Finale Forum

I need to reproduce a pattern of ties where the tie spans note positions. The first image below shows what I'm trying to achieve. The second one shows what I get. I have a friend who was able to reproduce this accurately, but he's traveling and it'll be a few days before we can connect to figure out why I can't get this to work.

Any suggestions on how to make this happen? And to make it complicated, I need it accurately both visually and for playback, so gimmicks that give me a visual but with the dotted half notes being sounded aren't really an option.

I'm a long-term Finale user and would consider myself an expert, but this one has me stumped.

You can use the tie tool in Special Tools to stretch the tie to the half note. If you want the half note to NOT play back then you will need to use the MIDI tool to reduce its key velocity to zero. That doesn't completely solve your problem, but it's a workaround that I have used.

Bill

Did you try a slur? You can adjust it to any note or position and make it look like a tie.

I considered the slur option, but that doesn't solve playback, although I could use the other tip about the MIDI value. I didn't know about the tie tool, so that's helpful. I may have to just live with the notes replaying in playback.

You can also easily mute them with JW Change.

gougmcgrath,

Your example can be done - with both layout and playback - by using layers and the Speedy Entry Tool feature Voice 1 / Voice 2.

See the attached Finale document.

The advantage of V1/V2 (over layers) is that you can tie between notes in V1 and V2 of the same layer (in this example Layer 1).
As you know, you can not tie between different layers.

Another approach. This communicates exactly what is needed, and requires no complicated workarounds. I'm not saying it is better than any other approach. However, for me, it is easiest to read to get the desired result. It is a common method used in piano scores I have encountered over the years (too many to count--years, that is).

Zuill

zuill wrote:I'm not saying it is better than any other approach. However, for me, it is easiest to read to get the desired result.

For me this is a bit harder to read/understand.

Thank you, zuill...I didn't post it, but i had considered that and was hoping to avoid that. It is exactly right and works, but first, it's a lot of clutter on the page, and second, it loses the intention that the arpeggio is a connected line being passed from left hand to right hand. Right now, it's the only solution that's workable though. I tried the previously suggested trick with the quarter not tuples over sixteenths and as soon as I visited the measure with Speedy Note Entry, Finale respelled the notes as eighth and dotted eighth, so that was a deal-breaker.