5/12 time signature

[fry]

Is this possible?? thanks a lot for ideas and help

[Peter Thomsen]

A. Making the Duration of the Measure Correct

You must make the duration of the measure as accurate as possible to have Finale space the notes and play back properly.
To do this, you must approximate the time signature with a sum of fractions where the denominator in each term of the sum is a power of 2 (e.g. 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.):

1. Calculate the total number of EDU's required for the bar.
Recall that there are 4096 EDU's per whole note.
So, for a 5/12 bar there will be (5/12)*4096 EDU's which is 1706.666666...

2. Round up the value obtained in step 1 to the nearest whole number of EDU's.
In this case this would yield 1707 EDU's.
(Note: You can enter EDU's in the Time Signature dialog box. In fact, you can enter 1707 EDU's. But, this will not yield the desired result because the duration is not a power of 2.)

3. Next, run the Windows calculator program. Select "View>Scientific" in this program.
Be sure that the radio button "Dec" is selected.
Enter 1707.
Select the radio button "Bin".
In this case, you would then see: 11010101011.
This is the binary representation of the decimal number 1707.

4. Use the binary representation from step 3 to determine the required time signature.
To do this, take the rightmost 6 places, say they are abcdef, and calculate the sum:

32*a + 16*b + 8*c + 4*d + 2*e + 1*f

Or in this case, take 101011, and calculate the sum:

32*1 + 16*0 + 8*1 + 4*0 + 2*1 + 1*1

Which is 32+0+8+0+2+1=43.
Using this 43, the last term in the time signature will be 43/4096.

5. To the immediate left of the 6 places used in step 4, there is either a 0 or 1.
If there is a 1, then the time signature must contain a term that is 1/64.
This is not the case in this example.
Use the same process, moving one place at a time to the left, to determine whether or not there needs to be a term of 1/32, 1/16, 1/8 etc.
In this case, the places that are left of the 6 places used in step 4 (namely, 11010), lead us to
conclude that there must be terms 1/4, 1/8, and 1/32 in the time signature.

6. Collect the terms found in steps 4 and 5 and enter them into the (top) composite dialog box associated with the "Time Signature" dialog box.
In this case, you would enter beat groups of:

1 1 1 43

and corresponding beat durations of

4 8 32 4096.

In essence, we have approximated the time signature of 5/12 with the
following time signature:

1/4 + 1/8 + 1/32 + 43/4096

which is less than 1 EDU (or 1/4096th of a whole note) larger than 5/12.
This small error (i.e. less than an EDU) will probably not be audible.



B. Making the Time Signature Look Good

In the Measure Attributes for the first measure, hide the real time signature.
Also, add extra space to the beginning of the measure (try e. g. 24 Points) in order to make room for a measure expression with the (false) time signature of 5/12.

You can create the time signature as one shape expression, positioning a '5' over a '12' in the Shape Designer.
Or, perhaps easier, use two text expressions: a '5' and '12'.
If you use Points as Measurement Units, the positioning is simple, since the height of a staff is 24 Points (and the height of a scale step is 3 Points).
If you are using a music font (e. g. Maestro) for the time signature, then the '5' should have a vertical position of -6 Points from the Staff Reference Line.
And the '12' should have a vertical position of -18 Points from the Staff Reference Line.



Peter