Finale Forum

I use the expression tool to accurately place guitar fingerings in Finale. After much 'angst' (and Robert Puff's invaluable website) I learnt how to set my expressions to be at a fixed offset from the vertical and horizontal click position. I have been getting better at doing this for over 10 years!

Now I am creating a duet version of one of my solo pieces. In the first guitar part my approach to fingering continues to work perfectly. However in the second guitar (lower guitar part) when I click on a note head the expression is placed above the first guitar part and the anchor point is on the top line of the first guitar part(!). Dragging these down to the correct position by hand is very time-consuming. It also looks dangerously unstable as the anchor point and correct expression place are now not necessarily related, an unrelated change might "de-position" everything .

Why does the second guitar part behaves in this way? Please could some experienced Finale user help me – I haven't had this problem in an orchestral score.

The fingerings, when finished, look good (see
https://guitarcompositions.wordpress.c ... uly-2020/


:

Sounds like your fingering category is based on an expressions category that uses staff lists, and the list is set to display on the top staff only...

I would -

1) create a new expression category for fingerings, by duplicating a category without Score List, e. g. the category Dynamics,

2) move the already created fingerings to the new Fingerings category.
When you have done so, you can reset the moved expressions to the new category’s Fonts & Positioning.

Peter, Fratveno

You are both right. Thank you! As I'd only worked on solo pieces previously I'd never needed to understand staff-lists.

Related Question: What is the name of the "tall square box containing four right point chevrons" which appears when one enters expressions?

I've never dared click a chevron for fear it would radically alter my score, but because I don't know its name/keyword I can't search the help files nor the web for its purpose. From context I guess it alters expressions alignments, but how?

many thanks

Tony

TonyEastwood wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:38 pm

… What is the name of the "tall square box containing four right point chevrons" which appears when one enters expressions? …

I am not sure the box has a name, but the triangles are called positioning triangles.

Dragging the leftmost triangle up or down moves the baseline for these expressions vertically, affecting the entire piece.
Dragging the second triangle sets the baseline for expressions for this staff only.
Dragging the third triangle, whose effect is only visible in Page View, sets the baseline for this staff in this system only.
Dragging the rightmost triangle sets the baseline for the next expression you enter.

By The Way:
There is a similar feature in the Lyrics Tool, with four similar positioning triangles.

Peter

thank you for your excellent reply. Finale is full of wonderful features (so many of which I have yet to discover . . . )

regards

Tony