Mass add accidentals

[Alex Rockwell]

Is there a way to add an accidental to all notes on a given staff position for an entire document? I know you can modify all notes of a given staff position in a whole measure at once, but it would save me a ton of time on this particular project if I could make this one mass edit.

[Peter Thomsen]

Plug-ins menu > Scoring and Arranging > Canonic Utilities…

[Alex Rockwell]

Unless I'm not puzzling out how to use this plug-in to achieve what I'm after, I don't think this is what I need.

For instance, I'm looking to take every note G in my entire document and modify it to G#. I don't want to transpose anything else.

[zuill]

Note Mover Tool/Search and Replace.

Zuill

[Alex Rockwell]

That's no good either. You can still only do one measure at a time, and you have to independently set slots for each measure based on how many notes it contains. I'd have to completely change my settings for each measure, which would take much longer.

I want to take every single G natural in my document and change them to G# all at once, with just a few clicks. So far, it seems the fastest way to achieve the desired result is to use Simple Entry to arrow through every single note in the document and hit the plus key every time I pass a G.

Unless I'm missing something with the Note Mover Tool.

[zuill]

The Note Mover Tool can do a whole document at once, or you can proceed note by note to pick and choose as you go. You can also choose either the specific octave, or all octaves.

http://usermanuals.finalemusic.com/Fina ... ?cshid=143

Zuill

P.S.: Read the instructions carefully as it can be a tricky tool to get to know.
P.P.S: I just tested a document with a page full of Gs. I changed them all to G# in less than 15 seconds, from start to finish.

[Peter Thomsen]

OK, now I understand.

You are talking about changing the pitch, not about displaying (courtesy) accidentals.

An idea:

In this example change G♮ to G♯ everywhere in the document.
(I could be wrong, but it is my guess that your document displays the key of C Major = no key signature accidentals).

Use the Key Signature Tool, and change the key signature to a (special, non-standard) key signature that has sharp on the G step, and leaves all other scale steps unchanged.
Use Linear Key Format 2; the Linear Key Formats 0 and 1 are “hardwired”.

When you, from the dialog box Nonstandard Key Signature return to the dialog box Key Signature, do not click OK immediately, but first choose
Hold Notes to Same Staff Lines (Modally)
Then, click OK

Now all G’s have been changed to key signature G♯’s, but you probably need note accidental G♯’s instead.


To avoid that the G♯’s get changed to A♭’s, the following process requires two steps:

Change the key signature to (ordinary, standard) D Major, but this time choose
Hold Notes to Original Pitches {Chromatically}

Finally, change the key signature back to C Major, this time choose (again)
Hold Notes to Original Pitches {Chromatically}


This method works for me.

[zuill]

I still think the Note Mover Tool is much easier. Only takes a few small steps and a few seconds. One thing to be aware of: if you only want the tool to process one staff, instead of a whole document, then either go to the linked part, or create a staff set in scroll view with only that staff. Otherwise, replace All will process all staves in the score.

This is an easy method once you learn how to do it.

Zuill

[Alex Rockwell]

Thanks zuill. It looks like once I set my Search and Replace criteria (transpose G up an augmented unison in all octaves), I should choose the Search menu and select Replace All, right?

According to manual, that should do what I'm after, except every time I do it Finale crashes... Maybe it's having a hard time due to the size of the document. It's 28 pages.

Well, I'm on Windows, so thankfully Alt key shortcuts are available to me. If I hold the alt key and mash R and T, I can spam the Replace, Then Find function in the Search menu until I get through the whole document. Still a little goofy, but it's faster and less tedious than thumbing through in Simple Entry at least.

And if anyone is wondering what I'm doing, I'm making a large book of scale exercises for guitar in every key. I'm using an already completed natural minor scale exercise as a template for harmonic minor, which means I need to chromatically raise all my 7th scale degrees.

[motet]

I tried it on a big document and it replaced a few but then quit (no crash--it just didn't go very far). Seems flakey. But perhaps I'm not doing it right--I find the multi-step user interface rather odd, so maybe I'm not understanding.

[motet]

Played with it some more. Tried it on a 14-page part in Page View and it quit after a couple of pages. In Scroll View, it made it to the end.

On a 177-page score in Page View, it seemed to hang--I killed it with the Windows task manager after about 20 minutes. In scroll view, it went a couple of pages and then quit.

[Alex Rockwell]

Tried it in Scroll View. It didn't crash this time, but it did get locked up a little and then just sort of... gave up after about 13 measures. Only 172 to go.

Pretty screwy.

Ah well. I'd rather have a mindless key mashing method than one that behaves erratically or requires to me focus without blinking as I do it all manually.

[zuill]

On to Square 2. How about Jari's JW Change Pitches plugin?

Zuill

[HaraldS]

This JWLua script changes all G's to G#'s in a selected region.

Code: Select all

local pitch = finale.FCString()
local measures = finale.FCMeasure()

for entry in eachentrysaved(finenv.Region()) do
    for note in each(entry) do
        measures:Load( entry:GetMeasure() )
        local key_signature = measures:GetKeySignature()
        note:GetString( pitch , key_signature, false, false)
        if ( pitch.LuaString:len() == 2) and ( pitch.LuaString:sub(1,1) == "G" ) then
            pitch.LuaString = "G#"..pitch.LuaString:sub(-1,-1)
            note:SetString( pitch , key_signature, false)
        end
    end
end

[motet]

JW Change Pitches seems to work, and very quickly, too.

[zuill]

The only thing is that, unlike the Note Mover Tool, it doesn't have an option to choose the octave. It changes all of the notes in any octave. That would generally be desired, but you never know.

Zuill