Organizing beats in measures

[OuelletteGTR]

Good day friends,
My obstacle today, is this. I've created a vocal melody on one staff, and a bass staff underneath. When I add the bass notes, they are aligning with the beats from the vocal line, which makes the bass notes look a bit unnatural in their position. I'm on Finale 2011 and my operating system is Windows 7. The index is a bit daunting, and it seems I'm searching forever for the solution. if anyone can tell me how to fix this, I would really appreciate it! Thank you so much.

[Peter Thomsen]

We need more info about the actual problem.

That the beat in one staff is aligned with the same (simultaneous) beat in the other staff, is standard practice.
Finale is just doing what it is supposed to do.

I suggest that you attach a (small) Finale sample document that shows the problem.
Without seeing a Finale sample document we can only guess.

[zuill]

Beats are supposed to line up. If you are saying you want the bass staff notes to be evenly spaced, that may or may not be desirable. They would still need to align properly with the treble rhythm. I think we might need to see a sample of what you are getting to advise on what might be able to be done.

Zuill

[N Grossingink]

Without looking at the file it's difficult to give a suggestion. Could you post a copy of the file here?

It's my guess that if the spacing looks a little distorted there might be too many measures on the system. Try moving a measure or two out of the system.

N.

[OuelletteGTR]

Thank you all for your replies. Yes, I do agree with you that the bass staff should align with the treble. It's kind of a long story, so I'll try to make it brief. I had a vocal line and a bass staff, but the author of the music decided to have the bass parts separated from the vocals. I'm making a songbook for him, and the bass parts will be after the main parts of the song (guitar, vocals, lyrics). I was going to delete all but the bass staff so I didn't have to rewrite the bass again. When I did this, the beats in the bass staff still reflected as if the vocal line was present. I've decided to create a new file, and start from scratch. But thank you all for your input, it's always very appreciated!! Scott.

[motet]

If you make a part with just the bass line, it will not suffer the lyric spacing.

If deleting all but the bass retained the lyric spacing, you must have automatic music spacing turned off, probably not a good idea.

[Vaughan]

If you're making bass parts by deleting the others, you're missing an important feature of a program like Finale, i.e. the ability to create linked parts which are always available, which always reflect any changes you make, and which have ideal spacing of their own.

[Christopher Smith]

If there is no vocal staff in the bass part, then it won't be taken into account for music spacing.

I am wondering if you actually executed the "space music" command? In the bass part, select the Selection Tool (shortcut is the esc. key). Select All (command A on my Mac, probably control A on a PC). Hit 4 to invoke Music Spacing. Done.

If there are extraneous beat markers that distort the music spacing (these occur when there have been edits in the part that remove subdivisions), hit 5 first (Measure Spacing) to clear the beat markers, wait fo fit to complete (it might be instantaneous for an average-sized part) then 4 for Music Spacing.