You are probably familiar with Wizards from other applications, such as word processors and spreadsheets. This Wizard is designed to help you set up a new Finale document. Let’s create a simple piano score.
If you haven’t already started Finale, do so now. When the Launch Window appears, click the Setup Wizard button. If Finale is already started, click on the File menu and choose New, then Document with Setup Wizard. The “Select and Ensemble and Document Style” page appears.
This page lists ensembles and document styles you can use to customize a new document. For now, we’ll leave the Ensemble list as is and use the “Engraved Style” which is already selected. This is the most basic Document Style.
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You should be aware that the order in which the instruments appear in the third column is the order in which they will appear, from top to bottom, in your score. If you are creating a multi-instrument score and the Document Setup Wizard incorrectly orders your instruments, you can use the small up and down arrows to move the instruments around in the list until they are correct. You can also select a “standard” score order from the drop-down menu: Custom, Orchestral, Choral, Concert Band, or Jazz Band.
If you want to save your instrument setup as an ensemble for use later, click Save As New Ensemble, enter a name and click OK. Next time you use the Setup Wizard, you will be able to choose this ensemble on the first page.
Your Wizard should now look like this:
Note: Check Generate Linked Parts to produce a part for each instrument that is intelligently linked to the score. See Chapter 5 for details.
Your Wizard should now look like the following picture:
You could continue with this file, but let’s close it and open a file where we’ve completed the left hand for you.
The left-hand part has been prepared for you; in this tutorial, you’ll finish the melody.
Macintosh View
Take a look around the screen. Across the top, you’ll find the menu bar. You’ll be using these menus to control Finale’s behavior, edit documents, change the view, and much more. There are ten unchanging menus; File, Edit, Utilities, View, Document, MIDI/Audio, Window, Plug-ins, Tools, and Help. Also, you will likely see another menu which corresponds to the tool currently selected in the Main Tool palette.
Below the menu bar is the Main Tool palette.
Each square tile on these palettes contain a symbol representing its
function. Just about everything you do in Finale will be in the context
of one of these tools. You’ll also see the Simple Entry palette
If you look at your score, you may notice that Finale automatically fills any empty measures with a whole rest (hereafter called a default whole rest). That’s just to save you time, and it’s a feature you can turn off, if you want. You’ll also notice that the music is displayed as a page of sheet music.
If you’re new to computers, take a moment to click and drag (while holding down the mouse button!) across the menu titles at the top of the screen, noticing how the lists of commands drop down as you pass over each title.
Now that you’ve had a look around, let’s begin our masterpiece. Click the horizontal and vertical scroll bar arrows until measure one is visible (if necessary).
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