Tutorial 3: Articulations and Expressions

Now that you know the basics of entering music quickly and editing it efficiently, it’s time to learn how to add the markings that make music such a rich language—articulations, dynamics, slurs, and more. Open the document called “Tutorial 3” in the Tutorials folder: We’ll use this arrangement of “Oh, Susannah” to explore Finale’s fluency in the language of music. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to create a score with all the necessary markings.

Basic Articulations and Expressions

We’ll start with an introduction to articulations (staccatos, accents, fermatas) and dynamic expressions (Moderato, F , solof, etc.).

• Click the Articulation Tool  . Using this tool, you can click on, above, or below a note—it doesn’t matter. Finale’s articulations are smart; they jump into place, centered on the notehead, automatically.
• Click the dotted quarter note in the Trombone 2 staff in measure 3. The Articulation Selection dialog box appears.

You must be in the same layer as your notes to attach anything to them, such as lyrics, articulations, expressions, or chord symbols.

Incidentally, some symbols, such as <, have been defined to flip upside-down automatically when a note’s stem direction changes (as a result of a transposition, for example). Articulations with an associated upside-down symbol appear above one another in their selection square.

• Double-click the accent mark (top row, third from left). Double-clicking an Articulation in this dialog box is the same as clicking once then clicking Select.

When you return to the score, you can see that Finale not only centered the accent on the notehead, but it also knew which side of the note (top or bottom) to use. You can override Finale’s placement decision, of course—to move the mark, drag its handle. (You can also delete a mark by clicking its handle and pressing Delete.)

So that you understand what’s happening behind the scenes, try this experiment:

• Click the Simple Entry Tool  . Windows users -click, Mac users -click squarely on the notehead of the dotted quarter note; press the down arrow three times until the stem direction changes. Finale doesn’t simply flip the stem—it also relocates the accent mark to the other side of the note. Press the up arrow three times to move it back into place.

Now let’s add a couple dynamic markings.

• Click the Expression Tool  . Expressions are attached either to the measure you double-click or to a specific note in that measure. For the moment, let’s put in a mezzo forte marking.

To add an expression while entering with the caret in Simple Entry, press the X key.

• Double-click where you want the marking to appear. The Expression Selection dialog box appears. (If you’re ever trying to put in an Expression and this window comes up empty, it’s because no libraries were loaded into the document. We’ll cover libraries in more detail later in this tutorial.)

Note the categories on the left side of this dialog box (“Dynamics,” “Tempo Marks,” Etc.). Each of these categories include markings similar in appearance and positioning. Settings for a category can be changed, altering the appearance and/or positioning of all expressions in that category. You will learn more about editing categories soon.

• Double-click on. Finale places the marking in the score based on the category’s positioning settings. By default, expressions in the Dynamics category are defined to appear beneath the staff.

You can change the positioning settings of expressions by clicking the Edit Categories button in the Expression Selection dialog box to open the Category Designer. For example, if you are notating a choral score, you will want Finale to automatically place the dynamic markings above the staff. To make this change, you would click Edit Categories and then change the Vertical Alignment setting to “Above Staff Baseline or Entry.” See Category Designer dialog box in the User Manual for more details.

Use the Assign button and adjacent drop-down menu to assign dynamics, expressive text, and technique text to multiple staves. To define a list of staves, choose Assign to Staves. The Assign to Staves dialog box opens where you can select specific staves for expression entry.

Tempo marks, tempo alterations, and rehearsal marks apply to all staves of the score, but are shown on a select few as defined by the expression's Score List. The Score List is part of the category definition and can be edited in the Category designer dialog box.

Adding a Slur

As a quick exercise, let’s add some slurs to the score.

• Click the Smart Shape Tool  . The Smart Shape Palette appears as a toolbar on the top of the screen (or as a palette on the Macintosh), containing icons for slurs, crescendos, 8va markings, lines, and several kinds of brackets. This palette is just like the others you’ve encountered; you can hide it or move it around.

The Slur Tool should already be selected; if not, select it now.

• Place your cursor on the first note in measure five (top staff).   
• Double-click the mouse, hold the button down after the second click, and drag the mouse to the right, until the third note in the measure is highlighted. As long as you hold the button down, you can move the endpoint of the slur.
• Release the mouse button. You’ve just created a note-attached slur. Take a look. Is the slur exactly where you wanted it? Does it arc too high or too low?

A Smart Shape is easy to edit. When a Smart Shape has multiple handles, it’s currently selected. Each slur will have six handles. Here is a description of how to use these handles to edit the slur:

Shortcuts for the Smart Shape Tool: Hold down S for a slur, < for a crescendo or > for a decrescendo.

Hold down the key while editing the slur to “constrain” your cursor to perfect horizontal or vertical movements.

• Position the cursor at the top of the arc. Click and drag downward to decrease the arc of the slur. Now create another slur. Scroll to the beginning of measure 3.  
• Position the cursor on the first note in measure 3 (top staff). Double-click and drag to the last note in the measure. Release the mouse button. The new phrase marking displays its reshaping handles, letting you know that it’s selected. The first one you drew, meanwhile, is no longer selected. Instead, it displays a single handle. To select a Smart Shape that doesn’t display its reshaping handles, click its handle.

Feel free to experiment with these Smart Shapes. Click and drag each reshaping handle to see what it does. Try adding a crescendo or decrescendo.

When the Smart Shape Tool is selected, every Smart Shape in the score displays a small square handle on the screen (unless it’s already been selected, in which case it has reshaping handles). To delete a Smart Shape, click the handle to select the shape—and press the k key. For more information, see the User Manual under Smart Shape Tool.

Before moving on, you can choose to hide the Smart Shape Palette by deselecting it in the Window Menu. Otherwise, feel free to leave it on the screen.

Selection Tool

If you’re flying along in the editing process and don’t want to bother switching tools, the Selection Tool can help speed you along. Click on the Selection Tool and click on any marking. Now you can move it, delete it, or right-click (Mac: -click) on it for a list of other editing commands. If you decide you need to do advanced editing, double-click on the marking to switch to the appropriate editing tool. You can return to the Selection Tool at any time by clicking --A (Mac: --A).

The Selection Tool works on Measures (Measure Tool), Notes (Simple Entry), Smart Shapes, Expressions, Articulations, Repeats, Lyrics, Chords, Text Blocks, Tuplets, Time Signatures, Key Signatures, Clefs, Ossias, Graphics, and Staff and Group Names. For more details, see Selection Tool.

Metatools: Putting in Many Articulations

Let’s learn some more about articulations.

The system you learned earlier for putting in articulations is fine for the occasional accent or staccato marking. But what if you have a series of accented eighth notes? Do you have to go through the Articulation Selection dialog box for every single note? Fortunately, no. You can select a region of notes and tell Finale to apply the same symbol to every one. Or you can assign any articulation to a single key on your keyboard and bypass the dialog boxes altogether. These keyboard assignments are called Metatools. You can assign a metatool to each of the alphabet keys (a-z) as well as the number keys (0-9); the Articulation Tool has one set of thirty-six, and the Expression Tool has another set of thirty-six.

The basic formula for working with Metatools is always the same: Press -number or letter key to program the keystroke; use the number or letter key alone to enter the marking into the score. Some Metatools have already been programmed for you; let’s take a closer look.

• Click the Articulation Tool  .
• While pressing , press the S key. The Articulation Selection dialog box appears.

Every articulation in this dialog box has a number assigned to it (which appears in the upper-left corner of each slot). Some also have a second number or letter; this number or letter appears in the upper right corner of each slot and indicates the Metatool currently assigned to that articulation. Metatool S is assigned to the staccato mark, Metatool A is assigned to the staccato mark, Metatool A is assigned to the accent mark, and so on. Remember, you pressed -S to access this dialog box, telling Finale you wanted to program Metatool S. For now, let’s assume you are satisfied with using Metatool S for the staccato mark.

• Click Cancel.  
• Position the cursor on the first note in measure 2 (top staff). While pressing the S key, click the note. Finale pops a staccato mark into the score. The square handle is larger than the dot itself, so all you see is a handle. To see the dot, select a different tool. Then reselect the Articulation Tool.
• While pressing the S key, click the second note. As you can see, using a Metatool saves you the trouble of selecting this mark from a dialog box each time you want it. Just click a note while pressing the appropriate number or letter key, and your marking appears. What’s more, you can reprogram the other keys with symbols other than the ones currently defined.
• While pressing , press the A key. As you can see, Metatool A is currently assigned to the accent mark. Let’s say you use this particular articulation fairly infrequently, and you would rather assign Metatool A to another articulation.
• Double-click the tenuto mark (slot 7).   

When you return to the score, it may seem that nothing has happened; no new mark appears in the score. But something has indeed happened—you’ve successfully programmed a Metatool. (Remember, that’s why you pressed -A, which is Finale’s signal that you’re teaching it a Metatool.)

Alternatively, while in the Expression Selection dialog box, you can choose an expression, hold down Shift, and type a number or letter to assign it to a metatool.

• Position the cursor on the third note of measure 5 in the top staff. While pressing the A key, click. Finale pops a tenuto mark into the score.

Furthermore, Expressions can have their own set of thirty-six Metatools. 1 through 4 might be dynamics you use often; 5 and 6 might be cresc. and dim., and so on. You create the Metatools the same way: Select the tool, press and the number or letter; the Expression Selection dialog box appears. Double-click the desired expression. (Both text phrases and shapes may be programmed to Metatools.) When you’re ready to put the marking into the score, press and hold the number or letter key alone and single-click where you want the marking to appear; it pops into place.

When you save your document, all your Metatool assignments are saved too, so that you can continue placing expressions using Metatools the next time you open the document. You can redefine your Metatools at any time, however, as you just learned above.

Programmed Metatools are specific to the document that you are currently working on; therefore, you can have different sets of Metatools for different pieces. If you find that you use the same Metatools over and over again, you can save a Document Style that includes your own Metatool assignments. That way, they are available for you every time you start a new piece. (See the User Manual under Metatools for details.)

Of course, you can continue this way, clicking staccato marks into the tutorial score that’s now on the screen. But don’t bother—if you want to apply a marking to a whole group of notes, there’s an even faster way.

• With the Articulation Tool selected, drag across the remaining note stems of measure 2. A bold black box will show you which notes you’ve drag-selected. When you release the mouse button, the Apply Articulation dialog box appears.

• Click Select, and double-click the staccato mark. You return to the Apply Articulation dialog box. Take a glance at the other options; for example, Finale can place this marking only on quarter notes and eighth notes, if you want. For now, however, leave All Notes selected.
• Click OK. You return to the score; the remaining notes now have staccato marks.

Finale offers yet another method for entering several articulations at once, and this one is the fastest of them all. It combines the power of Metatools with Finale’s ability to select a region of notes.

• From the Edit Menu, choose Undo. The staccato marks you just added are removed.
• While pressing the A key, drag through the four notes of measure 2. When you release the mouse button, a tenuto mark is added to each note you selected, since that’s the symbol currently assigned to Metatool A.

But let’s suppose you really intended to put staccato marks on those notes, and held down the wrong Metatool key by mistake. No problem!

• Drag a box around the tenuto marks in measure 2. The tenuto marks are highlighted. Now use Finale’s quickchage technique to change these tenuto marks to staccato marks for the entire measure in one quick, easy step:

• Double-press the S key. The tenutos change to staccatos. Select any articulation and press any metatool twice in succession to quickly change to a different character. (This technique also works for expressions.) You can also edit any number of articulations in the score at once.
• Drag a box over the first two articulation handles. You can now drag or nudge both of these articulations simultaneously.
• Hold down the Shift key and click or drag over additional articulations. This way, you can pick and choose the articulations you want to position or edit.

Expressions: Creating Your Own Expressions

Let’s suppose that the Trombone 1 is sometimes playing with a mute (con sordino) and other times without a mute (senza sordino). You won’t find these terms in the standard Finale expressions libraries, so you’ll need to create them yourself.

• Click the Expression Tool   and double-click on the dotted quarter note in measure 1 (of the Trombone 2 staff). The Expression Selection dialog box appears. The expressions we will add tell the performer when to use a mute, so it would be in the “Technique Text” category.
• Click the Technique Text category. Finale displays the technique text expressions in the preview window. You’ll find that the Text Expressions you’re seeking, con sordino and senza sordino, don’t appear in this list, so we will create them.

You’ll find that the Text Expressions you’re seeking, con sordino and senza sordino, don’t appear in this list. Here’s how to create them.

• Click Create. The Text Expression Designer dialog box appears.

• Type the words “con sordino.”  

To use an independent font instead of the category’s, uncheck Use Category Fonts under the Main tab. To use an independent positioning instead of the category’s, uncheck Use Category Positioning under the Positioning tab.

• Click OK. Con sordino has been added to the list of expressions, and assigned to the Technique Text category. You won’t have to create it again the next time you need it in this score.
• Click Select. You return to the score, you’ll see that the con sordino marking appears above the staff.

• Scroll to measure 10 and double-click above the first note of the Trombone 2 part. Create the senza sordino expression the same way you created the con sordino marking and drag the marking into place.

Let’s suppose you want the musicians to play faster at the chorus or “Vivace.” You won’t find this term in the standard Finale expression sets, so you’ll need to create it yourself.

• Click the Expression Tool   and double-click below measure 10 (of any staff). The Expression Selection dialog box appears.
• Click the Tempo Marks category and then click Create. The Text Expression Designer dialog box appears.
• Type the word “Vivace.” Next we’ll add a Tempo playback effect to the marking.
• Click Playback tab. The Playback/Record Options appear.
• From the Type Menu, choose Tempo. The duration menu appears to the right. It’s already set to a quarter note, so we’ll leave it alone.
• Click in the Set to Value box and type 200.  
• Click OK; click Assign. Notice that “Vivace” has been added to the list of expressions. You won’t have to create it again the next time you need it.

When you return to the score, you’ll see that the marking appears above the Trombone 1 staff. Tempo Marks are defined to always appear above the top staff (in the Score List section of the Category Designer dialog box). This marking will also appear at measure 10 in each individual part.

• Press Ctrl-Alt-> (Mac users, Command-Option->). The Trombone 1 part appears. Notice the “Vivace” marking appears above measure 10.
• Press Ctrl-Alt-< (Mac users, Command-Option-<) to return to the full score.

Feel free to adjust its positioning by dragging its small square handle. While dragging markings is good for general repositioning, you may sometimes need to make finer position adjustments—with the arrow keys, (or “nudge” keys).

Working with Expression Categories

Similar types of expressions usually share the same font, size, style, and positioning characteristics. Because of this, Finale separates the different types of expressions into independent categories, each with its own collection of settings. Categories permit, for example, all dynamics to automatically share the same font, size, and positioning characteristics, which is standard practice for all professorially published sheet music. In addition to simplifying expression entry, this paradigm also allows changes to apply to all expressions in a category, including those that have already been added to the score. Therefore, by editing categories you can easily change the style of all expressions throughout your score in a fraction of the time it took in previous Finale versions.

Let’s change the Tempo Marks category to increase the size of all expressions in this category.

• From the Document Menu, choose Category Designer. The Category Designer dialog box appears.
• From the list on the left, choose Tempo Marks. The Tempo Marks category settings appear, which include font, positioning, and Score List settings.

• Under the Text Font tab, click the Size drop-down menu, and choose 18. Although these settings apply to all existing Tempo Marks, they also apply to new expressions you create in the Expression Designer, and allow you to easily combine different fonts in the same expression (using the Expression Designer’s Font drop-down menu).

You can use the subsequent Positioning drop-down menus to specify the positioning for tempo marks. Use the visual examples as a guide. The Score List settings allow you to assign the expression to specific staves. You will learn more about Score Lists soon.  

• Click OK. You return to the score. The size of the “Vivace” marking has grown to 18 point. If any other expressions in the Tempo Mark category existed in your score, they would also change to an 18 point size.

The “Nudge” Keys (Arrow Keys)

• Click the “Vivace” mark’s handle and press the left arrow key. The Vivace marking moves just a pixel (screen dot) to the left. You may have to look very closely to see it move at all. You can continue to reposition any marking whose handle is selected by pressing the up, down, left, and right arrows.

These four arrow keys—the directional arrows—will cause tiny positioning changes on almost any Finale object whose handle is selected, including staves, chord symbols, lyrics, parts of triplet brackets, Expressions, and Articulations.

Markings that Play Back

Now that you’ve put a few staccatos and dynamics in your score, try this: While pressing the Space bar, click the first measure (the shortcut for a quick playback). You’ll notice that your staccatos and breath marks actually affect the articulation of the notes in playback!

Mac users: when the Playback Controls are visible, simply pressing the spacebar will start playback.

You’ll soon discover that all of the dynamic markings (in the Expression Tool) and some of the Articulations have been defined for playback; as soon as you place them into your score, they affect the playback in a musical way.

Furthermore, you can create your own expressions and markings, and define them for tempo playback, too. Any word or shape can affect any MIDI variable when you play your score—key velocity (volume), tempo, transposition, patch, MIDI channel, pitch bend, pedal, and so on. In Tutorial 6, you’ll learn how to program your own intelligent score markings.

Score Lists

Score Lists are designed for markings that apply to the full score, but only appear on certain staves. For example, tempo marks appear above the top staff of the score only, although they actually always apply to every staff and should appear in every part. Therefore, a Score List is required to indicate the expression should be excluded from most staves in the score. Tempo alterations and rehearsal marks also apply to every part, and therefore also require Score Lists. Score Lists are assigned to expression categories. Finale automatically assigns all expressions in the Tempo Marks, Tempo Alterations, and Rehearsal Marks categories to the top of the score as well as above the top staff of each instrumental section. This is the most common requirement for Score Lists, so the need to edit them manually is rare, especially in scores created in Finale 2009.

Dynamics, expressive text, and technique text markings always apply to a specific staff and therefore do not require Score Lists. To assign an expression in one of these categories to multiple staves, use the Assign drop-down menu in the Expression Selection dialog box. See Assign to Staves dialog box.

If you would like to change the staff assignment of a tempo or rehearsal expression, you must edit its category’s Score List settings. Let’s edit the Tempo Mark Score List so that our “Vivace” marking, and future tempo mark expressions, appear on select staves of the score.

• From the Document Menu, choose Category Designer. The Category Designer dialog box appears. All of Finale’s Score Lists are managed from this dialog box.
• Choose the Tempo Marks category. This page includes all the font, positioning, and Score List options for Tempo Marks.
• Click the Edit Button to the right of “Score List.” The Score List dialog box appears. The list on the left displays the available Score Lists. The list on the right displays the available staves and parts. Currently, this expression is set to appear on the top staff of the score and on the top staff of all the parts. For now, let’s say we need tempo marks to also appear above the Trombone 4 staff in the score.
• Under the Score column, click to the left of Trombone 4.

• Click OK to return to the Category Designer and OK again to return to the score. The “Vivace” marking now appears above the Trombone 4 staff as well as the Trombone 1 staff.

By changing the Tempo Mark category’s Score List, you apply changes to all existing tempo marks in the score, as well as any future tempo marks you add. Expression categories and Score Lists offer ease and consistency, assuming you will always want tempo markings to appear in the same font, position, and on the same staff/staves throughout your score (as is the case with all professionally published sheet music). Expressions that are applied to multiple staves using Score Lists have some unique manual positioning characteristics.

• Drag the “Vivace” marking above the Trombone 1 staff. When you drag the top expression in a Score List, all subsequent expressions are selected automatically and move uniformly.
• With only the bottom expression selected, drag the “Vivace” marking above the Trombone 4 staff. It moves independently. Manual positioning changes to the top expression apply to all other expressions in the same Score List. Other expressions in the Score List can be moved independently.

Score Lists are often used to place expressions above the top staff of instrumental sections in a large score. But, what if the top staff of an instrumental section is hidden due to optimization? No problem. Score Lists will adapt to optimized scores, treating each assignment as a pseudo-“Top Staff” setting. For example, if a tempo mark is added to the top staff in a string section, and that particular staff is hidden due to optimization, the expression will automatically get bumped to the next highest staff in the section (i.e. continue to display on the top staff of the string section).

Copying and Pasting Expressions

If you’ve painstakingly put staccato, accent, and tenuto marks into your Trombone 1 part, you certainly don’t want to have to reenter them into the other parts. Fortunately, Finale allows you to copy them onto any other music in the score, even if the notes are different.

• Click the Selection Tool  . Scroll to measure 2, so that it’s the first measure on the screen.

• From the Edit Menu, choose Edit Filter.

The Entry Items dialog box appears, displaying which elements of the music you can copy. You can choose any combination of these elements.

• Click Uncheck All.  
• Select Articulations. Click OK. Now that you’ve specified beforehand which items you want copied, all that remains is for you to specify where you want them copied from and to.
• Click measure 2 in the top staff. That is, highlight the music whose articulations you want to copy.
• Drag the highlighted measure so that it’s superimposed on measure 3 (of the same staff). Release the mouse button.

Finale copies the articulations from measure 2 onto the notes of measure 3.

If the rhythmic values of the notes in the source and target measures aren’t identical, Finale does its best to place your articulations on any notes that do occur on the same beats.

The technique you just used to copy the articulations from one place to another is an important one, and you can use it any time you need to copy one element of the music to another spot. A common example is chord symbols: In a verse-chorus-verse song, you need only enter the chord symbols for the first verse. Then, with the Copy method you just used, you can copy just the chord symbols from the first verse to the last verse—even if the melody is different each time.

Using Libraries

Suppose you’re finished with your brass quartet. Along the way you’ve created a number of textual expressions—con sordino, senza sordino, and rehearsal letters, among others. It might save you time later if you save them in a file of their own, ready to be loaded into any other piece that might require them. As mentioned earlier in this tutorial, these sets of symbols are stored in separate files called libraries.

• From the File Menu, choose Save Library. The Save Library dialog box appears, asking which element of this Finale file you want to store separately.

Libraries are saved with every Document Style. Load libraries and save a file as a Document Style (into the Finale 2009/Document Styles folder) to use those libraries in future new documents begun with the Setup Wizard.

• Click Expressions, then click OK. You’ve told Finale that you want to save the new expressions, as opposed to, for instance, new chord symbol suffixes, which would be stored in a separate library. As you become more familiar with Finale, you may find yourself wanting to save these other types of libraries; the basic procedure is the same. You’re now asked to name this library.
• Type Brass Expressions and click Save. The next time you need these markings, open the document in which you want to use them. From the File Menu, choose Load Library, and double-click Brass Expressions in the list box that appears. Thereafter, when you use the Expression Tool, you’ll see the imported markings in the Expression Selection dialog box, ready to use.

After you quit Finale, you may want to move the Brass Expressions library into the Libraries folder (Finale 2009/Libraries) so you can find it easily the next time you want it.

When You’re Ready to Continue

Choose Save from the File Menu if you haven’t already done so. If you think you’ve done enough for one session, choose Exit (Mac: Quit) from the File Menu, and you’ll return to the desktop.

If you want to go on, close this document and turn to the next tutorial.