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!

A few weeks ago I shared the steps I used to create some Kodály solfège notation with Finale for a music educator I met in Boston. Since then several people have commented, offering excellent suggestions and feedback. I love how this has sparked a dialog: This, in my opinion, is the result of a good blog. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their expertise with us.

Of course in my example I neglected to address this issue of preserving the open noteheads used in half notes and larger durations. You were clear you wanted my example to look like more like this:

Two slightly different ways to address open noteheads were suggested in your comments, and both work. I like Derrek's suggestion best. He suggests that when we eliminate the noteheads, we specify that we want to only affect closed noteheads. To do so, when you go to Utilities>Change>Noteheads you'll want to indicate that you wish to find a "Selected Notehead," then hit the Select button, and choose the closed notehead from the list of available characters (it is in slot #207). From there the steps are the same as last time:

Under "Change to" indicate "Selected notehead," and hit "Select." Because we want to replace the default noteheads with nothing, choose any empty box other than "0," hit Select, and OK.

That does the trick!

Thanks, too, to SF who offers some publishing-level tips on fine-tuning the placement of the solfège and lyrics under the stems.

In all the great comments I received, no one mentioned a clef. Would you like me to write about using the appropriate clef? Or would you prefer another topic? Use the "Comments" button below to let me know!

In the course of teaching music fundamentals, general music teachers often have more demanding music notation needs. Educators often ask me how to create something like this:

While the specifics vary, this is the kind of notation that Kodály instructors use on a regular basis. Today I'll share how I'd accomplish this; let me know if you can't easily adapt the same concepts to your work.

From Finale's Launch Window, under "Create New Music," I'll start by specifying "Default Document." (This is my little shortcut when I want to create one staff of music without any emphasis on specific playback.)

To get started, choose the Staff tool and double-click inside measure 1, to arrive at Staff Attributes:

1. Under "Items to Display" de-select "Clefs" and "Key Signature."
2. Under "Staff" select "0-line with Full Barline" from the menu provided, then click OK.
   

I think that's pretty straightforward: You've specified that you don't want clefs, key signatures, or staff lines to appear.

Then enter the desired rhythms using Simple Entry (or whatever method you prefer). Make sure the notes you enter are on the same pitch with stems up.

Next, let's get rid of the noteheads. Choose the Selection tool and drag-select the music you've entered. Then, under the "Utilities" menu select "Change" then "Noteheads."

Under "Change to" indicate "Selected notehead," and hit "Select." Because we want to replace the default noteheads with nothing, choose any empty box other than "0," hit Select, and OK.

From here we simply enter the solfège pitch names and lyrics both as lyrics. To do so, select the Lyrics tool and click on the first note stem, then type in the desired solfège pitch names, moving to each subsequent note with the spacebar.

To add lyrics below the pitch names, start a new verse of lyrics and they will automatically appear a little lower on the page: Go to the Lyrics menu, choose "Specify Current Lyric," and enter 2 (to create Verse 2) and click OK. Again, click on the first note stem and begin typing syllables.

Finally, if you'd like, you can easily increase or decrease the size of everything on your page. To do so, you need to be in Page View, then select the Resize tool (it looks like a percentage sign) and click in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Want to make all the music print bigger? Next to "Resize Page To:" enter 125%, and click OK.

When I shared these steps with a general music Kodály instructor in Boston last week, she was overjoyed — I hope you find them helpful too!

Have questions or comments? Let me know by clicking the "Comments" button below.

Yesterday I spoke of a number of improvements that are free in Finale 2010a, but I indicated that I saved a nice surprise for my music educator friends. Many of them were aware that Finale 2010 included more than 300 music education worksheets, but not everyone knew where to find them. Finale 2010a makes them easy to find. Just look in the File menu for "Open Finale Worksheet...."

Even better news is that once there you'll find that we've added to the list of worksheets with the following music education tools:

• 271 Classroom Flash Cards - Designed to be printed double-sided (with the answers on the back) and to be used in front of a classroom. Topics include keys, note names, rhythm, vocabulary, and musical symbols.
• 126 Individual Flash Cards - Designed to be printed double-sided (with the answers on the back) and used by individual students for self-quizzing. Topics include keys, note names, and musical symbols.
• 30 Ear Training Worksheets - Designed to be used with the free, downloadable Finale Reader, students can print the worksheets, use Reader to play the examples, and write the answers on the printed worksheets. Topics include intervals, chords, and melodic dictation.

I always think of these worksheets and flashcards as being specifically for general music educators, but just the other day one of my musician friends commented on how he'd be using some of these worksheets with his son at home. Pretty cool.

I'm working on an upcoming blog post about Finale and the general music teacher. Their requirements are very unique among music notation users as a whole, and I'm excited to share some tips specific to their needs that I've picked up in the course of my Finale travels!