Finale Forum

I would like for Finale to display which note of the scale is selected. I can read bass and treble clef fine, but viola clef or a treble clef way way above the line, not so much. It would be very useful to be able to select a note and see somewhere in the interface which of the 12 notes of our scale it is.

Finale has a notehead set called "Alpha Notes" where the note name is displayed inside the notehead. One way to apply this is with a "Staff Style". You can apply the style to just one measure or many measures. When you're done needing to see the names, just delete the style and you revert to normal notation. You can make a shortcut key to apply the style as detailed below.

My advice? Learn how to read alto clef and treble above/below the staff. It's painful at first, but you won't regret it. The best way would be to get some viola music and play it on your own instrument, as long as the written range falls within the sounding range of your instrument.

N.

I agree that playing is the best way to learn, but here are some flashcards I made in Finale, with treble, bass, and all the C clefs, and notes from many ledger lines above to many below. You can print them out, 11" x 8.5" (landscape), two sided (flip on long edge). Cut off the top 1" and the right ½", then cut each sheet into 9 cards, 3½" x 2½". One side has the letter name, the other does not.

Thanks for info about the alpha note style, it took a while to figure how to use it, but persistence (plus RTFM) paid off.

Related to my original request, does Finale have a way to play a selected note's pitch and then advance to the next note with the arrow key and be able to hear that note's pitch, etc? (MuseScore has such a feature, and I found myself using it pretty frequently.)

I agree that if I had ears like Seiji Ozawa or someone and could just look at a note and hear it in my mind, that would be best :]

You can "scrub" by holding down Ctrl+Spacebar and moving the mouse over the notes.

Thanks, Motet. I figured out that Sh+Ctrl+spacebar will let you scrub just one staff. Without the Shift it plays all staves.