I am usually a pretty big fan of Human Playback.  It really does add some great nuance for very little work, percussion playback not withstanding.  One area that needs some clarification on the part of the programmer is how HP handles fermatas.  The real issue arises in a document that has fermatas that are not placed on the cadence.   There are a series of settings that affect Human Playback, but are not contained in the Human Playback Settins Window.  And there is one setting in particular that affects how Human Playback performs, or doesn’t perform, fermatas.

That setting is called Interpret Harmonic Cadences and it is only found in the Human Playback Custom Style Window.

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Finale, being the amazingly flexible program that it is, gives the user three different ways to create time signatures that are over-sized. The first option utilizes a staff that is already in the score for the time signature. The second option adds a new hidden staff and the third option creates shape expressions.

I have posted a video that walks through the steps for the first option, utilizing a staff the is presently in the score.

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Most often found in early motets, this is the practice of having different time signatures performed at the same time.

This is a fairly straight forward process within Finale and I have created a video that walks through the steps to create isorhythmic notation.

N.B. - This is the easiest way to setup this style of notation, but it will not playback.

I will save the playback version for another post.

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Let’s say that even after the below steps, Finale still crashes after you start playback or enter a few notes.  What could the problem  be? Continued

There is a way, but it takes a few steps:

CONCERT KEY CHORDS FOR TRANSPOSED STAFF WITH KEYSIGNATURE

1. Add staff above the transposed instrument by going to STAFF –>NEW STAVES…

2. Copy the music you need from the transposed staff into the new staff and the chords will be in concert pitch

3. Go to the Staff Attributes for that staff by double-clicking the staff with the STAFF TOOL and then unchecking everything at the bottom except ALLOW OPTIMIZATION and CHORDS

4. Highlight the entire new staff only and then go to the Staff Menu –>Apply Staff Style and choose BLANK NOTATION LAYER 1 and the notes will disappear in that new staff

5. Go to the Staff Attributes of the Transposed staff and either remove the Chords by unchecking them in the Display items, or simply remove them completely from that staff

6. Now in Scroll View or Page, use the Staff Tool to drag the handle for the top staff that has just the chords displaying lower so that they are where the chords would normally be.

Do you ever find yourself listening to your playback and wanting more from your accents or more length from your fermatas? You’re in luck - using the Articulation Tools - Articulation Designer Window, you can edit the settings for the three playback effects that Finale will use when playing back the note affected by this articulation.

Here is how:

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Ever been using Finale’s “SmartMusic SoftSynth” (Midi) sounds and wished that you could just have some different sounds? Well - you can. And you can use them when you create the Audio Files from Finale. As long as they are in sf2 format you can certainly use these sounds.Here’s how: Continued

If MakeMusic employed a witchdoctor, his most oft prescribed remedy would undoubtedly be clearing out the preference files. Why, you ask? Because, deleting these files can work magic on any bizarre issue that you may be encountering from playback and page layout to meta-tools and missing palettes.

The issue that I had run into was the complete loss of the use of my left ctrl key. Couldn’t zoom in or out. Couldn’t switch between layers or enter in triplets. I went through some normal trouble shooting steps: rebooted my machine, unplugged my keyboard, ect. Nothing. Nada. I opened up another piece of software to verify that the ctrl key was working and it was.

Where was the witchdoctor when I needed him? Well, his remedy was sitting in my Finale program file folder…

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