[Dixielandjazz] Sibellius or Finale or Encore?

[dave at creolejazz.com]

Larry,

The solutions to all of the challenges you mention are really simple. Do you 
have "Type Into Score" turned on when entering your chord symbols? It just a 
matter of typing "Bb/F", then TAB to the next note then "F/C" or whatever. 
It couldn't be any simpler than that. Sounds like you and I do just about 
the same sort of work on Finale.

If you want the sound of your chords to play throughout, say, the length of 
the measure, you can do that too. If you have a 4/4 bar with eight eighth 
notes, for instance, and put the chord symbol above the first eighth note, 
Finale will only "play" the chord for the length of that eight note. 
Basically, you've told it that chord is for that note and any other notes in 
the bar may not have that chord. It's waiting for you to tell it what chord 
to "play" over the rest of the measure. You can "trick Finale" by simply 
creating invisible whole notes in every measure in another "layer" and 
attach the chords to the whole notes. This is also very simple and fast and 
after a while just becomes second nature.

The poor quality sound of the PLAYBACK is not a Finale issue but a sound 
card issue. Most sound cards don't play midi with a very "good" sound.

Changing the chord symbols font (or music font, or text font, or lyric font, 
or any font) size is easy, too. You can do it per document, per measure, 
whatever. Even the default size, type, etc. can be changed. Check PROGRAM 
OPTIONS.

As I mentioned before, Finale's strengths are in its ability to control 
*every* aspect of the output down to the finest detail. Entering and 
notating the music is easy, but there is that nasty learning curve to 
overcome, just as there is with every good notation program. Give it some 
time (which is necessary) and use the pdf manual. It is a terrific resource 
and will answer all your questions. Finally, go to the Finale online forums 
site for lots of help from many, many experts who know a lot more about it 
than I do:

http://forum.makemusic.com/

Good luck.

Dave
=================
"It's a treat to beat your feet."
The New Creole Jazz Band
Dave Gravatt
417-877-8811 (home)
417-894-8557 (cell)
http://www.CreoleJazz.com



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Walton Entertainment" <larrys.bands at charter.net>

> I'm not a fan of Finale (2002).  I import midi files and break them into
> horn parts.  Not a problem but adding in chord symbols is a real drag as 
> is
> trying to put slash bars in one part with chords above them. (as in 
> writing
> an intro for horns and chord comp part for piano and banjo with slashes)
> This is a typical jazz application and it just doesn't work very well and 
> is
> really time consuming.  When you play it back it sounds like a three year
> old playing simple triads.  Plunk Plunk Plunk.  They don't hold long 
> enough
> to actually hear what you have put in.  It's almost like pizzicato.  It
> would be helpful if it held the chord for the full duration but it 
> doesn't.
>
> I'm not a strong piano player and I really like to hear what I've written
> and Finale really does not do a good job in playback.  I can live with it
> but I would like to have something better.
>
> It's also difficult to change the size of the type on chord symbols. 
> That's
> not a biggie but it would be nice if you could globally change the size.
>
> The next thing that really doesn't work is the scan feature.  I have three
> scanners and the program will not accept files (tif) from any of them as
> it's supposed to do.  You are supposed to be able to scan in a page of 
> music
> and then have it played in band in the box playback engine.  I don't know 
> if
> that works because I never got that far.
>
> Maybe someone will either tell me what the problem is or what program will
> do what I want it to do hopefully without spending another $400.
>
> Basically, I want to: Import a Midi file. Break it into parts. Transpose
> those parts for various instruments,  change key if I want.  Add chord
> symbols to all parts properly transposed.  Put in slash marks with chord
> symbols above the slash marks.  Hopefully print a part from the program
> without extracting the individual parts causing lots of files to be
> generated.  I would like to be able to scan in a part and have the program
> recognize it
>
> I find Finale to be really cranky doing these things.  It takes me forever
> to do even a basic arrangement for three horns and rhythm.
>
> Larry Walton
> St. Louis
> ----- Original Message -----