Creating Books for Musical Theater...page numbers.

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wonder
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Post by wonder » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:09 pm

I'm orchestrating a musical. I'm just prepping my files.

There's 29 tunes. I'm doing each tune in a different Finale File, obviously.

My question is about page numbers.

I'd like to output books so that when I hand this over, its a complete book for each chair.

Each Finale file has page numbers and that's great for each song. But what about for the entire book?

I'd like to have page numbers be for the entire book, not for the individual tunes.

How would one achieve this? I've only done single charts in Finale, not large books.
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motet
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Post by motet » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:14 pm

I do similar by creating PDFs without Finale's page numbers; then I combine them and add page numbers in a PDF program.

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Post by motet » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:15 pm

Finale does have a way to have page numbers start at other than 1. But (unless they've improved things) that offset is file-wide, not part specific, so you run into problems if the parts are of different length.

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Post by wonder » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:17 pm

This seems like sort of a pain ... or a problem that I'm surprised Finale hasn't addressed or offered an easier solution.


Unless I'm just not aware of another way of fixing this page numbering conundrum?
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Post by motet » Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:01 pm

Someone may know better than I, but you could also change the page offset as you print each part.

I agree it's lousy.

There are other advantages to PDF, though. You have more flexibility with these headers and footers, you can give a player an electronic copy if you want, or you can turn a PDF over to a (human) printer to have your parts done.

There's also Score Merger (which I haven't used).

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Post by zuill » Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:21 pm

Before linked parts, one could handle this easily with extracted parts. You can still do this with extracted parts, however. If any changes need to be made in a part, you just extract the part again and redo the page offset. In the long run, that workflow would probably be easier than redoing the pdf. If an extracted part ends up to be a different number of pages, then you would need to redo all the parts after that. Only time would tell whether extracting parts or combining in a pdf saves more time.

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Post by motet » Sat Mar 30, 2019 12:07 am

Or, extract parts and maintain them and the score in parallel. With 28 numbers times however many parts, that's a lot of files, though.

It seems like MM could make the page offset could be an attribute of each part, which would solve it. But it's only been ten years since linked parts were introduced, so give them time.

With 28 separate files, each number will start on a new page; I don't know if that's what you want. You might consider merging them into fewer files, say one per act.

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Post by zuill » Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:33 am

What I do is to move any unneeded Text off the page. So, in the part(s) needing the different offset, move the page number needed in the score off the page in the part. Then, create a number for that part that is dragged off the page in all the parts and score except that one part. If there are many parts needing different offsets, you'll have to drag quite a few off the page. However, this way you can maintain linked parts for future edits.

Zuill

P.S.: A quick demo of my workaround. In preparing the demo, I refined my technique from what I have done in the past, and the new method I tried saves quite a bit of work.
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Post by MikeHalloran » Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:10 pm

What am I missing?

I do not know how many shows I played (and conducted) over 40 years but I don’t recall one where the instrumental part books were numbered from page one to the end. Piano/vocal scores, yes. Conductor’s scores, sometimes but not the players’ books.

There’s a good reason for that. This blog post gives a clue:
https://www.finalemusic.com/blog/steven ... -broadway/

I can just see it in a full rehearsal. Conductor says, ‘page 156’. That means nothing to anyone else unless the show is conducted from an enhanced piano score as many are (Music Man comes to mind)—in that case, only the rehearsal pianist will have the same page number. The guitar/banjo may be on page 22 while the 2nd Reed book may be on page 13 and so on. It’s always tune or cue number and plus the measure number for the instrumentalists while the on stage actors/singers/dancers are given a more descriptive cue.

Show scores and parts must be numbered every measure. That is not optional.

Only after a show has played awhile and a production set is ordered up by the publishers for rental will page numbers be assigned to the parts—maybe.
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Post by motet » Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:38 pm

I think it goes without saying that the purpose of page numbers is not as a kind of rehearsal mark! I find page numbers very useful in opera parts, if for no other reason than they're useful to tell if you've printed the pages right and assembled them right for binding.

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Post by zuill » Sun Mar 31, 2019 1:32 am

Orchestra parts use continuous numbers, from my experience. I play from piano/vocal scores, which have continuous numbers. I would think, as Motet suggests, that there ism an advantage to having continuous page numbers for the purpose of making sure everything is there. This is especially helpful if 2 players are playing from the same part, for purposes of communication with each other. Of course, measure numbers and rehearsal marks (rehearsal letters or numbers) are used when communicating with the ensemble. Hopefully, those line up. Occasionally, I found that those don't. That happened more often in hand copied music, less so when music notation software is used.

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Post by motet » Sun Mar 31, 2019 2:54 am

I suspect Mike is saying that a world where songs are being composed at the last minute, and things are being cut or reordered when things aren't going well in rehearsal, it's helpful to be able to insert and reorder things. I'd be surprised if the parts to, say, "Oklahoma!" are still like that, but I'm not in that world. Other than that, page numbers are useful, which is why books, magazines, pamphlets, and virtually any publication with more than a few pages all have them.

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Post by wonder » Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:14 pm

I realize that there's a world where people may have used books in the past with no page numbers.

I've seen many-a-books with page numbers. I've seen some without.

I appreciate all the help thus far ... and am just inquiring about HOW to do it ... not IF it's necessary. :D

I'm going to look into the SCORE MERGER option in Finale. No idea what it is but I'm gonna look into it.
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Post by wonder » Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:16 pm

motet wrote:I suspect Mike is saying that a world where songs are being composed at the last minute, and things are being cut or reordered when things aren't going well in rehearsal, it's helpful to be able to insert and reorder things. I'd be surprised if the parts to, say, "Oklahoma!" are still like that, but I'm not in that world. Other than that, page numbers are useful, which is why books, magazines, pamphlets, and virtually any publication with more than a few pages all have them.
Yes. To all of this.
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Post by MikeHalloran » Mon Apr 01, 2019 5:47 am

. I'd be surprised if the parts to, say, "Oklahoma!" are still like that,
Prepare to be surprised. The Oklahoma! books from the 1940s are still copied and sent today—I attended a production a couple years ago and visited friends in the pit. You can always tell a fresh set by the heavy stench of ammonia used in the duplicating process.

Page numbered orchestral books that I have seen... I’m pretty sure that number = 0. Again, no two books will have the same number of pages. From a player’s perspective, what is accomplished by page numbers in the parts? As long as the songs, cues and measures are numbered, nothing else matters.

Has no one else sat in a show orchestra?
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Post by wonder » Tue Apr 02, 2019 3:34 pm

Mike, thanks for your replies.

I just did THE ADDAMS FAMILY show and not only were the songs page numbered in each instrument parts ... but the overall book had page numbers.

EX:
"WHEN YOU'RE AN ADDAMS" song had page numbers 1-12 to denote the song's length at the margin.
At the VERY bottom margin was the entire show's/books page number.

For what it's worth ... the argument AGAINST the opportunity for more organization and clarity seems moot to me. But that's my $0.02

For the sake of argument, what say I wanted to make a book of a lot of songs for something other than Broadway. If I wanted to do that...the question still remains...how does one do that in Finale? :D

P.s, I enjoy your posts on MOTUNATION as well (I'm "Wonder" on that forum).
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Post by musikai » Tue Apr 02, 2019 5:52 pm

Here are some threads with different solutions:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17058
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15061
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Post by wonder » Fri Apr 05, 2019 2:26 pm

musikai wrote:Here are some threads with different solutions:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17058
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15061

Thank you
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Post by ebiggs1 » Sat Apr 06, 2019 8:40 am

Has no one else sat in a show orchestra?
I play 2nd trombone in our orchestra and do a few shows each year. I never remember the music director calling out a page number. It always a tune name and a measure number or rehearsal mark.
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Post by wonder » Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:04 am

So maybe for the sake of argument, I change my question to...I’m doing music books compiled of a lot of different songs I already have finale files for.

How would I make books and page number them?

:)

I’m thinking scoremerger.
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Post by Jetcopy » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:41 am

As Motet said near the top of this thread, make pdf's, combine the pdf's and let it add page numbers for you. You don't want to use Score merger for this.

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Post by wonder » Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:25 am

Jetcopy wrote:As Motet said near the top of this thread, make pdf's, combine the pdf's and let it add page numbers for you. You don't want to use Score merger for this.
Great. I'll try that. Thanks!
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Post by christopherjhoh » Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:10 pm

While inserting page numbers via PDF is a useful workaround in a pinch, still Finale should allow different page number offset between parts and score. Ideally it could be changed for each part if necessary via the existing unlink/relink procedure. Failing that, at least one offset for all parts and one for the score. That might not be necessary for musical theater practice; I don't know, but in other situations, yes.

Why? It's not about merging separate files into one score. I have one score containing all the movements, for example, but there's front matter in the conductor's score that doesn't belong in the parts. E.g., program note, orchestration guide, text for choral parts, maybe even a nice cover and some other publisher info that would go on a parts "wrapper" but not on the parts themselves. And yes, there seem to be many situations where numbered parts pages are helpful to ensure pages are in the right order on the stands, even if you never ever drop them. This is particularly true if measure numbers start over with 1 at the beginning of each movement.

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Post by motet » Thu Jun 06, 2019 6:33 pm

christopherjhoh wrote:Ideally it could be changed for each part if necessary via the existing unlink/relink procedure. Failing that, at least one offset for all parts and one for the score.
If I were designing it I would just make Edit Page Offset apply only to whichever part you're working on. The unlinking business is cumbersome and unintuitive.

A single offset for all parts, different from score, might work for the case of front matter in the score, but I brake long pieces into several files, so each part needs a different offset from file 2 forward.

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Post by ebiggs1 » Thu Jun 06, 2019 8:11 pm

What am I missing?

I do not know how many shows I played ... over 40 years but I don’t recall one where the instrumental part books were numbered from page one to the end. Piano/vocal scores, yes. Conductor’s scores, sometimes but not the players’ books.
Me too! If they are they don't match or at least you can't be sure they are all the same.
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