Finale Forum

I'm writing mainly chamber ensemble music these days, the goal being to publish, sell pieces, etc. I focus on composition rather than preparing parts, but when I need to refine/spiff up work for showing someone, it takes me FOREVER to get it perfect: endless adjustments for stuff like hairpins for multiple parts, making sure everything lines up, dynamics consistent, etc,, etc.) Over the years I prepared a million horn charts for small groups, but that was like tenor sax/trpt./bone, not larger ensembles, and basically simple stuff. And I played a lot of professionally done parts for gigs and I know the parts MUST be right; nothing more annoying for the players than flawed, poorly-laid-out charts. I know pro copyists get this stuff done fast and clean; that level is not my goal, but I seriously need to up my game in terms of working efficiently, i.e. professionally--Can someone maybe direct me to videos, courses, etc. that I can work through to learn to work far more efficiently? Thanks for any help.

Even though we are using computers, engraving takes time and there is a lot of detailed work involved. Before the days of computer engraving, a well-known English composer was asked to write a wind quintet to be ready in a month; he said he allocated one week to write each of the three movements, and one week to copy out the score and parts. A finite amount of time also has to be allocated to putting music into the computer. It took me some time before I was faster on the computer than I was copying out the same music by hand.
Unfortunately, unlike Dorico where the parts look good straight away, tidying up parts in Finale is a nightmare, it takes ages to get the parts to a standard I expect.

Get a book on notatlion, like "Behind Bars." Study published works you think look good from a player's perspective. Try to replicate them in Finale.

Not what I'm looking for. I know what great-looking work looks like; played a million pro charts. I need hands-on instruction/guidance in learning how to set up my work/ carrying out basic functions properly so I'm not sitting there endlessly adjusting and re-adjusting hairpins, dynamics, etc. It is maddeningly tedious and every second I'm doing it I'm thinking, "this cannot be the right way to do this." I imagine higher-level users setting up quickly from a template, laying down articulations, hairpins, etc, en masse, everything nicely spaced and laid out; when they need to move a staff up or down they do it efficiently as opposed to individually readjusting ten separate items.....in other words, "professionally." The way I'm working now, it's as if I used MS Word and painstakingly indented each paragraph, did all word changes separately as opposed to search/replace / BANG, etc.

If you posted a page of your score or part maybe we could give more detailed advice.
One problem I had when I started was the layout of staves. Sorry if you already know this but a lot of problems can be sorted out in the Page Layout. Make sure every page is the same format, every page has the same margins. The Space Systems Evenly box is useful, as is the Fit Measures under the Utilities menu. Sometimes I have to through each system and page individually.
Regarding the positioning of hairpins and dynamics this is something you have to decide for yourself but I often have to reposition dynamics by hand. At the moment I am studying the engraving of a Hindemith score for twelve instruments, published by Schott, and the layout of dynamics is not consistent and depends on the notes they are attached to.

Nick, do you know about Perfect Layout?

I do not! All ears.

John beat me to the punch on suggesting the Perfect Layout plug-in. It's not cheap, but it works very well. Recently I ran it on my son's big band score and he said it saved him many hours of fine-tuning. Here is a link so you can see the kinds of adjustments it makes automatically.

https://elbsound.studio/perfect-layout/overview.php

::: Bill

I was a skeptic at first but now I would not want to be without Perfect Layout. It is amazing and what Finale should do on it own. But MM does not see fit to offer it so you have to buy it for yourself. It is the best single thing you can do to improve Finale besides NotePerformer3.

I use it on everything from quinete, quartets to full concert band charts. Matter of fact I did very few full band stuff before I got PL. Now since PL, I have probably done as many as I ever did in the past.

Here is a sample first page after PL. Keep in mind that I did not move anything from where Finale put it unless I had a reason for my own clarity while I was composing it. It spaces and lines everything up. The extra beauty is if you don't like where it placed something you are free to do edits after running it. In my case I don't like how it handles measure numbers so I adjust them manually after I run PL. What you see is just the default settings which do a nice job but there are dozens of settings you can change to your personal choice.
Quite frankly I don't understand MM not embracing Perfect Layout because they don't seem to be able to come close.

I might add, I do run music spacing and Patterson beams before. This is not necessary but I think it looks better if you do. You should also create a "Cue" category for cues. I don't so I adjust them after running PL. I have even gone back and run it, updated, some of my older scores.

Tip: Make sure you have plenty of space on a page. I usually reduce the percentage to 90% or even 80% before running it. If you don't have enough space on a page PL will tell you it can't run until you fix that issue.

<<Regarding the positioning of hairpins and dynamics this is something you have to decide for yourself but I often have to reposition dynamics by hand. At the moment I am studying the engraving of a Hindemith score for twelve instruments, published by Schott, and the layout of dynamics is not consistent and depends on the notes they are attached to.>>
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Yeah, ***....hopefully some of the suggestions here will really help.

I'm definitely going to look into PL.....seems like it would automate a lot of things that you otherwise have to do by hand; that is EXACTLY the issue I have....making necessary adjustments to parts can't be avoided; it's part of the game. But endlessly readjusting things constantly, no way. Gotta be a better way to do it, so I'll try it.