Finale Forum

Hi all,
In my score, the piano has some passages of 32nd notes. But I have trouble fitting two bars to a system without note collisions. For these bars, I intend to reduce the size of those piano passages by a certain percentage. Is there a plugin for this?
With thanks,
Hector.
PS: Alternatively I guess I could just have one bar per system, because it will need a page turner anyway, I think.
PPS: Also, I am using MaestroWide because I liked the look of the fatter noteheads, but I should probably revert to maestro.

Not a plug-in, a built-in Finale feature. Resize tool.

Hector, please try to incorporate good page turns. Not every page has to be filled, some can be empty, you can even have fold-out pages. Anything but a page-turner.

It's also possible in a pinch to put one and a half measures on a system.

Thanks very much, all

While finger poking, I've noticed Utilities>Change>NoteSize. Is that an alternative to the % tool, perhaps? Same / same?

HP.

Update: Ok, I think I have worked it out now... The Utilities>Change route is good for doing batches of notes.

John Ruggero wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 2:50 am

Hector, please try to incorporate good page turns. Not every page has to be filled, some can be empty, you can even have fold-out pages. Anything but a page-turner.

While this is the best advice when practical, I think that at least some pianists seem happy to print a four page spread themselves from PDFs or photocopies where it might help. This was done in some streamed recitals for voice and piano during Covid when page turners were not encouraged by the venue (or the rules). Fold-out pages are fine on a piano stand, but may be more awkward for a singer using another copy of the same score.

My point: there is (almost) always a way!

My distaste for page turners reached its height at the beginning of a performance of the Brahms Piano Quintet. The page turner turned the first page and the music slid off the music rack, down on top of my hands, and then down to the floor. I continued on, there was no noise in the recording, and no one seemed to have noticed. I was traumatized, however, and from that point always prepared a score that eliminated a page turner. I never encountered a piano chamber work that required one. There was always something that could be done. The worst was the Poulenc Sextet, with only two systems on a page. But that could be handled with a condensed score on some pages.

I was always amazed by frantic requests from touring groups requesting a page turner from among my students for the "performance tonight." The pianist is playing the same few pieces for months, could easily prepare a good score, and yet relies on whatever page turner happens to turn up. Unbelievable.

John: that sounds terrifying (the Brahms Quintet - and with all those notes to play [well it is Brahms]).

I've been facing myself with a potential four page spread in my Kipling song cycle, which I would find anathema. I think it is best if the singer's and the pianist's scores are identical in layout. However, I began to think of things I've heard pianists do to cope with impossible turns. Sometimes (quite often maybe) they can get away with adapting the moment so it can be played by one hand long enough for the turn. With that in mind, and with me as the composer, I've saved the pianist the bother and have now adapted the two relevant bars in that way myself.

Despite their having so many notes to play, pianists are nearly always much more flexible and secure than are singers. The voice comes from inside the performer and anything which makes the singer insecure can effect the breathing, which in turn supports everything else. A pianist has ten fingers to play an external instrument which has already been set up (one hopes!) for intonation and a number of other crucial elements of the performance. The singer has but one throat and one pair of lungs (which act as one), and has to control every aspect of the sound herself &c &c &c.

I had a student once, who was an able pianist and who was called upon at short notice to accompany a choir. Being a good sight-reader and of a trusting nature, he just played on and dropped the sheets on the floor when done with. Until noticing there was a repeat...

David, I would be less concerned about having the two scores identical in layout than having good turns, but that might be my PTSD. Of course, the publisher is going want one layout, and I would let that be the piano layout.

In preparing my scores "ohne turner", I felt honor-bound never to leave out a note and used only "risk-free" turns, so that redistribution between the hands was generally not a factor. It involved photocopying, cut and pasting, reducing size as needed, fold-outs etc. and worked perfectly. My cohorts were grateful that during rehearsals I was not encumbered by page turns and could devote my full attention to making music, just like them. And there were no surprises in the performances.

I once attended a viola-piano recital in which the page turner turned too early and the pianist turned the page back repeatedly until the two almost came to blows onstage. One could say that "it was a truly memorable performance."

Anders, that is just as "amusing" as my experience, but at least I could blame the page turner, who from that point on was even more of a nervous wreck than I was.

I watched a video recently of a Richard Goode concert. His page turner was great--she somehow bent the page so he could see before and after at once. Though he seldom seemed to be looking at the music at that point.

Tablet displays have the potential of solving this problem with foot switches.

motet wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:21 pm

Tablet displays have the potential of solving this problem with foot switches.

Might work very well for quadrupedal pianists, especially on pianos with three pedals.

I've seen an organist use such. If they can manage it, a pianist can steal time away from one of the pedals.

There's a version where you just gesture with your head and the software turns the page. This constrains the emoting, which could be a good thing these days.

I'm sorry to say that MTT asked the SFS Woodwinds to move more so the audience would think they are having a good time!
I've seen The Vienna Woodwinds doing that, hilarious and pointless!
I and many of my colleagues were taught:
If you can't Hear it, Don't Do It...
Tho, as when the Prin Cl in the SF Opera whacks his Bell on the Music Stand,
sometimes you Can hear it!
Sabine Meyer waves her Clarinet around during Cadenzas, causes a Phasey weirdness in the sound.

Doesn't particularly bother me, but any unnecessary movement is unnecessary expended energy.

Early music types seem particularly prone to this, for some reason.

Someone once called it "leaking". Some of the feeling that should be going into the music, leaks out. In some cases though, it seems to be compensation for what't not going into the music.

For those who aren't acquainted with TwoSet Violin, here are some tips on how to put emotion into your performance (with tongue firmly in cheek)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOkchiAUO3U

Yours humorously,
Hector.

If this may be slightly OT, I hardly remember what the T was any more...
I do remember watching a kind of mammoth piano festival in Southern France where something like twelve really famous pianists played an arrangement for that "ensemble". There was Lang-Lang, with his usual uninhibited physical commitment. And next to him sat Kissin who looked daggers at his neighbour. I'm not sure which one of them was more amusing, or "leaking".

Thanks by the way, Hector, for your instructive YouTube-clip. Had I been younger...

Very funny, Hector, thanks for the video!

Some reflections on the original question: If you have a section with passages of '32nds up and down' where the individual notes aren't that important, it seems a good idea to diminish the size of them, also to distinguish them from more 'serious' sections. Practical page turns can sometimes be achieved by targeting the page before where the crowding occurs. And in a piano part (as opposed to a piano solo), there's nothing wrong with leaving a page half empty, or even completely empty. If that's not possible, making duplicates to have three or four pages in a spread, as has been suggested, would be a good idea.

Thanks, Anders. Indeed, the 32nds are mostly up and down stuff. I've reduced the note size to 80% and, with a little bit of beat chart adjustment thrown in, I am getting two bars per system quite nicely, and am able to keep the Mastro wide font in use.
Cheers,
Hector.

Thinking further. I just did an engraving where I made some 32nds passages 'up and down' in the woodwinds smaller in the conductor's score, to have them fit on one system, but 100% in the parts.

Now, in an orchestral piano part, 100% size for such passages might not be necessary, as pianists are well accustomed to reading all kinds of passages in smaller size. Am I right in this?

You are right, Anders. Slightly smaller size notes are commonly used to solve spacing issues in piano music and pianists probably don't even notice. At least I didn't until I started doing it myself, although I've never gone down as much as 80%. I stay above about 90% and use it very rarely. See the first edition of Ravel's Undine from Gaspard de la Nuit to see some extensive use of reduced note size.

Passages with a lot of ledger lines sometimes require a little reduction of the note size to keep the ledger lines from touching since Finale doesn't allow shortening of ledger lines on a note-by-note basis. Dorico does have this capability BTW.

Passages with a lot of ledger lines sometimes require a little reduction of the note size to keep the ledger lines from touching since Finale doesn't allow shortening of ledger lines on a note-by-note basis.

What's wrong with ledger lines touching? There's nothing confusing about this: