Custom parts extraction

[Spartan]

Hello, I have a 4-movement work that uses a total of three flute players. Currently these movement are in 4 files. I would like to use ScoreMerger to combine the files, then extract custom parts for the three players. The parts/staves are currently entered as follows:

Mvt. I: Piccolo, Flute 1/2 (share a staff)
Mvt. II: Flute 1/2 (share a staff), Alto Flute
Mvt. III: Flute 1/2 (share a staff), Flute 3 (separate staff, also switches to piccolo)
Mvt. IV: same as Mvt. 1

I would like to create parts as follows
[Player X plays Mvt. I / II / III / IV]
Player 1 plays: Flute 1 / Alto Flute / Flute 1 / Flute 1
Player 2 plays: Flute 2 / Flute 1 / Flute 2 / Flute 2
Player 3 plays: Piccolo / Flute 2 / Flute 3 & Picc. / Piccolo

What is the best way to accomplish this? Right now my best guess is to duplicate the file, delete the rest of the staves (oboes, horns, percussion, etc.) and drag/drop these parts into 3 separate staves with custom staff/group names. But I'm wondering if there's a faster/easier way to do that. It's OK is Flute 1/2 see each other's notes.

Thank you.

[Peter Thomsen]

Welcome to the forum!

Are you an experienced Finale user?
I am not sure, how detailed instructions you need.

… I would like to use ScoreMerger to combine the files, then extract custom parts for the three players …

Finale has linked parts.
Is there any particular reason why you extract parts - instead of using linked parts?

This is how I would do - with linked parts:

Merge the four movements into one Finale document (use the ScoreMerger).

In the merged document, create three new flute parts - you could e. g. call them Player 1, Player 2, Player 3.

In each of the new flute parts, include all three flute staves.
Then, for each movement, hide the staves that are not needed for that particular player.

… It's OK if Flute 1/2 see each other's notes …

If it is preferred that “Flute 1/2 see each other's notes”, then you are done already.

Hiding the “other's notes” will require some extra work, but the details depend on the layout in the Flute 1/2 staff.

[Spartan]

Hello Peter, thank you for your suggestion. It mostly worked, but with some tweaking required. I should clarify, I did indeed mean to use linked parts, but I was careless with my language when I typed "extract." I forgot that that word has a very specific meaning in Finale.

Here's what I ran into:

First, ScoreMerger only copied all of my expressions for the first movement. In movements 2-4, none of the tempo marks, tempo alterations, or rehearsal marks copied over (however, all dynamics, expressive text, and technique text did). These three items are all grouped together in the Edit > Edit Filter menu, so there must be a bug in the ScoreMerger with "stack selection" expressions.

Then, after creating new parts and including all the staves in each one, and hiding the unneeded staves in each part (as you suggested) by applying the staff style "Force Hide Staff (Collapse)," I got frustrated when I couldn't correctly create multi-measure rests for the displayed staves. After a while, I realized this was because there are notes in the hidden staves, and this was preventing those measures from being included in multi-measure rests. But I couldn't delete those notes because doing so would delete them from the other parts. So I ended up extracting the parts I had created and deleting the notes in the new files.

So I ended up having to use a combination of linked and extracted parts. In the end, I have precisely what I needed. Thanks for your help!