Tying chords

[Davidabb]

Hey all,

Other than when I'm writing an organ part, there is never a time when in Speedy, I want to tie just one note of a chord to another. For 99% of my writing, I want to tie the entire chord.

Now I know the rule about the mouse hovering deciding whether it's the whole chord that ties or not, but SO often, I'm flowing through my work and forget that the mouse is hovering. I then need to delete the entire measure, click a random measure, re-click the measure I'm writing, move mouse away...etc. It's a real pain. Just to get an entire chord to tie to the next beat.

Is there a way to tell Finale that in speedy, when I hit =, top ALWAYS tie the entire chord?

Any advice would be great! Thanks all!

[N Grossingink]

To tie an entire chord using Speedy Entry, place the cursor on the note and make sure the crossbar is not on any of the chord notes. Then press =.

[Peter Thomsen]

… Is there a way to tell Finale that in speedy, when I hit =, top ALWAYS tie the entire chord? …

I am not sure what you mean by your word ‘top’ ?!?

The general rule is that
- when the crosshair is on a chord note, only that note is tied,
- when the crosshair is not on a chord note (e. g. above the entire chord, or between chord notes), the entire chord is tied.

[Davidabb]

Thank you everyone. As I said, I know the rule. I'm looking to override the rule. I want to set Finale to ALWAYS tie the entire chord. Regardless of mouse or crosshairs.

It's a mistype. I meant "to" not "top."

[N Grossingink]

Enter the chord, then press the down arrow once, then press =. Assuming you enter the notes from the top down, pressing the down arrow once will move the cross bar off of any notes. If you enter from the bottom up, press the up arrow instead.

I know this is not what you really want, but if you get used to it, this might be the fastest alternative.

[HaraldS]

Is there a way to tell Finale that in speedy, when I hit =, top ALWAYS tie the entire chord?

The answer to your question is no, unfortunately. I would like such a command, too.

On Windows, I programmed a hotkey within a macro program called Autohotkey. It sends "Arrow down" 10 times, triggers the tie command from Speedy's menu, then sends "Arrow up" 10 times. This gets the Speedy crosshair out of the way for most chords, ties the chord and returns the crosshair to its original position.
Maybe some workaround like that is possible on Mac, too.

Apart from that, I also trigger the "tie backwards" command with the PgDown key and my MIDI keyboard's sustain pedal. This also helps in quite some situations, because you don't need to move hands a lot. This doesn't relate to the crosshair positioning issue, but makes working with ties in Speedy faster.