 time signature, but marked as a triplet, not a sixtuplet? Thank you!

You want a triplet of three half notes in the space of two half notes. I was able to do it easily in Speedy entry by using Ctrl+1 to set up 3 halves in the space of 2, then entering the notes and rests (measure 1 below). Simple entry gave me trouble, as you can see (m. 3). Mike Rosen?

motet wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 08, 2024 6:52 pm

… Simple entry gave me trouble, as you can see (m. 3) …

To end a measure with a tuplet, de-select the Simple Entry option
Check for Extra Notes

That's not it in this case. It was unchecked (QWERTY entry).

I did get it to work. After entering the quarter note and setting up the tuplet, it looks like this (already we're off to a bad start):
If you move the right arrow to select the first half rest and try to enter a quarter note with QWERTY, it will enter a half note instead, even though quarter is selected. It's as if it's in Repitch mode. If you delete all the rests before trying to flesh out the tuplet, you get the mess shown in my previous posting. The solution is to either click on the half rest with the mouse (with quarter note selected), in which case it enters a quarter note; or, if you leave the first note selected after setting up the tuplet and enter the original quarter note AGAIN, then it will work out OK.

At one point I somehow got the cursor between the first note and a half rest, in which case I was able to enter the tuplet, except that at the end I was left with a bunch of extra rests at the end of the measure.

What a dog's breakfast!

Worked fine for me. The sequence in Simple, using the numberpad and QWERTY keyboard:

5, pitch, OPT-9 (ALT-9 on /windows.) Set 3 half notes in space of 2 half notes. OK
0 (zero)
pitch
0
pitch
0

No backing up, no deletions, no Ëxtra Note setting.

As I've mentioned before, some tuplets push a couple of rests ahead of you. This was one of them. Not to worry. When your sextuplet is entered, delete them.

Thanks, Mike. I think I figured out what's going on. If you enter the first note with QWERTY, as you did, you get this after pressing Alt+9: But if you create the first note with the mouse, you get this: With the "caret" between the quarter note and the rest in the first case, it will then work as you've demonstrated (except the extra rests, which I think will be confusing to beginners, since they appear in the next measure).
In the second, "mouse" case, if you continue with the mouse, all will be well, but if you switch to QWERTY you run into the trouble I documented above.

So mouse and QWERTY don't play well together. I'm not much of a Simple entry user, but I usually start off with the mouse to establish where I want to input notes since that's a single step. Otherwise, you may need an extra keystroke or Ctrl+click to establish where you want to enter music. Really, it shouldn't matter how you're entering notes, or whether you delete the rests first or not--it should always work the same. This seems like a no-brainer to fix, since there's no fear of breaking anything.

There are a lot of things that could be fixed. I'm not holding my breath for any of them.

But I think it doesn't matter. If you enter the first note with the mouse, go through the ALT-9, OK, you get what you show. But if you tap RETURN at that point, the carat appears, and you can enter from there with just the QWERTY. The RETURN key seems to confuse a lot of users, especially beginners. They mouse in their first note, and then wonder where the carat went. But RETURN sets you up from there.

I didn’t know that—thanks

Thank you so much for the answers! Now I have to figure what is this Qwerty keyboard (my beginner's ears now clearly sticking out from this bush!)

A QWERTY keyboard is a standard US keyboard, identified by the first letters it the top row.