Score Merger Woes

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mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:06 am

In order to make a set of parts for a 4-movement piece, I merged the movements into 1 document. After spending an hour and a half adding cues and doing other editing, I realized that the merging of the files wreaked havoc. The instrumentation (ob 1, ob 2, clar, bass clar, bsn 1, bsn 2, ten sax, hn 1, hn 2, voice, harp, dble bass) changed to fl, ob. 2, fl, and then it remained the same. In later movements, many clefs were changed to bass clef, for no reason that I can imagine; everything in tenor clef was also transposed down an octave. Some things were transposed to other keys.

I guess I wasted my 90 minutes and will have to start over. But before I do, is there something I can do in merging the four movements into one to prevent this mess from happening?

I did check in the Score Manager, where the Instrument column has all the right instruments, the Name column has the wacky new names, and everything else is right. Even the settings for names, where you can change instrument names, is right. To me, this is really bizarre.

By the way, my reason for doing this is that some of the instruments' parts for certain movements will be less than a full page, or less than 2 full pages, and I want to be able to start movements mid-page, if called for, in order to use as few pieces of paper as possible.


Thanks,

Mark Carlson
Mac OS 10.14
Finale 26


mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 1:50 am

I forgot to check the "notify me...", so I'm doing that now.

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zuill
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Post by zuill » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:18 am

I know linked parts is an important feature. However, another option is to extract parts and merge each individual part.

90 minutes wasn't necessarily wasted. It yielded an important lesson, maybe, in what doesn't work, which hopefully will lead to what does work.

By the way, we used to copy/paste to get 4 movements into one. You then need to do the editing to get the start of each movement, but that approach might work better than what you had tried with the built-in feature.

Zuill
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"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

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motet
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Post by motet » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:41 am

There's also running the paper through the printer twice. Finale's rulers should be able to help there.

Can Adobe Acrobat combine two pages into one?

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 5:49 pm

zuill wrote:I know linked parts is an important feature. However, another option is to extract parts and merge each individual part.

90 minutes wasn't necessarily wasted. It yielded an important lesson, maybe, in what doesn't work, which hopefully will lead to what does work.

By the way, we used to copy/paste to get 4 movements into one. You then need to do the editing to get the start of each movement, but that approach might work better than what you had tried with the built-in feature.

Zuill
Thanks! I used the Score Merger once before, and it worked like a charm. I wonder why it is so messed up this time!

Mark

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:27 pm

zuill wrote:I know linked parts is an important feature. However, another option is to extract parts and merge each individual part.

90 minutes wasn't necessarily wasted. It yielded an important lesson, maybe, in what doesn't work, which hopefully will lead to what does work.

By the way, we used to copy/paste to get 4 movements into one. You then need to do the editing to get the start of each movement, but that approach might work better than what you had tried with the built-in feature.

Zuill
Copying and pasting the movements was as easy as using the Score Merger, and everything--except for a few clef changes--has remained as it should.

Thanks, once again!

Mark

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:34 pm

I spoke just a bit too soon. I have one case, at the beginning of the fourth movement, where the key signature is showing as cancelling with naturals the previous measure, along with the new key signature. I don't want those naturals there, but I also don't want to turn off that feature for the whole piece, as I do want it internally, within the movements. How can I get rid of those naturals, but just in this measure?

See attached screenshot.

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motet
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Post by motet » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:09 pm

I would start each movement on a new staff system. And most people put a label between the movements (e.g. "IV"). Then you can use a measure attribute to turn off the cautionary key change (and perhaps time singature change) at the end of the previous movement. You'll want "Time signatures: always show" at the beginning of each movement as well.

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:20 pm

motet wrote:I would start each movement on a new staff system. And most people put a label between the movements (e.g. "IV"). Then you can use a measure attribute to turn off the cautionary key change (and perhaps time singature change) at the end of the previous movement. You'll want "Time signatures: always show" at the beginning of each movement as well.
Thanks. I guess I am not getting it. How do I start each movement on a new staff system if it's one continuous document? By leaving a blank measure between the movements? And where will I put the label--as a text block? All of the movements had titles, but after the first movement's, they just disappeared from the document.

Mark

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motet
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Post by motet » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:37 pm

There's a measure attribute "Begin a new staff system."

For the label, some people insert a one-measure system between movements (you'd have to add a measure for that) attach a "center between barlines" expression to it for the title, then use a staff style to hide all but the expression. The other thing you can do is attach the expression to the first measure of the new movement, and center it on the page with a horizontal offset (I can give you a formula for computing that offset if you like). Put the expression in a category so that it shows on "top staff" or otherwise get it into every part.

A page-attached text block isn't good because the movement begins in a different place for each part. You can attach text blocks to a single staff, but then you'd need umpteen of them.

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:49 pm

Thanks so much! I think I understand it all, but you might hear from me again.

M

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David Ward
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Post by David Ward » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:53 pm

mark carlson wrote:… … How do I start each movement on a new staff system if it's one continuous document?… …
You may find the JW plugin ‘Start New Piece’ useful. Select the bar where you want a new movement to start and apply the plug-in.
Finale 25.5 & 26.3
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mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:57 pm

Thanks!

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:59 pm

motet wrote:There's a measure attribute "Begin a new staff system."

The other thing you can do is attach the expression to the first measure of the new movement, and center it on the page with a horizontal offset (I can give you a formula for computing that offset if you like). .
Motet, I'd welcome that formula for horizontal offset!

Thanks,

Mark

Nick Mazuk
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Post by Nick Mazuk » Sat Mar 09, 2019 4:19 am

Here's the formula for the horizontal offset.

"1. Expression Alignment Point: Center
2. Measure Alignment Point: Left Barline
3. Additional Horizontal Offset: (distance between margins / 2 - indent) / system
scaling

System scaling can be found in Options/Page Format. For system scaling
of 85%, for example, use 0.85 in the above formula, i.e. divide by 0.85,
which will make the offset larger than the numerator."

Quite a while back, Motet posted a how-to on how to do multiple movements. I've attached it to this post. That's actually where I got the formula from.

Since I found the JW Start New Piece plug-in, I use that for everything else and this formula for creating the titles.
Nick

mark carlson
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Post by mark carlson » Sun Mar 10, 2019 3:43 am

Thanks so much, Nick (and motet)!

Mark

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