Creating New Staff Style For Rhythm Cues

[wonder]

Very often in the type of charts I make, I like to create rhythm cues in Layer 2 above the staff coupled with the melody notation.

I can create the look I want but it takes a lot of steps to make it happen.

I'd like it to look like the attached picture but achievable in a staff style with these parameters:

Layer 1:
Normal Notation with stems down

Layer 2:
Normal notation with stems up and rhythm type note heads.

I can achieve this with a staff style I created that has Slash notation in layer one but when I'm doing normal notation in layer 1, I can't get the stems in Layer 1 to always be down and Layer 2 to always be up.


Is this even possible?

[wonder]

Since my DRUM SET notation is such:
Layer 1 = hands - stems up
Layer 2 = feet - stems down

perhaps I need to achieve this staff style in Layers 3 and 4.

So, layer 3 is the staff normal notation and layer 4 is the rhythm cues.

I'm just unsure how to apply Alternate Noteheads to ONLY layer 4 to change them to the rhythm type noteheads as seen above.

[miker]

Use View Active Layer Only, to just see Layer 4. Then, you can apply the alternate notation to just those notes.

[wonder]

I need this to PRINT like its seen above

[HaraldS]

I need this to PRINT like its seen above

Don't worry, it will print correctly. "Show active layer only" means also that only the active layer will be edited. After editing is done, de-select "Show active layer only" and you will see all layers. That's exactly as it will be printed.

[wonder]

Ah. So you’re saying to show active layer to do the edits?

I was wondering if it’s possible to get this look by a simple application of STAFF STYLES.


I can do it with a style I created where Layer 1 is slash and layer 2 is cue notes above the staff with stems up and note heads are rhythm style note heads.

But I assume you can’t achieve what I want by Staff Style rules.

[miker]

View Active Layer Only should really be Edit Active Layer Only. A suggestion I've made many times, over the years.

It's easy enough to mix styles. I find creating new Staff Styles to be more trouble than it's worth.

Of course, that's just me.

[wonder]

View Active Layer Only should really be Edit Active Layer Only. A suggestion I've made many times, over the years.

It's easy enough to mix styles. I find creating new Staff Styles to be more trouble than it's worth.

Of course, that's just me.

You achieved this by entering the noes and then changing the note heads?

I'm aware of how to do that...but what I'm trying to do, basically is have stems up in Layer (x) and stems down in Layer (y).

I can do that and have set that for my Staff Style called "Slash With Cues" as explained in this guys video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhsjadTIj2Y

But I'm trying to add cue notes above a normal notation staff styled measure. So the band can read the melody line as well as the rhythm cues.

[miker]

Can you draw a picture? I’m a little confused as to what should be normal notation, slash, or rhythmic.

[zuill]

If you can post a sample file, we can examine how you're doing it and maybe have a better insight as to what needs to be done.

Zuill

[wonder]

This is what I'm looking to do (picture attached.

Which I can easily do by manually entering in the changes.

https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/quick- ... hmic-hits/


I was wondering if there was a quick way to make a staff style that would achieve this look but I think I'm overthinking it.

[zuill]

Originally you asked about having the notation in the staff have stems down, but your example doesn't have that. in any event, the staff style approach is hard to manage. What I've learned to do is to achieve each step of the process with Jari's JW Change plugin. Then, once I've created each step in the process, I use the built in feature in the plugin to combine all the steps into one command. That is a powerful aspect of the plugin.

Zuill

[wonder]

Originally you asked about having the notation in the staff have stems down, but your example doesn't have that. in any event, the staff style approach is hard to manage. What I've learned to do is to achieve each step of the process with Jari's JW Change plugin. Then, once I've created each step in the process, I use the built in feature in the plugin to combine all the steps into one command. That is a powerful aspect of the plugin.

Zuill

The reason for the stems down is because if the melody is higher on the staff, the stems collide with the rhythm cues.

The example I posted was from Finale's Blog that I came across after Google Searching. It's not anything I created ... it's what I found on a Finale page.

I have the JW plugin but haven't dug into it. I'll check it out.

Thanks.

[wonder]

Of Note:

When using the JW Change Plugin and creating my own sequence ... Finale v26 crashes.

[zuill]

Did you get the 64bit version of the plugin? I know that is needed in Windows, but I don't know about Mac.

Zuill

[wonder]

Did you get the 64bit version of the plugin? I know that is needed in Windows, but I don't know about Mac.

Zuill

I did have the 64 bit plugin. But for good measure I downloaded again and replaced the old version.

Seems to be working on first try.

This sequence/plugin is really powerful. Thanks for the tips.

[wonder]

I was able to create a FinaleScript in a few mins that gets me exactly what I was looking for:

Menu item "View/Select Layer/Layer 2"

menu item "Document/Show Active Layer Only"

menu item "JW Change"
return
Press "Close"
Menu Item "Plug-ins/Note,Beam,and Rest Editing/Ledger Lines (Hide)"

menu item "Document/Show Active Layer Only"

This will apply my JW CHANGE sequence I created as its the first one in the menu and is already highlighted when the JW Change window appears.

thanks again, forum!

[zuill]

I'm wondering why you didn't also include hiding the ledger lines in the JW Change plugin.

Zuill

[wonder]

Well I didn't know how to select the category within the JW Change plugin in the script

[wonder]

I'm new to scripts so I couldn't/can't figure out how to select items within a SubMenu

[wonder]

Hmmm...still getting crashes when editing a JW CHANGE process



Process: Finale [12462]
Path: /Applications/Finale.app/Contents/MacOS/Finale
Identifier: Finale
Version: 26.0.1.706 (26.0.1.706)
Code Type: X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process: ??? [1]
Responsible: Finale [12462]
User ID: 501

Date/Time: 2018-11-05 07:08:17.278 -0800
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.14.1 (18B75)
Report Version: 12
Anonymous UUID: 9B3264C6-F7B2-A0F0-5716-387D035463F1

Sleep/Wake UUID: AA9EB4C4-E9FB-4B5D-8EA1-106A48F4D887

Time Awake Since Boot: 220000 seconds
Time Since Wake: 750 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: EXC_I386_GPFLT
Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Segmentation fault: 11
Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb
Terminating Process: exc handler [12462]

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 com.makemusic.Plugins.jwchange 0x00000001178bd6eb FCCtrlDataList::GetItemAt(int) + 25
1 com.makemusic.Plugins.jwchange 0x000000011785975b -[_FCWindowController_jwchange tableView:objectValueForTableColumn:row:] + 120
2 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff347441d5 -[NSTableView _dataSourceValueForColumn:row:] + 202
3 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34743a5e -[NSTableView preparedCellAtColumn:row:] + 473
4 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34743704 -[NSTableView _drawContentsAtRow:column:withCellFrame:] + 47
5 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34742e4e -[NSTableView drawRow:clipRect:] + 2011
6 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff347421f1 -[NSTableView drawRowIndexes:clipRect:] + 500
7 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3473ffc3 -[NSTableView drawRect:] + 1341
8 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3473c755 _NSViewDrawRect + 66
9 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3473b00d -[NSView(NSInternal) _recursive:displayRectIgnoringOpacity:inContext:shouldChangeFontReferenceColor:stopAtLayerBackedViews:] + 1545
10 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3473a9f2 __46-[NSView(NSLayerKitGlue) drawLayer:inContext:]_block_invoke + 192
11 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3473a751 -[NSView(NSLayerKitGlue) _drawViewBackingLayer:inContext:drawingHandler:] + 1769
12 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff420a5a83 CABackingStoreUpdate_ + 577
13 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff4210682d invocation function for block in CA::Layer::display_() + 53
14 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff420a4c78 -[CALayer _display] + 1839
15 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34739caa _NSBackingLayerDisplay + 531
16 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3471e219 -[_NSViewBackingLayer display] + 811
17 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff420a41a4 CA::Layer::display_if_needed(CA::Transaction*) + 634
18 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff4209242f CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*) + 319
19 com.apple.QuartzCore 0x00007fff42091d00 CA::Transaction::commit() + 576
20 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34714e41 __65+[CATransaction(NSCATransaction) NS_setFlushesWithDisplayRefresh]_block_invoke + 274
21 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff371274e9 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 23
22 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff3712741e __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 452
23 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff370c92ce __CFRunLoopRun + 1173
24 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff370c8be6 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 467
25 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff36354b35 RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 293
26 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff36354774 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 371
27 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff363545e8 _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 64
28 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34610eb7 _DPSNextEvent + 997
29 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff3460fc56 -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 1362
30 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff34609cb9 -[NSApplication run] + 699
31 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff345f93f7 NSApplicationMain + 780
32 com.makemusic.Finale26 0x000000010dd62c46 main + 351
33 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fff6433f08d start + 1