Finale Forum

This is a two-part question:

I. One of the things Finale is bad at, in my opinion, is music spacing in vocal music: the spacing is done primarily to accommodate the lyrics, but then often the piano part looks ridiculous--four quarter notes in a row have nothing even resembling equal spacing; the first one takes up half of the measure, and the other three are bunched up in the other half. It must look so confusing to the pianist. Or worse, I have one measure in which b. 2 in 4/4 in the voice and right hand of the piano lines up exactly with the "and" of b. 2 in the left hand of the piano!

None of the automatic spacing options on Finale fixes this, so I have spent hours re-spacing, to the best of my ability, getting it so it looks somewhat less ridiculous, though I am never entirely satisfied.

If anyone has ever come up with good ways to deal with this, I'd appreciate it.

II. I've literally spent hours working on this respacing, and now I find that it's all been automatically respaced. I lost all of that work! UGH I guess it's in Preferences in the automatic settings, but which of the various things should I uncheck? Reflow systems across page? Automatic Update Layout? Automatic Music Spacing?

Thanks,

Mark
Finale 25
Mac OS 10.11.6

Uncheck Automatic Music Spacing. Once I have my lyrics in for rough spacing, I turn it off so I can tweak things and they (usually) stay that way.

I don't think it's all on Finale. Vocal music adds an entirely new dimension to spacing. You get a long syllable on an eighth note; what is it supposed to do? And in barbershop, you might have different lyrics (and spacing) on one or more of the other lines. This is where the beat chart, and your eye, come into play. I think it's mostly a game of finding the least objectionable compromise.

Anyway, that's my take.

Thanks! And I agree that lyrics present a difficult challenge, but I never see the weird spacings I find in Finale piano parts to vocal pieces that I find it traditional engraved 19th c. songs, for example. It's definitely a compromise and is a challenge (at least for me) to find the most normal looking compromise.

M

I'm used to piano spacing accommodating vocal spacing--that's the "rules of the game". I guess I would have to see a file to know what is being seen to be able to make a comment.

Regarding Finale undoing things, first, I make multiple versions of files, one at every major step of a project, so that there are fallback versions so as to not lose too much work if things get messed up.

I use Incorporate Manual Spacing in Document Options/Spacing so as to keep what I do manually. Very little automatic spacing over-rides this (settings for unisons and seconds are the most notable examples). I lock systems as well.

I have both Automatic Spacing and Automatic Update Layout on at all times, by the way.

Zuill

Thank you!

Clarification: Manual Positioning: Incorporate.

Zuill

As has been pointed out before, turning off Automatic Update Layout will not help here since the layout is updated anyway in certain situations (such as opening the file). I'm not sure where the notion to turn it off came from. Leave it on--if can get you into trouble with it off.

zuill wrote: I use Incorporate Manual Spacing in Document Options/Spacing so as to keep what I do manually. Very little automatic spacing over-rides this (settings for unisons and seconds are the most notable examples). I lock systems as well.
I have both Automatic Spacing and Automatic Update Layout on at all times, by the way.

I concur.
All my music is vocal: you either have to accept some weird spacing here and there, or reduce the number of measures.
I very rarely do beat adjustment: I move the odd note with Special Tools, but that's it.

1) My own approach:

- Change (temporarily) the size of the Lyrics font to 2 Points less.

- Apply Music Spacing, Update Layout.

- Change the size of the Lyrics font back to 2 Points more.

- Adjust the horizontal positioning of individual syllables.


2) It seems that I get less spacing problems via the following settings:

3) Melismas are a special problem.
A solution that works for me:
attach the lyrics to a non-melismatic version of the rhythm, entered in a hidden layer.

Why are melismas a special problem? Since 2011, they've been pretty good.

I do find that the choice of font has a huge bearing on the spacing.

BuonTempi wrote:Why are melismas a special problem? Since 2011, they've been pretty good.

I do find that the choice of font has a huge bearing on the spacing.

Agreed on both counts.

BuonTempi wrote:Why are melismas a special problem? Since 2011, they've been pretty good …

Indeed.

Sorry, I was not clear.

My post was adressing the forum users with older Finale versions.

I suppose that the Original Poster - Mark Carlson with Finale 25 - does not have many (if any) problems with melismas.

I do very little vocal scores but the last year or so I have done several. I did a couple of vocal with concert band things. The score may look a little strange but the parts look fine with no additional effort. Thank heaven!
I suppose a piano and vocal is a different case though.

Thanks for all of the useful tips!

<arl