Tuplet not allowing correct amount of notes

[rustyrazor]

Consider this screen shot of what I'm trying to do:

notes.jpg

As you can see in the 1/4-note triplet, the last 1/16 note should really be an 1/8 note to fill out the bar correctly. It can be changed to a 32nd note (alt-3), but not to an 1/8 note (alt-5). I've tried approaching it a few different ways, even where an extra 1/16 note is carried into the next bar. Any thoughts?

[oldmkvi]

I think you need to uncheck "Check for Extra Notes,"
in Simple Entry Options.
Be sure to re-check it when not working on Tuplets!

[motet]

No need to turn off "check for extra notes."

If you are using Simple entry, after entering the first quarter note of the triplet, press Alt+9 and pick "3 Use current duration in the space of 2 Use current duration." Click OK, then enter the rest of the triplet (quarter, eighth rest, eighth note) without deleting the rests the program provides (it will replaced them as you enter the rest of the triplet).

In Speedy entry, before entering the first note of the triplet, press Ctrl-3. Then enter the notes of the triplet.

Don't use the separate (Tools menu) Tuplet tool. You only should need that for esoteric things.

[rustyrazor]

Thanks motet -- that works! It would just be nice if these jumping jacks weren't necessary to begin with.

[motet]

They're not jumping jacks. They're the normal and most efficient way to enter tuplets.

[Anders Hedelin]

They're not jumping jacks. They're the normal and most efficient way to enter tuplets.

It happens now and again that quite basic questions about how to write tuplets pop up here. I don't mind really, but could it be that the manual isn't sufficiently clear on this matter?

Or that many people have a bout of 'manual phobia' ?

[motet]

Probably some of both. The manual isn't bad, but it does talk about the Tuplet tool first, with no mention of having to overstuff the measure as in the O.P.'s case. I would move it to the end, after the Simple and Speedy instructions. You really only need it for some nested tuplets.

(Overstuffing the measure not only requires turning off the useful "Check for extra notes," but also getting around Finale jumping to the next measure before all notes are entered. And the resulting display is confusing since it looks like the extra note are indeed in the next measure.)

I think some people see a picture of a triplet in the main tool palette and figure that's how you do it.

People have their various ways of doing things. I remember one experienced user here that insisted the Tuplet tool was the best way. People also have various schemes involved backing up and overwriting notes when the tuplet has mixed rhythms. Whatever works, I guess, but I think this variety suggests that things are not very intuitive. Does anyone know if Sibelius or Dorico do it better?

[miker]

I don’t know about them, but I sure like the way SmartScore lets you correct them. When it misses a triplet (not uncommon) the measure shows highlighted as a duration error. You select the tuplet tool (shortcut T) and drag across the notes. It doesn't matter if it’s quarters, eighths, or mixed, it gets the bracket and the 3. If it’s a different tuplet, like 4, 5, etc. you have to go to the pallet and select that, but it works the same way. Drag across from the top, bracket on top; from the bottom, it’s on the bottom.

Unfortunately, note entry is by mouse, so it really isn’t practical for composition, but for what it is, it works well.

[John Ruggero]

Tuplet not allowing correct number of notes

[Anders Hedelin]

Tuplet not allowing correct number of notes

Or, tuplet not swallowing correct number of notes.

[John Ruggero]

Nice, Anders.

Anyway, I've embarked on a crusade to clean up the language I encounter online; something like Don Quixote's...

[motet]

One could argue here that the tuplet in question here is allowing the correct number of notes--two, or three if you count the rest--but not the amount, as measured in beats, since it was allowing a sixteenth at the end but not an eighth.

[Anders Hedelin]

Anyway, I've embarked on a crusade to clean up the language I encounter online; something like Don Quixote's...

I guess it's better to be a Don Quixote than a Sancho Panza in this case...

One snippet of what Sancho Panza could have remarked, though: "The tuplet allows" - funny expression that.

[John Ruggero]

Good point, motet, and that might have unconsciously influenced the choice of words in this case. But one hears "amount" replacing "number" constantly now from native speakers, and it sounds like an obnoxious wrong note to me. Then there "less" instead of "fewer" as in "Less people speak correctly these days." Really bad parallel fifths.

Anders, a lot of word usage (in English, at least) may start off as a figure of speech before it is accepted prosaically.
(Oops. I responded to your previous version, but I guess it still applies.)

[motet]

I know, John, and I agree. Just my attempt at humor.

[Anders Hedelin]

Thanks for replying to my missing, or too eagerly edited post, John.

In Sweden we have one or two authorities on 'språkvård'. According to my dictionary the word means 'guidance on modern Swedish usage', a rather clumsy translation, I would think, but I don't know the English equivalence to that. However, the problem with this 'guidance' is that (here) it has adopted the policy that, if a word usage is practised frequently enough, it's regarded as correct. This is not my cup of tea, really.

[motet]

That's the case in the U.S. as well. Generally, the widespread usage must be in print, and newspapers and publishers have style manuals to rein things in a bit. Like it or not, common usage is the way language has evolved and I think prescriptive efforts like the Académie française are ultimately futile.

[Anders Hedelin]

I've nothing against innovations in a language, new words and expressions has to be incorporated to modernize and vitalize the language to meet new needs.

We had a discussion here about changing or not changing the traditional way of music notation. I think we (some of us) agreed that innovations made their way into practice by evolutional principles. But also that changing the core of traditional notation wasn't an especially good idea.

I know that language, being a much vaster area, and a much more flexible and diversified subject, can't really be compared to music notation, but all the same I feel saddened when 'language guidance authorities' just give up on the traditional core of the language - that part which wouldn't really need to be changed. Innovations, yes - sloppiness, no.

[John Ruggero]

I've heard it said that great literature can act as a kind of filter that refines and slows down the natural evolution of spoken language, which is the reason that English speakers can still read Shakespeare (with a little help) after several centuries of language change.

So what troubles me is that so much of what one is now hearing indicates unfamiliarity with literature.

[BuonTempi]

The attempts to make distinction between less and fewer, amount and number, and other proscriptions (split infinitives, prepositions at the end of sentences), are themselves novelties; mostly invented by Victorian schoolteachers as a means of introducing some order into a chaotic language.

Dryden, Milton, Pope, Shakespeare, Golding and others scarcely paid attention to such rules. Shakespeare used the verb 'to window' -- hardly the actions of a man who cared for syntactic convention.

[John Ruggero]

You are right, BuonTempi. Great writers have done and will do all kinds of creative things with the language, especially the ones during the wild times of Shakespeare etc. when the language was just settling down. And the attempt to prohibit split infinitives and ending prepositions etc. is absurd since it leads to such awkward results.

I should have said:

What troubles me is that so much of what one is hearing indicates unfamiliarity with current accepted conventions of literate writing.

[Anders Hedelin]

It seems that the history of language and music notation is formed in centralistic and decentralistic cycles. The typically centralistic period in music notation would be a long one - the centuries when the ways to notate music gradually were standardized. A decentralistic trend occurred around the 1950's and 60's with all the brave 'new notations', then the pendulum swung back to a more traditional, centralistic, approach.

Probably the Victorian era was especially centralistic concerning language (not only in English-speaking countries), as BuonTempi pointed out. No coincidence that nationalism, and the forming of 'national identities' had a hausse at the time.

What kind of cycle we are in now, is not very clear. The centralistic 'good language usage' has met a kind of competition, or perhaps rather coexistence with 'blog language', which is fundamentally decentralistic, some would say populistic. As much as I dislike the phenomenon, I don't fear that the existence of 'good language usage' is threatened by it. The keyword may be 'pluralism', which, among other things, means that I too can choose - I don't really have to read blogs.

If I was lecturing - well, old habits die hard, sorry.

[John Ruggero]

That's an excellent analysis, Anders, thank you.

Actually, I am continually amazed by how good the writing is on the music notation forums, especially given the number of non-native speakers like yourself. So the occasional lapse stands out and reminds me of the steady erosion of standard English that one encounters now in the media, even from authority figures.

[motet]

I can think of one very prominent authority figure who has trouble getting a coherent sentence out.

[Anders Hedelin]

Thank you for your very kind words, John. I really appreciated that.

Occasionally it strikes me how remarkable it is that people from all over the world can use this forum because of a common language. I don't think this would have been possible let's say 40 years ago - at least not to the same extent. Apart from the fact that a Finale Forum wouldn't have had a program to discuss back then.