Explode music fail

[montedoro44]

I downloaded this piece from:
http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Hym ... Beethoven)

I want to explode the 2-part sopr-alt line, but Finale copies everything to the top explode line and just a bunch of rests to the bottom line. This has happened before, when I scanned some pieces. If I type out the same notes, explode works. In this case, I tried everything I could think of -- copy to a new doc, export to xml, select-all and delete all midi info, respell, retranscribe. Several times, Finale slowed to a crawl, so I restarted it. Also, there are lyrics, which I deleted. Also I copied only the Sopr-Alt staff to a new doc to experiment with -- at one point, in the (deleted) lyrics area, a stream of mysterious characters appeared, which I was not able to reproduce again, but that suggests that there is more here than meets the eye.

Side problem: I experimented by copying out the 1st 3 measures of staff 1 to a new doc -- m3 has a quarter simultaneous with eighths, so I used layer 2 for just that m. When I exploded, only the 1st 2 measures were correct.

Help, please?

[motet]

I don't have much experience with Explode, but it indeed doesn't seem to work. Download the free plug-in JW Staff Polyphony, which does. You need to add a new staff underneath Sopr. Alt first, and it will move the second voice there.

Alternatively, you could just copy and delete/move layers.

[miker]

Another way is to create a new staff under the S/A. Then, View Active Layer Only >Layer 2. Drag the layer 2 notes to the second staff, and hit Delete to remove them from the top staff. Finally, deselect View Active Layer Only, and move the layer 2 notes to layer 1.

Trust me, it takes less time to do, than to type it. You will still have to copy the lyrics down.

[montedoro44]

Thanks for that, motet! I noticed that your 1st image has the alto notes in red, meaning they are Layer 2. But on my machine they are black, so I didn't suspect that there is an active Layer 2. So I was able to fix it now in the usual way: make a new staff#2,go to Layer 2, copy staff#1 to staff#2, clear staff#1, Edit>Move/copy Layer2 to Layer1. All good.

What fooled me was that the Layer2 alto notes are black. My consciousness is raised to that possibility now. Minor new mystery about that: I looked in Preferences/Colors, and Layer2 is marked red, so I don't know why in page view they're black. Apparently, Layer2 is red on your machine.

Again, thanks.

[montedoro44]

aaah . . . xpost with miker -- thanks for that -- that's what I have been doing a lot of, as it is common practice at choralwiki. This is the 1st time any Layer 2 came in black.

p.s. -- re lyrics -- this piece will be french horn or other instrumental quartet, so I generally hide the lyrics.

[motet]

In Preferences/Display colors, make sure "Use Score Colors" is checked.

I guess Explode teases apart a single layer rather than splits layers, perhaps because you can do it as Mike describes. Get the JW Staff Polyphony--much more versatile.

[motet]

(The Es are a bit high for horn, in my opinion, if you envision that for the top line; a professional can manage it, but it's a bit treacherous for lesser players. Consider transposing it.)

[montedoro44]

Yes, my standard procedure is to select French horn for each staff, clean it up a bit -- rebeam, JV Fit Music, stem direction, etc., and transpose down by adding 1 flat. That puts the key sig & notes back to the original, but it sounds a 4th lower than concert.

That's usually good for horn group -- not too high for soprano, not too low for the bass voice. Then I turn up the volume, mute each voice in turn and play through all the voices as music-minus-one. Social-isolation quartet.

Attached, what it looks like now, except for two things I want to ask about -- off-subject, though: see in voice 2, m9 and m11, how the 16th notes are too far to the right. The only way I know how to fix when this happens (after ^u and key4) is to delete & retype each offending note. There's a gremlin in there. It's not a serious problem, as it's fixable by rewriting each instance, but is there some global fix? This phenomenon happens frequently.

[motet]

I think that's happening because the sixteenths were offset in the original because they were a second apart from the other voice.

0606.png

You'll notice the stems are flipped the wrong way in the exploded part as well.This rings a vague bell, but I don't know how to clear those alterations in Finale. Maybe someone else will.

Probably the easiest way to fix it is to just delete those sixteenths and re-enter them.

[montedoro44]

Probably right, as these are the only instances of offset notes. I'll look for this from now on as I download pieces.

OTOH, I set the tempo to 5bpm so I can easily hear if the offset 16th sounded late. It was perfectly on time. It looks like two Finale subroutines are not speaking to each other.

[motet]

Well no, they can sound together and not line up vertically by adding a custom offset to the note. In the picture I just posted, from the choral score you posted, you have to do that or else the notes would be smashed together. The bug is that when the two voices are separated, the offset remains when it's no longer needed.

[zuill]

There are several ways to fix these modifications that are left behind when exploding, amongst other procedures. Jaris JW Change plugin can do both. The 2 sub tools are Note Entries/Clear Position and Stems/Direction.

Zuill

[montedoro44]

Thanks, zuill. I started over with the original download, applied JWChange > Note Entries > Clear Position, and those two marauders snapped into place. Pretty subtle stuff!