Finale 2011 comes bundled with a diverse collection of high-quality VST/AU instrument samples created by Garritan Libraries. In addition to instruments from their flagship Garritan Personal Orchestra, Finale also includes instruments from other Garritan libraries including Jazz and Big Band, Concert and Marching Band, Authorized Steinway, and more.

Because the Garritan sounds included with Finale are so comprehensive, providing a full orchestra and more, it’s unclear to some Finale users what would be gained from the additional purchase of the full Garritan Personal Orchestra, or any of the other Garritan libraries. Each individual Garritan library offers expanded instrument choices and techniques. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the expanded features offered in the latest version of Garritan Personal Orchestra, or GPO 4.

GPO 4 is a collection of instruments commonly used in a symphony orchestra. While Finale contains a sample subset of these instruments, the full GPO 4 offers expanded woodwind, brass, solo string, section strings, percussion, keyboards and harps, and choir samples. GPO 4 also includes a number of brass samples from Project SAM, another collection of extremely high-quality orchestral sounds, used in many film-scoring and commercial projects. A full listing of the instruments contained in GPO 4 can be viewed here.

GPO 4 also includes full support of Finale’s Setup Wizard, which means that all of GPO 4’s instruments will appear in your Setup Wizard, and these instrument sounds will be automatically configured when you create a score with the Wizard: Just as when using Finale’s built-in Garritan library, no manual loading of sounds is needed!

In addition to a wider range of instruments, GPO 4 offers expanded control for key switches and continuous controller effects. GPO 4 allows you to tailor the sound of your orchestra to your liking, right in Finale 2011. Finale 2011’s Human Playback® feature contains optimized playback effects for GPO 4, so simple markings such as pizzicato and tremolo will automatically trigger the proper sounds with no extra setup needed. You can hear some samples of GPO in action here.

GPO 4 is available for $149.00, directly from the finalemusic.com.

Have additional questions about Garritan sounds? Are there other topics you'd like us to cover? Please let us know by clicking on "Comments" below.

Last weekend I was in my garden pulling weeds. I expected my wife to be delighted with the results, but she sadly informed me that I’d removed some “good” plants as well. They looked the same to me!

Or, rather, my expertise wasn’t such that I could tell the difference. So, with that in mind…

What’s the difference between these two measures?

“Nothing,” you say.
Okay, I agree, they do look the same, but the measure on the left contains a default whole rest while the measure on the right has a “real” whole rest.

What is the difference?

• A default whole rest is purely visual, and one that Finale automatically places in every blank measure.
• A real whole rest is an entry—something you placed in the score—just like a note or any other kind of rest.

In other words, Finale starts out every piece with default whole rests, and these change to real whole rests only when we consciously enter a whole rest. Because the default rest doesn’t quite have the clout of something you’ve intentionally entered, they work differently:

• Lyrics, articulations, and other note-attached items cannot be attached to a default whole rest.
• Only a real whole rest can be moved (in either Simple or Speedy Entry).
• Only default whole rests can be consolidated into multi-measure rests.

The lesson learned from the third bullet above? When creating a score from which you’ll want to generate parts with multi-measure rests, don’t enter real whole rests; just leave those default whole rests alone.

As I re-read what I’ve written above I suspect that someone is going to read this and think, “Dang, now I have to keep track of what kind of whole rests I’ve used,” and that’s not the case. For most of what we do in Finale it doesn’t make a bit of difference. The only time it matters is when you plan to make multi-measure rests or are having difficulty attaching items to a whole rest. My approach is to only enter real whole rests when I know I want to attach something to them. Done!

Should you ever need to change a real rest to a default whole rest, simply click on a full measure or group of measures and press the backspace key (Windows) or the clear key (Macintosh) to make sure it contains only default whole rests. If you need to convert multiple rests, there are two related plug-ins in the Note, Beam, and Rest Editing folder called “Change to Default Whole Rests” and “Change to Real Whole Rests.”

Would you like some more detail on their use or anything else in this post? Please let me know by clicking on “Comments” below!

At a recent Finale training session, I met a music minister who asked how he might quickly turn hymns into brass quintets. He was so jazzed with my answer I decided to share it with you as well.

The answer is: “Explode Music.”

While I’ve mentioned Explode Music briefly in the past, this week I’d like to cover its use in more detail.

Finale’s Explode Music feature allows you to instantly orchestrate existing music by taking music from one or two staves and automatically distributing it over multiple staves. We’ll start with my friend’s hymn as our example. The following could have been entered via scanning, or any other note entry method in Finale:

Here is how I would use Explode Music to turn this hymn into an arrangement for brass quintet:

1. Launch Finale’s Setup Wizard, and on the first page select the “Garritan Brass Quintet” or the “Brass Quintet” Ensemble (the former sounds best, the latter works better on slower machines or when you’ll share the completed file with others who may not have Finale). From here, follow the prompts in the Setup Wizard, or simply press Next, Next, Next, and Finish.
2. Paste the music above into the top two staves of your new brass quintet chart. The first half should now look something like this: 

3. With the Selection tool chosen, select the top two staves. To do this, click to the left of the top staff’s instrument name (Trumpet in Bb 1), then shift-click to the left of the second staff’s instrument name. Then, from the Utilities menu choose Explode Music, or use the Selection tool shortcut of typing 2.
4. Configure the resulting Explode Music dialog box as I have below. Specifically, split the music into 4 staves and place the music into existing staves starting with Trumpet 1:

5. Click OK and the music is instantly exploded.

In looking at the result, you may notice that the tuba staff remains unpopulated. One quick solution is to copy the trombone part to the tuba part, then lower it an octave. To do so, select the tuba part and type 8 to utilize the transposition shortcut mentioned in last week’s post. Having done that, the first system should look something like this:

That strikes me as pretty quick and easy.

As a final tip, you might consider using the Check Range plug-in if you’re unsure of the ranges of any of the instruments in your arrangements. If you’d like more detail on how to do that, or on anything else Finale-related, please let us know by clicking on “Comments” below!

Ever wish you had a numeric keypad on your laptop to facilitate faster note entry into Finale? If you have an iPod Touch or iPhone Edovia has an app for you!

The Numpad app contains layouts for many keyboard configurations, including one for Finale Simple Entry. 

For more information, visit edovia here.

Do you often experience “flashes of brilliance?”

Me neither.

But something similar occurred the other day as I watched Chris Porter, an amazing band director and Finale user, demonstrating at a Finale training session. While Chris knows all about Finale’s Exercise Wizard, she was showing how she creates additional customized exercises for her band’s warm-ups.

I admired her efficiency as she worked. Rather than create a full score, she simply entered five staves, one for each of the various transpositions:

1. Non-transposed instruments in treble clef (flutes, oboes),
2. Eb instruments (alto and bari saxes),
3. Bb instruments (clarinets, tenor saxes, and trumpets),
4. F instruments (horns),
5. Non-transposed instruments bass clef (bassoons and trombones)

Very smart.

Next she entered her warm-up on one staff…

…and then copied the contents of this staff to all the subsequent staves, one staff at a time.

Everyone was duly impressed.

But as I watched I thought of one additional trick she could use to become even more efficient. We call it vertical copying.

Here’s how it works:

1. With the Selection Tool indicate the music you’d like to copy into other staves.
2. Now, Ctrl+Alt+click (Windows) or Ctrl+Opt+click (Mac) on the first staff/measure in which you’d like this music copied.

3. In the Paste Multiple box that appears, simply indicate you wish to “Paste Vertically: To the bottom of the score,” and hit OK (or your Enter key). Every staff is populated:

That’s a great time saver.

Need to transpose the bottom two staves? Select them and hit “8,” and they’re transposed down an octave. (I discussed transposition and other helpful shortcuts in an earlier post.)

What makes the vertical copying tip really great is that the procedure and keystrokes are the same as for horizontal copying, where you copy a section of music multiple times on the same staff. Again, just select the music you wish to copy, then Ctrl+Alt+click (Windows) or Ctrl+Opt+click (Mac) on the first measure in which you’d like the paste to occur, and indicate what you want copied where and how many times.

Simply remembering this keystroke shortcut can be a huge time saver on certain projects: I hope you get as much use out of it as I do.

Let us know how it’s working for you by clicking on “Comments” below.

Looking to create Gregorian Chant or other meterless music in Finale 2011? Need help setting up a MIDI keyboard in Finale? Wondering if your version of Finale will work in the latest version of Windows?

Check out the Finale Knowledge Base!

The Knowledge Base offers answers to frequently asked questions, from “How to” tutorials to troubleshooting tips. 

If you don’t find what you’re looking for in the Knowledge Base, simply click the “Submit a Support Case” link and one of our technical support agents will help you get what you need!

Let us know how the Knowledge Base is working for you by clicking on "Comments" below.

Some Finale users have more complex notation needs than others. That makes sense: I would imagine that someone creating avant garde 21st century notation would push notational boundaries more than someone creating a traditional string quartet or big band score.

The surprise, to me at least, was that General Music educators also have complex notation needs, despite teaching the simplest music possible. How can this be?

Consider for a second; who else requires one huge measure per page with one whole note placed in the middle of the measure?

That a music engraver would never put a whole note in the middle of the measure doesn’t matter. What matters is that this is what a General Music educator might require to best convey the concept they’re teaching. What’s more, they might also require even more outlandish things like having each pitch appear in a different color, which is often the case when writing for Boomwhackers.

Boomwhackers are affordable and fun musical instruments that are very popular in General Music classes. According to their website, they are brightly colored plastic tubes that are tuned by length to musical notes. The site also goes on to describe the Chroma-Notes™ colored music system, where each pitch has a corresponding color. This color is used both for each note on the staff and the associated Boomwhackers.

This is what typical Boomwhackers notation might look like:

I met the man who invented Boomwhackers, Craig Ramsell, when he introduced himself at our booth during the 2007 Percussive Arts Society convention. At the time, Finale 2008 had just been released and it included support for Boomwhackers and the Chroma-Note System, so was I excited to learn more and quickly invited Craig to lunch.

Just like his Boomwhackers, Craig is colorful and musical, and as such he was a delightful lunch guest. He told me about the development process of integrating Boomwhackers support within Finale and how he personally recorded the Boomwhackers samples that Finale plays back.

You might think that getting Finale to play back these samples – or display different colors for each pitch – might take some tricky configuration.  Not so. Simply choose Boomwhackers in Finale’s Setup Wizard as I’ve done below:

When you subsequently enter notes in the resulting staves, you’ll automatically see the appropriately colored notes on the staff, and when you hit play you’ll hear actual Boomwhackers samples Craig recorded play back.

Are you using Boomwhackers in your General Music program or otherwise have complex music notation needs? Let us know how it’s going by clicking on “Comments” below!

Composer and pianist Dan Cavanagh is the Associate Director of Jazz Studies and an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Texas at Arlington. He also works as a freelance jazz pianist, composer, clinician, and adjudicator. While full details of his busy musical life are available at his website, here are a few of the highlights:

• Dan’s compositions have been performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and many other national and international venues.
• Dan has received commissions from a wide range of groups across North America.
• Dan’s compositions have received numerous awards, including Winner of the International Music Prizes for Excellence in Composition 2009 (sponsored by the National Academy of Music).
• In addition to many groups who have recorded his music, the Jazz Emporium Big Band, led by Dan, have released an album of his original charts entitled Pulse.
• Dan has been commissioned by Documentary Arts, Inc., to compose music for its upcoming documentary film, The Beat Hotel.

Despite all this, one of Dan’s most cherished achievements is that he was once selected as a member of the Finale Technical Support team.

Okay, I’m only assuming it was one of his most cherished achievements. Nevertheless he was great in that role as well, and we continue to delight in his subsequent achievements.

I asked Dan to share a little of his history with Finale, and he was kind enough to do so:

"I’ve been using Finale since high school, version 3.5. After graduating from college, I did a stint in MakeMusic’s technical support, which to this day continues to inform my Finale “chops.” I rarely need the user manual because of that job, and I probably spoke to some of the readers of your blog on the phone!
 
Today I use Finale for all of my composition projects; from big band charts, to classical music, to film scoring, to jazz-chamber-text pieces. I continue to welcome the new enhancements Finale comes up with each year, and find them invaluable to my process as a composer. Honestly, the most un-fun part of the compositional process is the notation and preparation of score and parts, so Finale is my best friend when it comes to minimizing that stage of the game."

Dan was also willing to share a favorite Finale tip:

"I have recently moved to a two-monitor set-up, and I can’t recommend that enough for all Finale users, especially since the advent of multiple-page editing. For large scores, such as a film score or a big band chart, the ability to see ALL of the instruments at once for more than 8 measures can be a huge time saver. In our jazz courses at UT Arlington, we are saving quite a bit of paper by requiring students to e-mail or post their composition and theory assignments in Finale, rather than on paper. That, combined with the ability to create assignments for SmartMusic, has left more class time for actual instruction, and less time outside of class for grading."

I’d like to close by saying that Dan also has a great sense of humor and an infectious smile. If you get a chance to see him perform, do so, and you’ll know I’m telling the truth about that (if not about his most cherished musical achievements).

Finale includes dozens of plug-ins. I describe Finale’s plug-ins as “little applications that make complicated tasks easy.” One of the coolest plug-ins (and perhaps my favorite to demonstrate) is called “Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing.” This plug-in automatically harmonizes any melody, allowing you to choose from a wide variety of harmonization styles, ranging from two to six parts.

All you need to provide is a melody, although the results are “greatly enhanced” when you also provide chord symbols.

To demonstrate, I’ve used Finale’s Setup Wizard to quickly create a score, and have added a melody, an idea for a background part, and some chord symbols: 

1. First I’ll need to indicate what staff I’d like to harmonize: so I choose the Selection tool and click to the left of the Alto Sax 1 part to select this entire staff.
2. Then, from the Plug-ins menu, I’ll select Scoring and Arranging > Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing:

3.  In the Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing dialog box, I’ll select “Five Part” (because I have five saxes), “Drop Two (Super Sax),” as my desired style, and I’ll indicate that I want to place the new voices into  “four existing staves” starting with Alto Sax 2. Upon clicking “OK” the plug-in generates parts for all the remaining saxes.

Next I did essentially the same thing for the brass by selecting the Trumpet 1 staff and choosing “Six Part>Big Band Brass," from the Trumpet 2 part down.

Here are the results:

I think that’s pretty amazing – and very quick.

Here are a few caveats:

• I think this feature is best used as an “idea generator,” allowing Finale users to experiment with different harmonizations before deciding which direction to head. Then, using their ears to evaluate the results, they might quickly decide that a more triadic approach might work better than sixth and ninth chords for this partiular gospel piece (or whatever).
• Having made the above point, I have used this feature for parts of final arrangements more than I care to admit.
• If you teach jazz arranging you may choose to not share this feature with your students.

I hope this is helpful. I’ve found this feature to a total gas to play around with and it has provided me with more time for the rest of my life!

Let us know how this plug-in, or anything else in Finale, is working for you by clicking on “Comments” below.

The Garritan Aria Player in Finale 2011

In part because I think its interface makes for a nice blog photo, I thought I’d talk about the cool Garritan Aria Player included with Finale 2011.

This updated player is the same one found in Garritan Personal Orchestra 4.0, and has a new user interface with clearer controls. Plus it looks nice. The most signifigant improvement is likely the “Save Ensembles” feature. This lets you quickly load multiple sounds, even when you’re configuring the player manually. 

“Great,” you’re thinking, “what does that mean?”

If you’re mostly using Finale to create new music, probably nothing – to you. If you set up your scores with the Setup Wizard, all your sounds are automatically configured for you, so you may never use this feature.

However, if you have a lot of older scores, which you occasionally dust off and put to use, this might be a big deal. When you open an older file that wasn’t configured to use Garritan sounds, you have to manually configure which staves play which sounds. It’s actually pretty easy in the Aria interface, but if you have larger scores it can get to be a bit of clicking, and this new feature allows you to bypass the tedium.

If, for example, you have a library of marching band scores, all with the same instrumentation, once you’ve configured one of these in the Aria Player, you can save that configuration as an “Ensemble.” The next time you open a similar file, you can simply load that same Ensemble and you’re done; every staff is configured.

Of more general interest, Finale 2011 also includes an expanded collection of Garritan sounds. Recent additions include bass trombone, brass section, children's choir ahs, flute section, electronic drumkit, synth space voice, synth warm pad, and steel drums. The complete collection appears here.

Please let us know how the Garritan sounds are working for you by clicking on “Comments” below.