Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 6:45 PM -0500 9/23/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Christopher BJ Smith wrote: Hmm, doing the lyrics last might be an example of changing one's work habits to suit the computer. Often when I am composing to a given set of lyrics, I set the lyrics in the measures first, then the rhythms, then the noteheads. I can't do this in Finale, as the lyrics always have to come AFTER the entries. Sorry to be so pedantic, but the lyrics don't have to come after _THE_ entries, just after SOME_ entries, so you could define a blank system to have a meter signature of 1 / 1, run the convert to real whole notes plug in, change the meter to 20 / 1, selecting rebar music, and type in your lyrics, assigning the each syllable of the lyrics to a whole rest, then convert the rests to the rhythms you uncover in the text by changing the duration of each rest, and finally add the pitches. Don't forget to save often. ns Not a bad idea, and I hate to shoot down an excellent suggestion, but there are some other problems with that. First of all, it takes several more operations to accomplish what you suggest, while doing it all Finale's way from a pencil copy is more efficient. Changing rests to notes takes an extra keystroke for every note, which can add up over the course of a whole piece. Second of all, (and nothing anyone can do will be able to change this part) when I am working with the computer I tend to be in editor mode, thinking about the computer and how to communicate with it, instead of thinking about the music. With a pencil I am so comfortable now after 20 or more years that the difference between the idea and the mark on the paper is as small as it is possible to be, whereas with the computer a portion of my brain's CPU is taken up with operating the computer, and I tend to think that making the music look good is the same as making it sound good. It may sound as if I am taking back my original statement; if I never have the intention of working that way, why criticize the fact that I can't? The answer is that I know others compose and arrange directly into Finale, and they probably have modified or developed their modus operandi to make writing directly into Finale as painless as possible. But they will never be able to add an articulation in Finale as easily as I do with a pencil, whenever it occurs to me. One has to change tools, select the proper marking, etc, which is several operations more than 'dot' with a pencil when I want to remember that I need that note short. Obviously, I pay for it by needing to mark each and every one manually, whereas if I wait for the editing stage in Finale I can add them all at once in every part that needs it, with much less effort. It isn't JUST the lyrics, it's everything about Finale that keeps me from arranging directly into it. It isn't like typing, where I can type without capitals, punctuation, or paying attention to grammar and spelling and clean it all up afterwards. What I enter into Finale is relatively difficult to edit if I don't enter it correctly the FIRST time, so I make sure I know exactly what I'm doing BEFORE I sit down at the computer. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 23 Sep 2002 at 20:38, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 3:48 PM 09/23/02, David W. Fenton wrote: No. I mean the AUTO UPDATE checkbox in the click assignment dialog. I assume it's intended to update the score in the background, but it is not reliable. It seems to work for the first syllable of a measure, and then the lyrics go blank for the rest of the measure, and do not re-appear until the dialog is closed. I never use the Auto Update checkbox. I'm still not clear what it is that bothers you about click-assignment without Auto Update, but I don't really need to know. The program should be designed so that you can work with Type-in-Score only and never need to visit Click Assignment or Edit Lyrics. Because when I click on a note to assign it, I cannot then see for certain that I've gotten it right, because the score does not properly repaint so that I can see the results of the click. [...] That's *your* instinct. There's absolutely nothing intuitive or obvious about that. Your instinct comes from your long experience of struggling with lyrics and you've discovered a kludge that makes things works more reliably. [...] Workarounds like mis-using verses for segregating text divisions are not obvious at all. OK, OK. I heard you the first time, and the second time, and the third time. I hereby stipulate: There is nothing obvious or intuitive about entering different texts into different verses. Can we please drop this point now? You brought it up again by casting the concept of using verses from the get go as something that should be a natural concept. It actually doesn't work that way, unless you are replacing something in the score with a blank space or another syllable that falls at the same location in a word. There's no such thing as replacing with a blank space. You cannot have a space in a lyric. Well, I meant deleting a syllable. Try this: Create a new document, and input 4 quarter notes. With TYPE IN SCORE, put in Hal-le-lu-jah as the lyrics Now, go to the le syllable, and change it to le,. Then change the lu to Deutsch- and the jah to land. You'll see that you have a leftover hyphen that is actually not redundant -- it doesn't belong there at all. In edit lyrics, you'll see that the stray hyphen that used to be attached to the le of hallelujah is now appended to the beginning of Deutsch, and there is no way in TYPE IN SCORE to get rid of it. You *must* edit the lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window. Although I'm pretty sure there is nothing that is completely impossible to fix from type-in-score, it is possible to get into a situation where the solution is so roundabout or unobvious that Edit Lyrics is the better choice. But in your example, that is not the case. Here it's very easy to change the hyphen in type-in-score mode: Select the syllable le,. Type the space bar. The hyphen is now gone. That's usually the easiest way to get rid of an unwanted hyphen: Select the syllable preceding the hyphen and type space. Where deletions are involved, you can create a situation where this won't work, and in some cases it's hard to identify exactly what the preceding syllable is, but for ordinary extraneous hyphens, just use the space bar to change the separator to a space. Well, a simple solution. But to a problem that shouldn't exist. If I delete the syllable, the hyphens attached to it should be deleted. Since you do click assignment, you'd never see this. True, but since my view of the lyrics is closer to the real data, . . When I think of real data, I think of my score. When you think of the term, you think of the binary bits. I wonder whose point of view is more common? . . . I'm more likely to see a solution that might not be obvious to a type-in-score user. The idea that a hyphen or a space is part of a syllable, however natural it may seem to you, does not reflect the reality of Finale's lyrics. A hyphen or a space is not part of either syllable; it is the wall between them. Thus, in type-in-score, the creation or deletion of a hyphen or a space is done not in typing any given syllable, but in traveling from one to another. In the example as you state it, the problem would have never even arisen had you used space to travel from le to Deutsch, rather than tab, arrow or the mouse. But in other contexts, SPACE introduces redundant spaces. I just noticed that hitting ENTER after entering a syllable also moves to the next syllable, which means it's entering a space into the source text stream (I checked, and it does), but using ENTER instead of SPACE does *not* get rid of the excess hyphen. In short, inconsistencies in the behavior of TYPE IN SCORE in relation to the source text stream abound. Yet, from my point of view, it is safer, because I can't screw things up as significantly as I can in EDIT LYRICS, and because when I do make a mistake, it's completely obvious from the musical
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 1:30 AM 09/24/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: [answering me] But, as John Blane correctly pointed out, deleting in Adjust Syllables is safer than either. True, but I had not been aware this was an option until very recently, and have not had the time to gain any experience with it. It clears the assignment while leaving the text of the syllable in the underlying text. The one problem with this method is that if there was a hyphen before the cleared syllable, it will still try to calculate its position based on the syllable which was cleared and not deleted. For example, if you start out with four notes sung ev-er-y-one and then later you decide to slur the middle two notes and make it ev'-ry-one instead, if you use this method to delete the y syllable, you'll get a string of hyphens starting at ry and running to the end of the piece. I posted a message to this list Wednesday last week, which I copied to Coda, in which I observed that in my mind, the biggest drawback bar none, to Finale was the inadequacy of the documentation for the software. I still feel that way. You're probably right. I pretty much gave up on the manual long ago. I skim through it to get a general sense of the features, but ultimately I want to know the details of how everything works, and I realize that such a thorough and geeky documentation would be a turn-off to many other users, so I can't really recommend it to Coda. If there were a separate book written like a good old-fashioned technical reference manual, that would be great. There are plenty of features I regularly use but never took the time to fully explore (slur settings, for example). mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 4:12 PM 09/24/02, David W. Fenton wrote: [answering me] I never use the Auto Update checkbox. I'm still not clear what it is that bothers you about click-assignment without Auto Update, but I don't really need to know. The program should be designed so that you can work with Type-in-Score only and never need to visit Click Assignment or Edit Lyrics. Because when I click on a note to assign it, I cannot then see for certain that I've gotten it right, because the score does not properly repaint so that I can see the results of the click. Hmm, I'm not experiencing that problem. I do sometimes get bad screen-draws that don't show lyrics right, but those happen regardless of whether I'm using click-assignment (or even in the lyric tool at all). I assumed these were related to my old, slow system, and I just do a redraw command to clean them up. Other than that, I have no redraw problems with click-assignment regardless of whether auto update is on or not. If I delete the syllable, the hyphens attached to it should be deleted. If by this you mean the hyphen FOLLOWING the syllable, I agree with you. If you are deleting a syllable with a hyphen on either side, I believe that one hyphen should be deleted and the other should remain. I think that will reflect the user's intentions more often. When I think of real data, I think of my score. When you think of the term, you think of the binary bits. I wonder whose point of view is more common? I dunno. How about if I restate my original statement as ... closer to the binary bits...? Better? But in other contexts, SPACE introduces redundant spaces. Again, could you offer an example? I don't know how to introduce redundant spaces in the text stream other than by deleting syllables. I just noticed that hitting ENTER after entering a syllable also moves to the next syllable, which means it's entering a space into the source text stream (I checked, and it does), but using ENTER instead of SPACE does *not* get rid of the excess hyphen. Correct. The enter key advances to the next syllable without changing the separator. In short, inconsistencies in the behavior of TYPE IN SCORE in relation to the source text stream abound. I won't deny that problems abound, but I see no inconsistency in the differing behavior of Enter and spacebar. Those are two different operations. Enter behaves exactly the same as the right arrow key. Is that an inconsistency between spacebar and the right arrow? Eh? Why doesn't it do what it says, which is either to shift everything by one note, or to shift to the the next available note? It doesn't do either of those reliably, and is therefore very tedious, as one use of it in the middle of a score requires reprocessing every lyric assignment from there to the end. The Shift Lyrics function is designed to shift every lyric from the one you click until the end of text. If that's not what you want, then using it would indeed be tedious. If that is what you want, then it's quite handy. But if it's in a context where there should be no hyphen at all, it is not *redundant*. Agreed. I never intended to use the term that way. When I say redundant hyphen, I'm talking about a place where a hyphen in the score is intended, but in the text stream it appears as multiple consecutive hyphens instead of just one. The extra hyphens are redundant in the sense that they still appear as a single hyphen in the score and do not separate any additional syllables. They do, however, interfere with certain entry behavior in type-in-score (such as changing a hyphen to a space). I believe that they are a buggy byproduct of morphing the original system into something new, and a proper revamp of the system should make them non-existent. To be honest, I have no idea now. I didn't delete nearly as many syllables as there were spaces in my source text, so I assumed they came from advancing with the space bar. I think probably not. Again, inconsistent data, data I don't intend, is getting into the source text stream. I can't figure out what I did to get the erroneous data there, because I thought I was doing things in a logical and clear way, based on what I could see on screen. This is not new information, just more evidence that something is seriously wrong. Believe it or not, I'm coming around to your way of thinking. I think that some basic repairs, short of a fundamental data restructure, could give you the consistent linkage between Type-in-Score and Edit Lyrics that you've been asking for while still preserving the Edit Lyrics and Click Assign system that I prefer. At the same time it would expunge all the true bugs and make the various unsafe behaviors impossible from Type-in-Score. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 8:06 PM 09/22/02, David W. Fenton wrote: I had a score that printed out correctly, but I made the mistake of looking at the source text in EDIT LYRICS and saw a lot of excess hyphens, many of them at the *beginning* of syllables. So I was deleting a few and seeing what happened. The first few seemed OK (redundant hyphens should have no effect, right?), [...] Right. At the beginning of syllables doesn't have any meaning in this system. I assume you mean that in the text stream there is a space before the hyphen but not after. Logically, there is no difference between hal- le- lu- jah and hal -le -lu -jah. The hyphen does not exist as part of a syllable at all. A hyphen is a separator between syllables, so logically it can't be part of any syllable's text. The separator might be made up of any number of hyphens and spaces, but it behaves like a single hyphen-separator regardless. In type-in-score, I don't see how you can think of the hyphen as part of a syllable at all, since it acts as a key that moves from one syllable to another. You *can't* type a hyphen into a syllable (unless you use the special character). As soon as you type the hyphen key, the cursor jumps to the next note and starts editing a syllable there instead. It's the same idea as the tab key or right-arrow key, with the only difference that if you advance using the hyphen key the program will add a hyphen to the text stream after the syllable you just left if there isn't already a hyphen there. If the hyphen is already there in the text stream (eg, if you type multiple hyphens to advance forward several notes), then the hyphen key acts identically to the tab or right-arrow key. The hyphen key behaves the same regardless of where your cursor is within a syllable. If you put your cursor at the beginning of the syllable then type a hyphen, it still moves to the next note and adds a hyphen after the syllable -- just as the left arrow still moves you to the previous note regardless of whether your cursor is at the beginning or the end of a syllable's text. I finally discovered that using TYPE IN SCORE, when you delete a syllable that was input in TYPE IN SCORE with a typed hyphen, the letters are deleted but the trailing hyphen sometimes? always? occasionally? gets attached to the next syllable. These are the hyphens, I believe, that were causing the problem. Deleting a syllable from type in score never deletes the hyphen, because it is not part of the syllable at all. It is not attached to anything, except in the sense that it has a position in the text stream between two syllables. When both of the adjacent syllables appear in the score, regardless of where, the hyphen will be placed between them. If one of the two adjacent syllables doesn't appear anywhere, then the hyphen doesn't appear at all. If the hyphen is at the end of the text string and thus has no following syllable, it will appear between the preceding syllable and the end of the score. If the hyphen is at the beginning of the text string and thus has no preceding syllable, it is ignored. There are various ways in which type-in-score might result in a hyphen failing to appear on the page. For instance, if you enter hal-le-lu-jah and then delete the note with lu on it, what will appear in the score is hal-le jah rather than hal-le-jah, but that's not because the hyphen has disappeared; it's because the le and jah syllables aren't adjacent in the text string. There are also ways in which a user might reasonably think that he has entered a hyphen, but because of the way the input system works he has not. For example, if you type hal-le--jah (typing two hyphens to skip past the third note), then use the left-arrow to go back to the third note and type in lu, you might reasonably think that you should end up with a hyphen between lu and jah, since you've already typed a hyphen between note three and four. In reality, the hyphen keystroke you made there served only as a function to advance your cursor. If, in this example, you had typed a hyphen after entering lu at the end, everything would come out as you want it. All of this is a result of the disjunct between the type-in-score UI and the underlying data, which you correctly criticize. It would perhaps be a step in the right direction if, when you select a syllable in type-in-score, the program checks to see if that syllable is followed by a hyphen separator and, if so, displays a (single) hyphen on the screen in the selected text. When the syllable is de-selected, the hyphen could return to its regular display behavior. Or perhaps it would be even better if instead of displaying the hyphen alongside the text (which would reinforce the idea that it is somehow part of the syllable), some distinct display would show on either side of the syllable to indicate the existence or non-existence of a hyphen before and after. It would also be a help if when a syllable is selected the display somehow highlighted the
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 8:06 PM -0400 9/22/02, David W. Fenton wrote: This is straight-out arranging, happening while I do the inputting. Yes, I do the lyrics last, naturally. Hmm, doing the lyrics last might be an example of changing one's work habits to suit the computer. Often when I am composing to a given set of lyrics, I set the lyrics in the measures first, then the rhythms, then the noteheads. I can't do this in Finale, as the lyrics always have to come AFTER the entries. That's one more reason why I still compose and arrange with pencil and paper, and only go to Finale afterwards to make it look nice. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 8:18 AM 09/21/02, Bernard Savoie wrote: I second Linda's comment. I've also been a long-time user [...] But once I understood the way the lyrics tool works I have seldom had any problems, [...] But you have to be aware of the pitfalls which you can easily fall into. Actually, I think that most of the people who complained about the lyrics tool weren't complaining about actual problems experienced. Rather, they objected that the pitfalls exist at all, and that a user must learn how to avoid them. They are taking the position that the tool ought to be 100% safe from the get-go. mdl I understand what they are saying but it is impossible to have a tool be 100% safe. Even a simple tool (in concept) like a hammer cannot fit for every job (i.e. a big hammer does not do a good job inside a tight space). In Finale's case, we are talking about a very complex tool which has to deal with an even greater complex situation, that is working with music notation which not only has so many variants that not one set of rules can cover all of the possibilities which have to be dealt with, but is also in constant flux with composers trying to create new ways of figurating sound concepts which are ill served by standard traditional musical notation. Of course the current subject does not fall into the category the most complex aspect of music writing which Finale has to deal with. I'm all for Coda revamping the lyric tool to make it easier and clearer to manipulate. I've also always tought that the graphics tool was far from adequate and should include features like being able to rotate characters and/or items and should allow much more control of the graphics in page view, for example. But we are living in the real world, with real deadlines. There are only a few ways to deal with the frustating parts of the program. One way is, as often happens on this list, you can rant and rave and show your frustations, which probably helps alleviate some of the stress for some. But for myself, I find this counterproductive as the next deadline is always too short and the work is always to large. That is why I prefer to try and cope with each problem and find a working solution which often means using some work-around which probably never occured to the programmers but which, along with several others on the list, I have found and have used. I let the programmers do their work, which up till now has mostly resulted in improvement after improvement over time since the late 1980s when Finale first came out. For instance, I can remember a time when we had to readjust the articulations manually after transposing a part (I get chills up my spine just recalling the late nights working to get the parts out in those days), happily we don't have to think to much about this now. And I am grateful for these programmers who created such a tool and continue to find solutions (and I include the plug-in creators [thanks guys, keep up the great work] as well as the crews at Coda and their competitors which are forcing more advances). The other solution is to go out and create your own software/tool. This is not for me. I rather deal with the musical problems and leave the programming to others. That being said, I would still like to see improvements made in, among other things the graphics tool and the lyrics tool even though I can work well enough with what we do have in hand. Bernard S. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 09/22/2002 07:27 PM, Mark D. Lew wrote: Before this discussion I hadn't realized that so many other users are accustomed to entering lyrics in a way so completely different from mine. As an occasional user, but often using lyrics: I had a lot of problems using type in score. So I read the manual or did a tutorial or something and discovered click assignment. It works well. I did discover that verses are for standard verses, such as in a hymn. But verses also work well for separate parts, SATB. It keeps the text from becoming jumbled. Phil Daley AutoDesk http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
Robert Patterson wrote: I actually prefer the mirrored lyrics approach, but it requires forethought and discipline. Generally, unless you are truly writing a multiverse piece, such as a hymn, you should put all your lyrics in a single verse. This avoids the baseline headaches that others have mentioned. I prefer using multiple verses with the same baseline (say -144 for all 10 verses). The reason is that if you have to edit or change things or even screw something up, the damage is limited to that verse and you can easily clear a section and re-click enter the syllables. This method has taken me through 3 operas and a few vocal pieces. I don't generally need verses to be on top of each other. Damage limitation is the what it is all about! -Randolph Peters ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 23 Sep 2002 at 0:44, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 8:06 PM 09/22/02, David W. Fenton wrote: But I feel *very* uncomfortable with click assigning the lyrics. One problem is the size of the dialog and the fact that it is tough to tell where you are in repetitive text. But I discovered another problem trying it out today -- the score doesn't automatically update properly, even when you check off the checkbox for that. So, I'd be assigning lyrics, but couldn't see the result onscreen. Because of this, I only did about 5 measures of it, as I just cannot get comfortable with flying blind in something that is so incredibly prone to problems. By automatically update I gather you mean Automatic Music Spacing and/or Automatic Update Layout? . . . No. I mean the AUTO UPDATE checkbox in the click assignment dialog. I assume it's intended to update the score in the background, but it is not reliable. It seems to work for the first syllable of a measure, and then the lyrics go blank for the rest of the measure, and do not re-appear until the dialog is closed. I could *never* work in that situation -- it's working way too far from the actual score, with far too much possibility for error. [] [...] As I've said repeatedly, Mozart's Requiem DOES NOT HAVE MULTIPLE VERSES. And as I've replied repeatedly, I don't mean verses in the literal sense of the word, I mean the verses as provided in Finale software. How many times do we have to go through this? You are the one that worded the part you cut in a fashion that made it sound like everybody knows that one should use separate verses for individual staves, that it's the obvious thing to do. There's nothing OBVIOUS about it at all. In fact, it's quite convoluted. That's my only point, even if it *is* the best way to work around the severe flaws in Finale's lyrics implementation. As I've already explained, in the case of Mozart's Requiem, my instinct would have been to put the different voice parts into different verses. That's *your* instinct. There's absolutely nothing intuitive or obvious about that. Your instinct comes from your long experience of struggling with lyrics and you've discovered a kludge that makes things works more reliably. If all the movements are to be in a single Finale file (which isn't my usual practice), I'd also use separate verses for the texts of different movements. (Myself, I probably would also separate the requiem from the kyrie in No. 1, and the benedictus from the hosanna in the No. 11, though I'm guessing most others wouldn't go that far.) I like keeping distinct chunks of text separate, so that makes sense to me. You're telling me (again) that this doesn't feel logical to you. I know, I heard you the first time. But you were once again harping on the idea that my problems were self-made, that if I'd only used verses, my problems would have been less severe. Workarounds like mis-using verses for segregating text divisions are not obvious at all. [] Well, I'm not about to start using click assignment, because the UI is too scary for me to become comfortable with it. I do know that I should never try deleting lyrics with TYPE IN SCORE if hyphens are involved, because that leads to excess hyphens in the source text stream. Other than that, I can work around it. It's true that deleting a syllable with type-in-score never removes any hyphen from the text stream. If you delete a syllable which had a hyphen on either side of it in the text stream, that will result in redundant hyphens in the text stream. But those redundant hyphens have no effect, so I fail to see the problem. In fact, it seems to me that if you've got a syllable you want to delete, then deleting it in type-in-score is safer than the alternatives. It actually doesn't work that way, unless you are replacing something in the score with a blank space or another syllable that falls at the same location in a word. Try this: Create a new document, and input 4 quarter notes. With TYPE IN SCORE, put in Hal-le-lu-jah as the lyrics Now, go to the le syllable, and change it to le,. Then change the lu to Deutsch- and the jah to land. You'll see that you have a leftover hyphen that is actually not redundant -- it doesn't belong there at all. In edit lyrics, you'll see that the stray hyphen that used to be attached to the le of hallelujah is now appended to the beginning of Deutsch, and there is no way in TYPE IN SCORE to get rid of it. You *must* edit the lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window. Since you do click assignment, you'd never see this. This would be avoidable *if* SHIFT LYRICS worked reliably. My problem with it is that it tends to mess up the assignments of syllables to the left/right of the shifting point. I did a lot of this last evening, and found that on Chri-ste e-le-i-son (where the le is a very long melisma terminated by syllabic i-son), SHIFT LYRICS would completely mess this up,
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 3:48 PM -0400 9/23/02, David W. Fenton wrote: Try this: Create a new document, and input 4 quarter notes. With TYPE IN SCORE, put in Hal-le-lu-jah as the lyrics Now, go to the le syllable, and change it to le,. Then change the lu to Deutsch- and the jah to land. You'll see that you have a leftover hyphen that is actually not redundant -- it doesn't belong there at all. In edit lyrics, you'll see that the stray hyphen that used to be attached to the le of hallelujah is now appended to the beginning of Deutsch, and there is no way in TYPE IN SCORE to get rid of it. You *must* edit the lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window. Since you do click assignment, you'd never see this. Yes, most of us know about that feature... err, umm, I suppose that qualifies as a bug. Actually, that is WHY we use click assignment, to avoid problems like this in the Type Into Score feature. You are absolutely right, that the tool behaves badly, and we have simply opted to waltz around the problem. Same for voices, I learned here on the list never to touch them, and to use layers instead, even though it is one of the first topics in the tutorials. I learned about the misuse of verses here on the list too, and it worked, so I gave up complaining. I also gave up complaining about the size of the Chord Suffix Edit window, the fact that I can't add a chord symbol anywhere in the measure I like without adding and hiding an entry in another layer, about how I had to re-jig my whole working procedure to suit the darn computer, and a number of other things. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
I should have been more precise. Where I wrote snip If one deletes the same syllables in "edit lyrics" mode, OTH, all of the syllables in the balance of the string visible in the "edit lyrics" window get shifted to the left two places, even when this takes the first syllable of one staff and attaches it to some note on the preceding staff. I should have written " If one deletes the same syllables in "edit lyrics" mode, OTH, all of the syllables in the balance of the string visible in the "edit lyrics" window get shifted to the left by the same number of places as the number of syllables deleted, even when this takes the first syllables of subsequent staves and attaches them to notes on preceding staves. ns In general, deleting syllables in "type into score" mode, is, in my experience, the safest way to do it. ns ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 7:28 AM 09/23/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: [answering Christopher BJ Smith] That's one more reason why I still compose and arrange with pencil and paper, and only go to Finale afterwards to make it look nice. You're right. I realize that I'm uncomfortable composing music with text in Finale, although I've composed almost everything that can be notated in a standard way within Finale since I started using it 10 years ago. I probably compose less frequently than either of you, but I'm not satisfied with that. In this case, I agree with David Fenton. Finale is a tool for composers, and one of the things composers do is doodle around with lyrics in the course of the creative process. The program ought to be able to do that without compelling you to go to pen and paper. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and I now believe this can be achieved WITHOUT destroying the power or the continuity of the system that exists. The model is Automatic Music Spacing and Automatic Update Layout. That is, there is a function which reviews your data and tidies it up according to a certain set of rules devised to intelligently guess what you want. For those who are content to follow these rules all the time, there is the option to choose a new Automatic Lyric Ordering so that it is constantly being performed on the fly. Those who prefer to manipulate lyrics on their own with complete freedom can simply ignore the function and never use it, in which case everything will continue to be exactly as it is now. Or they might make use of the function occasionally, with the option of undo if they don't like the results. For those who choose to use the automatic option, the result will be that certain irregular lyric manipulations will be repaired as soon as they happen. With this option on, certain ways of using the lyric system will become unavailable -- but those ways are precisely the ones that a typical user is going to want to avoid, either because they're just weird (eg, syllables all mixed up in a crazy order) or dangerous (eg, duplicate assignments). It would be like the program is looking over your shoulder forcing you to keep your lyrics in tidy order, just like Automatic Music Spacing forces you to space your music to avoid collisions. I'll elaborate on this when I have more time. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 12:00 PM 09/23/02, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You have got to be kidding! After all of the verbage on this subject and you still draw this conclusion? Deleting almost anything in type-in-score is not at all safer or recommended. God help us if David Fenton follows *this* advice and we have to suffer through another round on this topic. Not kidding, just foolish. I had my mind on the ordering/shifting problem, and I was thinking of deleting in the Edit Lyrics window as the alternative. I had completely forgotten about the multiple-assignment problem, which is what started this thread. You are entirely correct to recommend deleting from Adjust Syllable mode -- though, as you acknowledge, the one problem with this is that it can lead to errant hyphens. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 3:48 PM 09/23/02, David W. Fenton wrote: No. I mean the AUTO UPDATE checkbox in the click assignment dialog. I assume it's intended to update the score in the background, but it is not reliable. It seems to work for the first syllable of a measure, and then the lyrics go blank for the rest of the measure, and do not re-appear until the dialog is closed. I never use the Auto Update checkbox. I'm still not clear what it is that bothers you about click-assignment without Auto Update, but I don't really need to know. The program should be designed so that you can work with Type-in-Score only and never need to visit Click Assignment or Edit Lyrics. [...] That's *your* instinct. There's absolutely nothing intuitive or obvious about that. Your instinct comes from your long experience of struggling with lyrics and you've discovered a kludge that makes things works more reliably. [...] Workarounds like mis-using verses for segregating text divisions are not obvious at all. OK, OK. I heard you the first time, and the second time, and the third time. I hereby stipulate: There is nothing obvious or intuitive about entering different texts into different verses. Can we please drop this point now? It actually doesn't work that way, unless you are replacing something in the score with a blank space or another syllable that falls at the same location in a word. There's no such thing as replacing with a blank space. You cannot have a space in a lyric. Try this: Create a new document, and input 4 quarter notes. With TYPE IN SCORE, put in Hal-le-lu-jah as the lyrics Now, go to the le syllable, and change it to le,. Then change the lu to Deutsch- and the jah to land. You'll see that you have a leftover hyphen that is actually not redundant -- it doesn't belong there at all. In edit lyrics, you'll see that the stray hyphen that used to be attached to the le of hallelujah is now appended to the beginning of Deutsch, and there is no way in TYPE IN SCORE to get rid of it. You *must* edit the lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window. Although I'm pretty sure there is nothing that is completely impossible to fix from type-in-score, it is possible to get into a situation where the solution is so roundabout or unobvious that Edit Lyrics is the better choice. But in your example, that is not the case. Here it's very easy to change the hyphen in type-in-score mode: Select the syllable le,. Type the space bar. The hyphen is now gone. That's usually the easiest way to get rid of an unwanted hyphen: Select the syllable preceding the hyphen and type space. Where deletions are involved, you can create a situation where this won't work, and in some cases it's hard to identify exactly what the preceding syllable is, but for ordinary extraneous hyphens, just use the space bar to change the separator to a space. Since you do click assignment, you'd never see this. True, but since my view of the lyrics is closer to the real data, I'm more likely to see a solution that might not be obvious to a type-in-score user. The idea that a hyphen or a space is part of a syllable, however natural it may seem to you, does not reflect the reality of Finale's lyrics. A hyphen or a space is not part of either syllable; it is the wall between them. Thus, in type-in-score, the creation or deletion of a hyphen or a space is done not in typing any given syllable, but in traveling from one to another. In the example as you state it, the problem would have never even arisen had you used space to travel from le to Deutsch, rather than tab, arrow or the mouse. This would be avoidable *if* SHIFT LYRICS worked reliably. Shift Lyrics is obviously designed to go with Click Assignment. In its basic function (ie, making adjustments following a long alt-click-assignment) it's quite effective, but I've never found it to be useful for anything else. I'm not at all surprised that it's a weak tool for a Type-in-Score user. Its purpose is to realign an entire string of syllables, not to move them one at a time. I believe that a Type-in-Score user ought to be able to do everything with Type-in-Score alone, without ever needing Click Assignment, Edit Lyrics, or Shift Lyrics. Unfortunately, that's not quite the case now, though it's possible if certain behaviors are avoided. So, it's unusable for fixing this, and the only way is either to delete the syllables in TYPE IN SCORE and enter replacements, or to unassign the lyrics and then re-assign them with click assignment. I'd rather use TYPE IN SCORE and then fix the hyphens in EDIT LYRICS than rely on the very shaky UI of the click assignment dialog. You should be able to fix most of these hyphens in Type in Score, using the space bar. In the example I gave above, the hyphens aren't redundant -- they are *wrong*. When I say redundant hyphen, I mean when one or more hyphens appear consecutively in the text stream. If it is a single hyphen (ie, non-redundant), you can delete it in Type in Score,
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 7:49 PM 09/23/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: If one deletes the same syllables in edit lyrics mode, OTH, all of the syllables in the balance of the string visible in the edit lyrics window get shifted to the left by the same number of places as the number of syllables deleted, even when this takes the first syllables of subsequent staves and attaches them to notes on preceding staves. You're right that deleting in type-in-score is safer than deleting in Edit Lyrics (and indeed that's just what I was thinking when I made the statement). But, as John Blane correctly pointed out, deleting in Adjust Syllables is safer than either. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On Friday, Sep 20, 2002, at 17:47 US/Pacific, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: But my question was aimed at the intended implementation of hyphens that Dennis was proposing. I'm familiar with sound editing programs such as Pro Tools and Cubase Audio, so I know approximately about the mapping procedure he suggests. I'm just not convinced that it is practical for lyrics. Thing is that a non-destructive edit implies a fixed source. The analogy to the (essentially) raw data storage format of sound files simply doesn't jive with the exponentially more complex database type of storage and relationships Enigma utilizes. However, I did enjoy the notion of a lock though. Perhaps most importantly though, any proposals for changing Finale's text/lyric formats, linking, and representation must consider Unicode because that's now the international standard. Text and lyric storage should slide over to an XML tagged format. This would permit internal mechanisms such as keeping null slots for deleted syllables so that the links could ripple forward or back easily and thus maintain their correspondences correctly. And the possibility of a de-frag which would compact, re-order, and relink when such things were deemed desirable by the user. With the combination of XML and Unicode, the representation for hyphens could be changeable between Unicode slots or an indicator that a certain custom graphic should be used. In addition, there could be descriptive tags so that a few rendering characteristics could be specified. Similar flexibility for word extensions (as a property of a syllable). Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 8:47 PM 09/20/02, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: I'm on Mac, but the only thing your solution does is make the hyphen (which should be butt up against the first syllable on its right side) drift over to halfway between the first syllable and the opt-space. Also, the next note after the open-ended hyphen usually has its own syllable attached, so there is no need for an opt-space. Right now my kludge is to use an opt-hyphen (which is really an m-dash) instead of the hyphen. I don't like using the opt-hyphen, since the character has a completely different appearance (it's actually an N-dash, not an M-dash). Yes, if you have a syllable in the second ending, and if you don't mind entering the lyrics so that it is considered to be next, then you can use that instead. To adjust the horizontal position of the hyphen move the opt-space ghost-syllable to the left or right. That's the other reason to use an opt-space instead of the real syllable that's already there. In the situation you describe, I do want the hyphen to drift right, rather than hug the syllable to its left, though I typically will move opt-space leftward so that it doesn't drift quite so far. Other kludges are possible of course, but I find this one to be the easiest and most flexible for this sort of situation. -- But my question was aimed at the intended implementation of hyphens that Dennis was proposing. [...] [...] After all, the lyric is so small compared to a sound file; the mapping info for a syllable might be an order of magnitude larger than the syllable itself, at least! Plus, the way lyrics are usually handled is so sequential, compared to sound or video editing, that I think the way it is laid out now might be a better system [...] That was the impression I got, too, but unlike you I still don't totally understand what Dennis is talking about, so I wasn't going to jump to conclusions. The whole thing reminds me of audio-geeks who can paste together anything using just a few bits and pieces of recorded voice. Sort of like that Star Trek TNG episode where Spock is trying to achieve detente with the Romulans. They capture him and ask him to make an announcement telling the ships to turn back. The Romulan says, No matter, we already have enough of you on tape that we could fabricate the speech. If you follow this idea to its logical extreme, you could have a text pool which consists only of abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz plus a few punctuation marks, and then use very selective editing to create your entire lyric out of that. To me that feels very roundabout and geeky. On the other hand, I don't particularly mind typing out Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison! That is the singer's text, after all, so why wouldn't I type it? That took me all of about 30 seconds to type out, which is probably less than it will take to assign the syllables. The real work is in the assignment, not the typing, so shifting the work over to the assignment side is a net minus. That's how it seems to me, anyway. Perhaps it looks different to someone who doesn't use click-assignment, or to someone who is a slow typist. Mileages vary. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
From: Linda Worsley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout I've been following this thread for quite a while now, with amazement: A lot of what I put into Finale, uses lyrics (lots of songs, choral works-- multiple verses, multiple endings, various arcane configurations) and ... Am I the only person on Finalelist who has almost NO trouble using Finale's lyric entry system. I almost always type them into the score. I almost always have to go to edit lyrics and correct some typo or make a change, and it works like a charm. To be sure, I've used Finale since '87 and it's the devil I know... and the lyrics have only gotten easier and more stable over the years. Of course, in my work with a client, I've had to convert from Encore, and the lyrics there are a total nightmare, so maybe by comparison (as with all things Encore) Finale is a dream. The only problems I've had are with word extensions, and even those are pretty easy to solve. Am I missing something? Linda Worsley I second Linda's comment. I've also been a long-time user (since version 1) and have had to input lyrics on numerous occasions. By experience, I did encounter the same problem which initially started this thread, that being the utter mess which can be created if one makes changes on a copied lyric. The same type of problem can occur if one decides to change a staff expression after having sprinkled it throughout a score. But once I understood the way the lyrics tool works I have seldom had any problems, and this after having to deal with hundreds of songs and numerous large scale pieces using lyrics (I'm presently working on a 90 minute oratorio and will be working on a 2 hour opera in the near future). Since the implementation of the Type into Score I have almost exclusively used this feature, even for minor corrections, and have found it more eficiant then the prior methods. But you have to be aware of the pitfalls which you can easily fall into. You also must decide for yourself if this is the best way to go for you. The lyrics tool should probably be rethought although I dread the day when Coda does do something about it (thinking of all those songs, oratorios, operas, etc. which I may one day have to update). All I can say for those having problems is to calm down and learn to use the tool which you have. Could it be better? Absolutely. Can we influence Coda to give us a better tool? I certainly hope so. But no matter how much you abhore the tool today, it's still a lot better than going back to the good old days... you know! when we used pencil and paper to do this work. ;) Bernard Savoie ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 2:01 AM -0800 9/21/02, Mark D. Lew wrote: To me that feels very roundabout and geeky. On the other hand, I don't particularly mind typing out Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie eleison, eleison, eleison! Christe eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison, eleison! Kyrie eleison! That is the singer's text, after all, so why wouldn't I type it? That took me all of about 30 seconds to type out, which is probably less than it will take to assign the syllables. The real work is in the assignment, not the typing, so shifting the work over to the assignment side is a net minus. That's how it seems to me, anyway. Perhaps it looks different to someone who doesn't use click-assignment, or to someone who is a slow typist. Mileages vary. I am a slow typist, and I prefer to type it in once, then duplicate using copy and paste wherever neccessary. But like you, I find it slow to click-assign one note at a time, and am happy to have all the lyrics in order first, then opt-click assign 'em all in one happy go. I like the feeling I get, like when I use a power tool to accomplish a hard job. Or when I use TG Tools... 8-) ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 12:19 AM 09/20/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: Forget how Finale's lyrics work now. Just drop the concept. OK. In what I'm proposing, no 'understanding' would be needed. A hyphen or space would just be a marker processed by the display system, and could just as easily be moused in place like a smart shape or word extension. Onward... Yikes! I sure hope you have something better in mind down the road, because I sure as hell don't want to mouse in every hyphen. That would be horrible. I want hyphens to know how to keep themselves centered between two syllables, even if the syllables move, and I want them to know to add more hyphens when the distance goes beyond a certain threshold. Right now they do that. If they lose that ability, there had better be something else to take its place. I think you've skipped over the critical parts of my explanation, particularly the analogy to slip editing. Yes, I skipped that because I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I know nothing of audio recording editing, and the analogy was completely lost on me. The several major modes of entry would still exist. Both would create text pool entries. Type-into-score would be creating pool entries on the fly (incorporating corrections until the mode was exited), and text-window entry would create them in bulk. They would be stored as any other text, and could be assigned or reassigned as needed. (Editing could be forced from either mode, and would be the province of more experienced users willing to enter destructive-editing mode -- keeping in mind that **all** lyrics editing in Finale is presently destructive.) Unless you count deleting from adjust-syllables mode as editing, yes. Here is an incomplete description: TYPE-IN-SCORE ENTRY: Text, fonts, styles, colors, sizes, weights, etc., all available. Creates a new numbered text pool entry on exit from type-in-score mode (including the text formatting), on command keystroke, or on thumbwheel up (new numbered entry starts). Resulting text pool entries can be click-assigned elsewhere. I don't understand the term thumbwheel up. TYPE-IN-SCORE EDIT: Mode 1, nondestructive edit -- changes only the visible contents (see also accept-edits command, below); Mode 2 (with warning), destructive edit. TEXT BOX ENTRY: Text, fonts, styles, colors, sizes, weights, etc., all available. Creates a new numbered text pool entry. Can be click-assigned. Can be used as a text block in score. Thumbwheel up starts new numbered entry. Subsequent in-score edits behave as type-in-score, above. TEXT BOX EDIT: This is always a *destructive edit*. All lyrics in the score change. Warning displayed. NOTATION EDIT: Floats text when notes deleted. Floats gray marker box when notes inserted. Keypress-click-drag to stretch the hyphen, space, or word extension across the area. I don't understand what notation edit is. Are you talking about dragging the syllables around? I'm also still not following how hyphens fit into this scheme. LYRICS EDIT OPTIONS: Drag and drop syllables, words, or groups; rubber-band assign/reassign notes; select and drag positioning (syllable shift, re-centering, baseline adjust); copy/paste (nondestructive editable copy of current text pool entry), copy/paste (new copy=new numbered text pool entry), copy/mirror (nondestructive mirrored editable copy of current text pool entry). Mirrors would have shading or other indication of their mirrored status, and show ownership. ACCEPT-EDITS COMMAND: Searches score (or selected area/staff) for all visible text changes and applies them according to a series of selection options (such as consolidate text, resort text, smash mirrors, etc.) with or without confirmation of each acceptance. The major difference is usability and visibility. You could tangle them up like a rat's nest of cables, and they would still be loyal to their place in the contiguous text as it was entered *and you could find them* because of their visible ownership. Um, OK, I can see the visibility improvement, though I'm not sure why you couldn't achieve it with less roundabout means. I'm still not getting the usability advantage. For example, suppose I've got an art song with a French text and an Italian text. After putting in the lyrics, I decide I want to move the baseline of the Italian lyrics down 6 pts. In the current system, that's a snap. I'm not seeing how I would do it in your version. Are you envisioning baseline as a feature that can be edited from Text Box window? There's no hyphen fixing or fixation:) going on. If the syllable contained a hyphen marker, it still contains a hyphen marker. In the unusual situation that the word was force-edit changed to one without a hyphen, some sort of context menu could make the change (with accompanying warning box if the change was intended to be applied to the pool contents). Well, I'm still fixated on the hyphen because I don't understand how you're making them work. You said something about dragging it
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
I have to edit a video due Wednesday morning, so this will probably be my last post until next week -- I'll do my best! I'm only pursuing this because the lyrics portion of Finale has flummoxed many people, not just on this list. My composer colleague David goes into red-faced rages over it -- and he *does* use lyrics for most of his compositions. He's just not a computer guy, and the current Finale lyrics thing is computerese to him. At 12:08 AM 9/20/02 -0800, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 12:19 AM 09/20/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: A hyphen or space would just be a marker processed by the display system, and could just as easily be moused in place like a smart shape or word extension. Onward... Yikes! I sure hope you have something better in mind down the road, because I sure as hell don't want to mouse in every hyphen. That would be horrible. Maybe it's late, and you're only seeing the scare words. :) Could just as easily -- in other words, hyphenation would not be limited any more than the methods of note entry and adjustment are limited. That answer's Christopher's question about 1st/2nd endings with no destination for the hyphen ... drag it in place. It doesn't eliminate the existing keyboard hyphen syllable break, just adds methods of its placement. Remember that the hyphen in Finale today is already not a real hyphen (nor is it in a printed score, really, because it's not something that's sung) -- it's a control code that produces a hyphen string in the display (or a behavior from the singer). I'm suggesting additional methods of placing that control code so that it's not constrained to being attached to syllables. So you're typing along, using the hyphen command as usual, and you get to a repeat ending. Where does the hyphen go? Type it, shift-click-drag it just like a slur (but constraining vertical motion with the shift), and it can then hook to the ending, or a note, or a barline, or any object. Because ownership can be shown (another key concept I've been asking for for years), you never lose either end of it. You can turn view ownership on or off to see the rubber-band connections. To digress to this ownership thing: The ownership of the slur was one of the best moves Finale ever made, attaching as it does to two objects. And it shows what could be done for all objects that are not a fixed size. Fixed size objects have one point of ownership, those that can resize have *two* (or can have two, in the case of, say, text expressions whose endpoint has to be fiddled with in page mode). A hyphen with ownership and lyrics with ownership means you know where they go and how far they go. Okay, now back... Yes, I skipped that because I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I know nothing of audio recording editing, and the analogy was completely lost on me. Modern audio and especially video editing belong to the class of NLE -- non-linear editing. A typical film montage during an action scene is an example -- many angles and zooms and motions and cutaways and sound and effects and voices are used from the original multiple camera shots and retakes. They are edited today into a single film without actually cutting any film or tape. The originals stay intact and you establish a 'window' into them. The desire to have lyrics be flexible (clones, copies, mirrors, etc.) leans in the direction of NLE. To accomplish NLE requires taking one's mind and tools outside the idea that the order of information during editing needs to be linear -- which, with repetitive lyrics and syllables and melismas and seques, it isn't and hasn't been for centuries. To accomplish this, audio and video editors have a pool (and the name differs, depending on the program) of data in which clips (audio, video, titles, effects, etc.) are placed/imported. (Finale's lyrics are a little like elements in a pool, except they misbehave.) Here is an example of how a simple NLE editing session might go in Finale: The data pool entry is The cat in the hat came back, to be distributed to some group of singing lines. It might as well be the quintet from West Side Story, which has lots of repetitions and overlays like this: Line 1 sings: The cat in the hat came back (straight melody) Line 2 sings: The cat, the cat (melismatically) Line 3 sings: Cat, cat, cat, came back, back, back (rhythmically) Line 4 sings: The cat came back (staccato, separated with rests) Line 5 sings: c, c, c, c, t, t, t, t, k, k, k, k (percussive, no pitches) Line 6 sings: Come back, cat (pedal) (Before you jump on this example, realize that I'm only using the short phrase to compress the explanation. Also, comma, period, semicolon, hyphen, space, etc., are all markers. Implementation differs as hyphens stretch by default.) Line 1 uses the entire data pool entry. Line 2 uses the entry slipped to The cat (narrow the editing windows's markers to only include those two words, and click-assign). Line 3 uses individual words from the pool entry (narrow markers to
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
I've been following this thread for quite a while now, with amazement: A lot of what I put into Finale, uses lyrics (lots of songs, choral works-- multiple verses, multiple endings, various arcane configurations) and ... Am I the only person on Finalelist who has almost NO trouble using Finale's lyric entry system. I almost always type them into the score. I almost always have to go to edit lyrics and correct some typo or make a change, and it works like a charm. To be sure, I've used Finale since '87 and it's the devil I know... and the lyrics have only gotten easier and more stable over the years. Of course, in my work with a client, I've had to convert from Encore, and the lyrics there are a total nightmare, so maybe by comparison (as with all things Encore) Finale is a dream. The only problems I've had are with word extensions, and even those are pretty easy to solve. Am I missing something? Linda Worsley -- Hear the music at: http://www.ganymuse.com/ ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
The only problems I've had are with word extensions, and even those are pretty easy to solve. Am I missing something? Linda Worsley No. Ronald M. Krentzman RM Music Preparation ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 19:49, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 6:30 PM 09/19/02, David W. Fenton wrote: [] You're lapsing into Mac-speak -- I have no idea what you mean by OPTION-CLICK. I understand that it's one of the shift keys, but it is peculiar to the Mac, and I don't know what it maps to on Windows, nor what it does. Sorry. I don't know where the function is on PC. I'm sure it exists, but with a different keystroke. You still haven't told me what OPTION-CLICK actually *does*. [] For polyphonic, melismatic music, the assumption breaks down. Which version of the text should I type in? The Soprano version? The Alto version? The Tenor version? The Bass version? Each has different repetitions and different melismas. You should enter them all separate. See, for example, the Coda sample file De Lassus which I cited earlier. So, if nobody recommends multi-assignment of a single lyric WHY THE HELL DOES THE PROGRAM BEHAVE AS IF THIS IS PREFERRED? That is, the copy operation links to the original lyrics, rather than creating a new copy. That would seem to me to show that the designers of Finale thought entering the lyrics as few times as possible and assigning them to as many voices as they occurred in was the optimal approach. I can see no other justification for the behavior of the copy. If you are recommending putting each in separately in EDIT LYRICS, then I simply so no virtue over TYPE IN SCORE, except in terms of it being closer to the metal in terms of the flaws in Finale's UI implementation. That's one advantage, yes. I also prefer being able to do all the typing separate from the assigning. I find the multi-click-assign method to be faster than type in score for getting all the lyrics into place where I want them. Also, I like being able to view the text all in one place, organized into verses as I choose. And I like being able to type the lyrics in a format with line breaks and spacing to match the poetry, or whatever other visual scheme I find most helpful. But in highly repetitive music like the Mozart Requiem, you actually get something like this: Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam, ae-ter-nam do-na e-is, do-na, do-na e-is Do-mi- ne, re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: et lux per-pe-tu-a, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at, lu-ce-at e- is. Ex-au-di, ex-au-di, ex-au- di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am, ad te, ad te o-mnis, o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni- et. Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na, do-na e-is, e-is Do-mi-ne, do-na, do-na e- is, do-na e-is, do-na: et lux per-pe-tu-a, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce- at e-is, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e-is. Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le i- son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri- ste e-le-i- -son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. I don't see how that furthers anything whatsoever. It isn't poetry, so there are no natural line breaks, and since there's repetition of every single word, many times each, there is no comprehensibility to it. In short, it has meaning and comprehensibility only in the context of the score. So, unless you're typing only: Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e- is. Ex-au-di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am ad te o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni- et. Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. then I just don't see the advantage to using EDIT LYRICS and click assignment in terms of comprehensibility and the relationship to the original text. [] I was confused (and am still confused) by your description of syllables being ordered in the Edit Lyrics window to match the order they were entered. It is my understanding that that was only true in earlier versions. If you create a single bar with four quarter notes, and you type in four lyrics from right to left, do they not still appear in left-to-right order in the Edit Lyrics window? In MacFin 2002 they do. It seems that the *starting* point of a staff's lyrics is ordered according to the chronological order. That is, which voice's lyrics start the edit window is determined by which voice enters first. In my case, I was confused by the fact that my entry of the lyrics was in the order of the entries, as I started at the beginning of the score and put lyrics into the first voice that had them. That is, the order in which I typed happened to be exactly the same order in terms of starting point as the entries of the voices. At one point I was also confused because I could not find the text of the part that got screwed up, but this was because I had not searched down far enough. Seems to me there ought to be some Search/Replace functionality in the EDIT LYRICS window. In other words, you put them in in a manner that exhibits yet
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 20:53, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 9:18 PM 09/19/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: I don't enter consecutive hyphens as much anymore either, but they get generated in type into score mode when one has [...] [...] the original separators persist, so that an examination of the lyrics block shows something on the order of Hal - - -le - lu- jah. Ah, OK, I get it now. Since I rarely use type in score, I wasn't familiar with such patterns. As I noted before, any group of consecutive separator characters is treated as a single separator, thus the redundant ones may be safely removed. Removing non-redundant separators will result in lyrics being shifted. The main problem here is that in the only mode in which you can *see* the redundant separators, you can't tell where they are *used*. So, you can't really know if they are redundant or not. And that, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with the UI overall -- the only UI in which you can see everything you need from a musical point of view does not properly edit the underlying text stream. I would honestly be perfectly happy with lyrics if TYPE IN SCORE were properly integrated with the underlying text stream. That is, if I could never create problems that would require me to look in EDIT LYRICS, I'd be happy. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 20:53, Mark D. Lew wrote: I still don't see what's so logical or intuitive about having all the text in a single stream. How does the first word the alto sings follow naturally after the last word the soprano sings? I don't think that is logical, either -- it is the necessary result of a UI that ignores the fact that lyrics are assigned to notes within staves. That's why I think there should be a STAFF level in the UI. You are using VERSE or SECTION to get the same result, but as verses and sections are something you might actually need, you can run into problems there. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 20 Sep 2002 at 10:42, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: To digress to this ownership thing: The ownership of the slur was one of the best moves Finale ever made, attaching as it does to two objects. And it shows what could be done for all objects that are not a fixed size. Fixed size objects have one point of ownership, those that can resize have *two* (or can have two, in the case of, say, text expressions whose endpoint has to be fiddled with in page mode). A hyphen with ownership and lyrics with ownership means you know where they go and how far they go. That's a superb point, and for melismatic music, if you could type the syllable into the score at its start point, and then drag the end point to the last note of the melisma. It's not that different from simply clicking on the note where the next syllable is, but conceptually it has the beauty of defining a *span* of applicability. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 20 Sep 2002 at 10:42, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: GUI thumbwheels. Maybe they have different names on Macs -- for example, in the staff dialog, you can go from one staff to the other using the droplist or the thumbwheel to the right of the droplist. Thumbwheel up creates a new text pool entry. Spinner control. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 20 Sep 2002 at 10:42, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: Modern audio and especially video editing belong to the class of NLE -- non-linear editing. A typical film montage during an action scene is an example -- many angles and zooms and motions and cutaways and sound and effects and voices are used from the original multiple camera shots and retakes. They are edited today into a single film without actually cutting any film or tape. The originals stay intact and you establish a 'window' into them. I was once a guest at the video studio that does all the promotional spots for SciFi channel, and they explained that this method was actually originally created because of the storage requirements of digitally encoded video. They have the original source raw video stored in their terrabytes of disk storage. The final edit is a series of instructions that constructs the output from pointers into the time track of the stored digital video. So, a final edit has a very small amount of data, relative to the source video, because all it does is say: at time track xxx:xx:xx:xx start at [pointer to source video file]:yyy:yy:yy:yy continue for zzz:zz:zz:zz at time track aaa:aa:aa:aa start at [pointer to source video file]:bbb:bb:bb:bb continue for ccc:cc:cc:cc and so forth. And no doubt effects are applied to that in the stream of edit instructions. At this studio, they then recorded that to digital video tape and sent it off to the customer. If they'd been required to store the resulting digital stream, they would have needed 100s of times the storage space. Finale would benefit greatly from a more object-oriented structure, where source objects could be subclassed with properties that override those of the source object. That's really what the whole lyrics structure is set up for in the first place, but without the capability of overriding properties of the source data. I've wished for this with articulations and expressions, too. For dynamics, for instance, it would work like this: I insert an f which is set to key velocity 88 I listen, and this forte is just a bit too abrupt so I want it to be a slightly lower key velocity. So, I right click on this f and choose from the context menu adjust properties of this expression (as opposed to edit underlying expression definition) and set the key velocity to 80. With Finale presently, I have two choices: 1. create a separate f expression that has key velocity of 80 2. edit the MIDI data to back off the base key velocity. I don't really like either of those, the latter because you can't see what has been done onscreen, and the former because you I hate having multiple visually identical expressions. In WinFin2003 I've started using the brackets to indicate the key velocity for supplementary dynamic markings, but they look terrible onscreen because Finale uses the music font for the whole thing. It would be nice if Finale used some system font for the brackets and anything inside the brackets. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 20 Sep 2002 at 10:42, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: And now to those folks who resisted it, nondestructive editing is the best thing since sliced bread (a phrase that had no meaning to me until we started buying local bread with hard crusts). This phrase has always prompted me to ask: What was the best thing *before* sliced bread? Anyway, I think your ideas are very interesting, but I hesitate to endorse the idea of a single pool for this. Semantically speaking, these two blocks of text are equivalent: Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam, ae-ter-nam do-na e-is, do-na, do-na e-is Do-mi- ne, re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: et lux per-pe-tu-a, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at, lu-ce-at e- is. Ex-au-di, ex-au-di, ex-au- di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am, ad te, ad te o-mnis, o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni- et. Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na,Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is, e-is Do-mi-ne, do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: do-na, do-na e-is, do-na et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e-is. e-is, do-na: et luxEx-au-di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am per-pe-tu-a, et luxad te o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni-et. per-pe-tu-a lu-ce- at e-is, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e-is. Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. But one is very intimately connected to the musical context, while the other is not. The idea of putting in the right-hand text blocks and then multiply assigning the syllables terrifies me, regardless of how well the user interface might represent the connections and prevent me from making mistakes. It is attractive from a computer programmer's point of view, but from my point of view of the Finale user, I don't like it! Now, if Finale were smart enough to create the canonical text automatically and create no duplication, that would be different. But it surely could not, as the computer's view of the canonical text would surely look like this: Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, Chri-ste So, I don't think this kind of thing can be automated. Since assignment to musical notes is syllabic, I don't think the idea of marking off chunks of the text stream to assign is very helpful, except where the music is largely completely syllabic. I'm not sure what the answer is here. But TYPE IN SCORE would be greatly improved if there were greater transparency of word separators, for one, if it were better connected to the underlying text stream, and if the results of your edits to that text stream were made clear during the process. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
RE: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 20 Sep 2002 at 12:00, Ronald M. Krentzman wrote: The only problems I've had are with word extensions, and even those are pretty easy to solve. Am I missing something? Linda Worsley No. Had I not run into problems with the copying having created a mirror so that I screwed up the original lyrics by editing the copy, I would have had *no* problems with TYPE IN SCORE, either. In other words, if the default behavior of the COPY had been more sensible, I never would have needed help. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 2:18 PM -0400 9/20/02, David W. Fenton wrote: On 19 Sep 2002 at 19:49, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 6:30 PM 09/19/02, David W. Fenton wrote: [] You're lapsing into Mac-speak -- I have no idea what you mean by OPTION-CLICK. I understand that it's one of the shift keys, but it is peculiar to the Mac, and I don't know what it maps to on Windows, nor what it does. Sorry. I don't know where the function is on PC. I'm sure it exists, but with a different keystroke. You still haven't told me what OPTION-CLICK actually *does*. Are you getting my messages? I'm replying to the list and to you separately. There may be some sort of blackhole swallowing up my messages. I've explained it at least twice. When you are click-assigning lyrics, instead of clicking on each note one at a time to assign them, you can hold down the option key (on Mac) or the Alt key (PC) when you click on the first note, and every syllable in the window will automatically assign itself to each succeeding note, in order, skipping tied notes and rests. Spaces, hyphens, and carriage returns all suffice to make the skip to the next note. THe process will continue until you either run out of lyrics, or a blank measure is encountered. If you want to continue assigning lyrics after a blank measure, then opt-click on the first note of the next phrase, and the process will continue from where it left off. So, if nobody recommends multi-assignment of a single lyric WHY THE HELL DOES THE PROGRAM BEHAVE AS IF THIS IS PREFERRED? That is, the copy operation links to the original lyrics, rather than creating a new copy. That would seem to me to show that the designers of Finale thought entering the lyrics as few times as possible and assigning them to as many voices as they occurred in was the optimal approach. I can see no other justification for the behavior of the copy. Yep, it's dumb. We probably all wish that copies of music would NOT mirror lyrics. If you are recommending putting each in separately in EDIT LYRICS, then I simply so no virtue over TYPE IN SCORE, except in terms of it being closer to the metal in terms of the flaws in Finale's UI implementation. That's one advantage, yes. I also prefer being able to do all the typing separate from the assigning. I find the multi-click-assign method to be faster than type in score for getting all the lyrics into place where I want them. Also, I like being able to view the text all in one place, organized into verses as I choose. And I like being able to type the lyrics in a format with line breaks and spacing to match the poetry, or whatever other visual scheme I find most helpful. But in highly repetitive music like the Mozart Requiem, you actually get something like this: Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam, ae-ter-nam do-na e-is, do-na, do-na e-is Do-mi- ne, re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: et lux per-pe-tu-a, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at, lu-ce-at e- is. Ex-au-di, ex-au-di, ex-au- di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am, ad te, ad te o-mnis, o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni- et. Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na, do-na e-is, e-is Do-mi-ne, do-na, do-na e- is, do-na e-is, do-na: et lux per-pe-tu-a, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce- at e-is, et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e-is. Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le i- son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri- ste e-le-i- -son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. I don't see how that furthers anything whatsoever. It isn't poetry, so there are no natural line breaks, and since there's repetition of every single word, many times each, there is no comprehensibility to it. In short, it has meaning and comprehensibility only in the context of the score. So, unless you're typing only: Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam do-na e-is Do-mi-ne: et lux per-pe-tu-a lu-ce-at e- is. Ex-au-di, o-ra-ti-o-nem me-am ad te o-mnis ca-ro ve-ni- et. Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. then I just don't see the advantage to using EDIT LYRICS and click assignment in terms of comprehensibility and the relationship to the original text. You have hit on it, but only halfway. You type it in once as you said at the end (I include the carriage returns too, for legibility), copy it into four different verses, then park your hand over the command-c and command-v and start copying and pasting, baby. Each verse is different according to the voice that will be singing it. Once the soprano voice lyrics are perfect, you opt-click (sorry, alt-click) it into the soprano staff, make whatever shifts you have to, correct any errors, then move on to the alto voice, which is verse 2. I suppose alternatively you could re-assign the SAME lyric to several different
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 03:10 PM 9/20/02 -0400, you wrote: What was the best thing *before* sliced bread? Semantically speaking, these two blocks of text are equivalent: [snip] Too much redundant text. You don't need it. The whole text pool is: Kyrie eleison Christe eleison (The second eleison is not really redundant because it is a different sentence of the text, but you could cut it. I wouldn't.) You can add the hyphens in the pool if you don't expect them to change much ... Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son Chri-ste e-le-i-son ...because you can adjust a few of them later in-score if there will be (say) an e-le'-son among them. It's really all you need. Since the hyphenated style would be most familiar, and wouldn't require Finale to install a Greek hyphenation dictionary :) ... to get this: Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i- son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Chri-ste e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, e-le-i-son, Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son. Do this (I'm matching how you typed the lyrics above in my typing below): Click the lyrics tool, menu-open a new text pool window, and type: Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son Chri-ste e-le-i-son Click the position in the music that will begin receiving lyrics. In the text window, click-drag-select Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, assign, select e-le-i-son, assign. Undo select, assign, redo select, assign. Select Chri-ste e-le-i-son, assign, select e-le-i-son, assign. Undo select, assign. Select Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, assign, select e-le-i-son, assign. Assign, select Chri-ste e-le-i-son, assign. Select e-le-i-son, assign, assign, assign. Assign, assign. Select Ky-ri-e e-le-i-son, assign. Close window, save file. From start to finish that's 9 click-drag-selects, 4 clicks, and 59 keystrokes (17 assigns, 2 undo, 1 redo, 1 file save, and 38 used to type the text pool entry, with hyphens), and the lyrics are typed and in place in the score. Pretty simple and fast, and with no confusion at all. You work linearly, the text pool provides what you need in a nonlinear way. You'd be seeing the assignment happen next to the text pool window, so if there are scanning exceptions, you can do them immediately or later. If the syllables don't match in places, shift-select from that syllable to the end, drag, drop. Auto-rescan or manual. Correct any hyphenation anomalies by dragging the hyphen marker. If the line below scans the same way (or even close), click in score, shift-arrow-select, copy, click, paste. You could also back syllables up 'over' an existing syllable to create a liaison, and a popup would ask you for 'overwrite' or 'join'. Since they're all windows into the same text pool, there's no destructive behavior. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 5:02 AM 09/20/02, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: I am sure that this is all excellent advice. I will study it and try to improve my experience with lyrics by using it. However, let me cynically reply with, dwm's Abridged Version of MDL's FINALE LYRICS FOR IMBECILES Obviously, it was largely tongue-in-cheek. I was going for the simplest possible rules to avoid confusion. I have since learned that a great many people do fine using *only* type-in-score. It now appears to me that the recipe for danger is to mix and match between type-in-score and click-assign, but either one alone is usually safe. Anyway, the advice was for imbeciles, after all. Any of those rules can be safely broken if you proceed in an orderly fashion and/or know what you're doing. By the way, does anyone out there use the fourth triangle? That one seems completely pointless to me, but I've been surprised by this sort of thing before. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
[cc to Coda] Am I the only person on Finalelist who has almost NO trouble using Finale's lyric entry system? No. I joined this thread because I have a geeky interest in how the data behaves, and because I thought (incorrectly, perhaps...) that I might be able help some others who were having problems with lyrics. In my own personal experience of using Finale's lyric system, I haven't had any problems of the sort we're talking about in about six years. Those of us who have developed habits which avoid the problems never encounter them, but the problems do exist: If you use mass copy to create duplicate assignments to a single lyric, and then edit the new copies using type-in-score, it will alter the corresponding lyrics in the original passage. This is a real problem. If you delete an unneeded syllable from the Edit Lyrics box, it will cause all assignments of syllables that follow to be shifted to the previous syllable. Likewise, if you insert lyrics in the Edit Lyrics box, it will cause all assignments of syllables that follow to be shifted to the following syllable. This is a real problem. If you delete a note with a lyric attached, that syllable will remain in the Edit Lyric box. If you then insert a new note in the same place and retype the syllable, you will have duplicate syllables in the Edit Lyric box. If this syllable has a hyphen attached, that hyphen will display incorrectly. This is a real problem. If you use have a certain multisyllable word which appears more than once in your text stream, and you use click assignment to assign one syllable from one place in the stream and the next syllable from another, it will result in the hyphen appearing incorrectly in the score. This one might be attributed to sloppy input by the user, but it might occur as a result of a roundabout editing procedure, and when it does it will be very hard to diagnose the problem. This is a problem. All of these are specific circumstances, so it's no surprise that many users have developed habits -- whether intentionally or by accident -- whereby they never encounter them. On the other hand, all but the last one are perfectly reasonable actions, which an unwary user could be expected to make. The suggestions I made in an earlier post address these problems. In addition to them, a comment by David about parent and child items suggests that if one deletes a syllable from the Edit Lyrics box, the program ought to check if that syllable is assigned anywhere and issue a warning if it is (sort of like currently happens if you delete an expression from the expression list). That would probably be a good safeguard as well. -- Like you, Linda, I am completely satisfied with the fundamental structure of the Finale lyrics system, and that's how I found myself in the awkward position of defending it against people like David who obviously have had very serious problems on account of some of its specific flaws. *** begin feature request *** I do have several complaints about many of the details of the lyric system. (Comments in brackets indicate the relative importance of such a feature to me.) - I wish the word extensions could be smart attached to a note (or beat chart position) and stay attached even as the music spacing changes. (There should also be an option where I can set the horizontal offset to the beat, in case you and I have a different idea of what makes the line in correct alignment with the notehead.) [very important] - I wish that both hyphens and word extensions continued properly across a system break, so that I don't have to rely on clumsy opt-space kludges. [very important, but currently kludgeable] - I wish that half-point type sizes were available. I used to use 10.5 pt type for lyrics on my main template (achieved as 14-pt type with 75% page reduction). Later, I encountered problems attaching lyrics to notes which were reduced-size (for cadenzas) and thus I was forced to use Fixed Size. That meant abandoning the 10.5 pt size for certain documents, as well as any others which needed to match the over all style. Since then I've experimented with styles using 10pt and 11pt, but I find I really do prefer 10.5, so I wish it were available. [moderately important] - I wish that I could set the distance threshold at which a hyphen will appear between two syllables. In my judgment the current setting is too small. [important aesthetically, no effect on efficiency of work, since my current practice is to just live with it] - I wish there were an option for smart quotes when typing lyrics, so that I don't have to go to a two-hand keystroke everytime I need an apostrophe. (Yes, I realize there are various key definition macros which might be employed, but I wish it could be right there in Finale.) [very convenient, but not essential] - I wish that I could define which characters are treated as a hyphen in terms of syllable separation, either globally in some sort of table or individually with
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 3:52 PM -0800 9/20/02, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 6:52 AM 09/20/02, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: What if you are in a first ending, and the lyric is a-bout with the first syllable on the last note of the first ending? Is the hyphen extended to the first syllable of the second ending, which might not need a hyphen? What if there is no vocal line at all in the second ending, or until the end of the piece? Will the hyphen get extended endlessly, as it does now? What if there is no vocal line in the FIRST ending, only the second? Will the hyphen get extended through the first box to the second ending, as it does now? You can easily kludge this by putting an opt-space (or whatever the Windows equivalent is) on the next note after the open-ended hyphen. mdl I'm on Mac, but the only thing your solution does is make the hyphen (which should be butt up against the first syllable on its right side) drift over to halfway between the first syllable and the opt-space. Also, the next note after the open-ended hyphen usually has its own syllable attached, so there is no need for an opt-space. Right now my kludge is to use an opt-hyphen (which is really an m-dash) instead of the hyphen. But my question was aimed at the intended implementation of hyphens that Dennis was proposing. I'm familiar with sound editing programs such as Pro Tools and Cubase Audio, so I know approximately about the mapping procedure he suggests. I'm just not convinced that it is practical for lyrics. After all, the lyric is so small compared to a sound file; the mapping info for a syllable might be an order of magnitude larger than the syllable itself, at least! Plus, the way lyrics are usually handled is so sequential, compared to sound or video editing, that I think the way it is laid out now might be a better system (with the exception, of course, of David's big beef, that it would be better to have copied lyrics duplicated instead of mirrored as a default, and you had some very good suggestions in your last post as well, to which I add my suggestion of having a simple shift-click or something inside click-assignment to un-assign syllables, instead of the present 6-click method.) ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 7:19 PM 09/18/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: When lyrics are not considered simple straight text as the default state, but rather some sort of 'objects', then you're in geek mode. I think that's just not acceptable behavior, and that anyone has adapted to it is only a statement of their flexibility, not Finale's inherently nonsensical implementation. OK, but couldn't the same be said about pretty much any feature? Couldn't you say, for example, that speedy entry is an awkward and counterintuitive system and the fact that you and I get good results out of it is evidence only our our flexibility? I can't tell if your objection is only to the interface and its unexpected behavior, or to the basic concept of having lyrics be assignments to a separate, ordered list of items. If it's the latter you object to, then I would very much like to know what you have in mind instead. Many years ago, before I became fully committed to Finale, I did a lot of work in Lime. Lyrics in Lime worked more or less like you seem to be describing: any lyric syllable was simply a text item attached to the note. When you typed one in, it automatically positioned itself a certain distance under the note; if you entered a second one, it automatically positioned itself below the first. This was very simple and intuitive, and certainly much easier to learn than Finale's system. Nevertheless, before long I found it unsatisfying, because it couldn't do a lot of the things I could do in Finale's more complicated system. In those days (about 1993, I'd guess), Finale was even harder to learn than it is now, but because it was worth the extra effort to learn because it could do so much more. Among the things that I can do (and routinely do do) in Finale which are not possible in a system like Lime's: - First and foremost, I like having the Edit Lyrics box. I want a place where I can type (or import) in all my lyric text as text, and then use click assignment to assign syllables to notes afterward. I find this much quicker and easier than typing lyrics directly into the score, and I like having a window in which I can view and edit the text all together rather than bouncing through the score to read all the syllables individually. - I want to be able to make font changes at a global level. For example, if I enter the lyrics in one size and then decide to change to a different size; I don't want to have to go through the document and select each syllable individually. Likewise, if I decide that the French text should be in italic while the English remains non-italic, I want to be able to change that entire verse all at once, rather than carefully selecting all the syllables of one line and not the other. - I want to be able to make adjustments to the baseline on a verse-by-verse level, again without selecting the syllables individually. - If I want to shift all syllables in a verse to the left or the right, I want that shift lyrics function to be there. All of these functions are intimately linked to the fact that the computer recognizes the lyric text as a group of syllables that exist in a certain order, grouped into verses. If you take that away, then either these functions disappear or they have to be recreated as plug-ins. In the case of the last one, it would be quite tricky to make it perform properly all the time, since it has to rely on indirect clues to determine which syllable is the next one in the verse. Another thing I encountered in Lime was that if I did anything at all unusual, it tended to get confused about hyphens and word extensions. If you're proposing a system where each lyric is a separate note-attached item, how do you assume the hyphens will be made to work? The basic trick, obviously, is to look and see if there's a syllable on the next note. But what if you have two verses with different scansion, so that a certain note has a syllable in verse two but not in verse one? The system needs to know that the verse-two syllable doesn't count so the hyphens can be placed to go through that note for verse one. Perhaps the program can check to see if the syllables are at the same vertical position, but then what if this happens over a system break and I have intentionally adjusted the baseline for the following system? These are not just theoretical possibilities that I'm making up. They are actual problems that I had with lyrics in Lime, and they are one of the reasons why Lime - in spite of its greater ease of use - was simply not sufficient for my needs as an engraver of vocal music. If you're asking for improvements to the user interface or the documentation, I'm all for that. But if your solution is to rearrange the (inherently nonsensical) data structure so that I don't have an Edit Lyrics window any more, then I'm very much opposed. Access to that data is essential to my work. I have avoided the whole lyrics nonsense by taking advantage of my typing speed and entering everything always
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 7:19 pm -0400 9/18/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: I'm gonna defend David on this one, because although I've used Finale for nearly 11 years, I despise using lyrics and find the whole system distasteful and regressive. Thank you Dennis for standing up to say this. I seldom use lyrics with Finale but, when I have, I have found them to be the most error-prone, frustrating and potentially disastrous part of the program. At 9:33 AM -0400 9/18/02, David W. Fenton wrote: Oh, bollocks. This is an instance where Finale is fundamentally broken. ... The real issue is that the process is not *reversible*, that once the mistake has been made, you can't undo it. That is the most absurd part of the problem: That an error in judgement in manipulating lyrics can cause (seemingly) irreparable damage to your file. A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. At 7:02 am -0700 9/18/02, Robert Patterson wrote: The fact is, lyrics in Finale behave the way lyrics do. With all due respect Robert, isn't that just a capitulation to Finale's fundamentally flawed execution of something which it should be capable of doing in a reasonable and predictably a priori manner? At 9:33 am -0400 9/18/02, David W. Fenton wrote: How in the hell is somebody supposed to know that? That's the feeling I've always had when I've been forced to work with lyrics in Finale. Maybe I need a copy of Finale Lyrics for Imbeciles, but _every_ time I have had to use them some nasty program behavior has reached up to bite me. I worry about this from two perspectives: 1.Irreparable corruption of a database is a bad thing. If the lyrics database can be corrupted this easily, how easily can other program databases be corrupted? 2.Finale has to attract new users. The most common first project for first-time users has got to be a piano-vocal. How many demo users try that and quit in frustration over the lyrics tool? -=-Dennis ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 12:42 AM 9/19/02 -0800, Mark D. Lew wrote: OK, but couldn't the same be said about pretty much any feature? Couldn't you say, for example, that speedy entry is an awkward and counterintuitive system and the fact that you and I get good results out of it is evidence only our our flexibility? Certainly, and there are systems that work that way. But pitches have a much stronger linkage in all directions than words. And I think that what you're looking for is perfectly achievable if text still behaved like text, however the program worked underneath. In those days (about 1993, I'd guess), Finale was even harder to learn than it is now, but because it was worth the extra effort to learn because it could do so much more. I remember. And I was using a PC (you too?) where all that Mac-like behavior (and the requirement for Adobe Type Manager) was pretty frustrating. Let's put aside what work programmers have to do for the moment, and just look at what you want. And perhaps I wasn't clear -- I type lyrics into score because I am trying to avoid all the Finale craziness. It isn't that I wouldn't enjoy the features you request below, it's just that Finale is not trustworthy if I am required to remember everything I've done in order to make sure I don't fall into some sort of invisibility trap (same goes for ownership, and for my regular request for rubber bands to indicate that). - First and foremost, I like having the Edit Lyrics box. If it behaves like text, then this is its 'natural' state, including the edit features you listed. - I want to be able to make font changes at a global level. If it behaves like word processing text, you've got that. Likewise, if I decide that the French text should be in italic while the English remains non-italic, I want to be able to change that entire verse all at once, rather than carefully selecting all the syllables of one line and not the other. The same. - I want to be able to make adjustments to the baseline on a verse-by-verse level, again without selecting the syllables individually. If baselines are an independent feature applied to a block of text (just as italics or colors are assigned), you've got it. - If I want to shift all syllables in a verse to the left or the right, I want that shift lyrics function to be there. Or individually. There's no reason to lose these features if text is text to start with. Highlight the text you want to shift, and move any word, or some of it, or all of it. All of these functions are intimately linked to the fact that the computer recognizes the lyric text as a group of syllables that exist in a certain order, grouped into verses. It doesn't have to be. That's just the choice that was made, and part of why it's so crazy. Just look at an ordinary word processing document. Everything you ask for is there, including lists and tables and paragraphs and verses and what-have-you. Turn it around. I'm saying that the text is its own entity and the notes, verses, etc., are assigned to *it*, not the other way around. If the computer establishes any table of relationships, set of pointers, or whatever the database-du-jour method is, then to my mind it would retain the text as any text block within Finale. That would allow anything to be called a lyric (and I do that with my special barline technique, using arbitrary barlines as one set of 'lyrics') and have a note/chord/barline/clef assigned to it -- without ever losing the text as an integral and integrated component. Another thing I encountered in Lime was that if I did anything at all unusual, it tended to get confused about hyphens and word extensions. If you're proposing a system where each lyric is a separate note-attached item, how do you assume the hyphens will be made to work? I'm suggesting each note as a lyric-attached item, not the other way around. The text still has its integrity, and a hyphen is a hyphen. It continues until it finds the next syllable, so to speak. A word extension is like italics or color or font, and it continues until the next word (or the use of some sort of visible control code to end it). But what if you have two verses with different scansion, so that a certain note has a syllable in verse two but not in verse one? The system needs to know that the verse-two syllable doesn't count so the hyphens can be placed to go through that note for verse one. The problem goes away if the notes are assigned to the lyrics. The lyrics are then contiguous, with information applied to them. There are difficulties in re-thinking the programming that goes this deep, but I don't see a situation that text-as-text doesn't work. With text and lyrics being the same thing, and only having different types of assignments to it, you sweep away the artificially difficult situation that Finale set up years ago. (It would probably mean up-translation of old material to a new Finale format would result in all sorts of indigestion, though.) Dennis
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On Thu, 19 September 2002, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. I agree with this statement, but I do not agree that Finale's lyrics implementation conforms to it. It is true that many users have this perception of Finale's lyrics implementation, but the perceptions stems from a failure to understand (and master) that implementation. I've yet (in recent times) to see a situation where clearing and re-assigning did not clear up problems, which means it isn't irretrievably corrupted. Furthermore, with understanding and forethought, you'll never run into the problem in the first place. Someone said that the implementation is geeky. It *is* geeky, but (as Mark Lew eloquently stated) it is very powerful. Sometimes geeky is okay, even if it requires a little more thought than we'd like. The reason I say we must accept it is that the implementation is fundamental. Lyrics by definition (inside Finale) are assignments from sylabbicized text. There is no option of an option. The other option would be text expressions, or else to glom on some new kind of lyric that is essentially a text expression. -- Robert Patterson http://RobertGPatterson.com ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 4:49 AM 09/19/02, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: That is the most absurd part of the problem: That an error in judgement in manipulating lyrics can cause (seemingly) irreparable damage to your file. A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. True, but just to clarify, when we say corrupted, what we mean is that the Finale interface makes it very easy to mess with the data in ways that you probably don't really want to. I agree that that's a bad thing that needs to be fixed, but it shouldn't be mistaken for an assertion that Finale actually fouls up the data on its own. No, it just makes it very easy for the user to make unintended errors in the data. 1.Irreparable corruption of a database is a bad thing. If the lyrics database can be corrupted this easily, how easily can other program databases be corrupted? There is no related threat to the other program databases. The corruption is a flaw in the interface allowing you to manipulate the data, not in the database itself. That's the feeling I've always had when I've been forced to work with lyrics in Finale. Maybe I need a copy of Finale Lyrics for Imbeciles, but _every_ time I have had to use them some nasty program behavior has reached up to bite me. MDL's FINALE LYRICS FOR IMBECILES 1. The first triangle affects the entire verse. The second triangle affects only the one staff throughout the piece. The third triangle affects only the one staff for only the one system. Don't use the fourth triangle. 2. If you use Mass Copy on a passage that includes lyrics, and you don't want the lyrics to be exactly the same in the new copy, use Clear Items-Lyrics to remove them all. 3. Never use Type-in-Score. Type your lyrics in the Edit Lyrics box, and enter them in the music using Click Assignment. (If you don't know how Click Assignment works, read the manual.) If you need to delete a lyric, do it from Adjust Syllables, not from Type in Score. 4. In the Edit Lyrics box, never delete anything, and never insert anything. If stuff is extraneous, just leave it there and ignore it. If you need to add more, append it to the end (or start fresh in a new verse.) If you need to change individual syllables, be sure that you don't add or subtract any spaces, hyphens, or carriage returns. Did I miss anything? mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 18 Sep 2002 at 7:02, Robert Patterson wrote: On Wed, 18 September 2002, David W. Fenton wrote: Those are all indications of an ill-thought-out UI and bugs in the implementation. David, David. This is Finale we are talking about. Aren't you one of its long-term users? Ill-thought-out UI and bugs in implementation have historically been the norm for Finale. Historically speaking, yes. But before I upgraded to WinFin2003, I was constantly being told how the current versions of Finale had lost all the legacy problems. I guess I was a fool to believe it. The fact is, lyrics in Finale behave the way lyrics do. (That is, they are assignments back to an underlying text stream.) It isn't an option, it just is. I have no objection to that. But the TYPE INTO SCORE function should not allow the user to produce gibberish. We can rant about it, or we can accept it and figure out a way to move on. The fact is, if you understand how they work you can use it greatly to your advantage, whereas if the text were copied each time it was attached to a note, it would be easy for the novice but less powerful for experienced users. The implementation is one of the worst UI-to-data messes that I've seen in Finale over the years or in any application I've ever used. The most intuitive method for data entry is the one most isolated from the underlying data store, and, thus, most susceptible to corruption. I believe it was Mark Lew who said that Coda made it worse by trying to protect users from knowing about it, and I agree. In teaching Finale seminars, I've seen users utterly trash their lyrics using type into score, whereas most of them get the hang of click assign right away. I can't see using click assignment for any large project. The user interface is hideous, with a non-resizable window and insufficient feedback about where you are in the text stream, and what is connected to what. I still don't know how to un-assign a syllable, except by deleting it using TYPE IN SCORE. I should do the tutorial, I know. I still think there are some legitimate gripes. The two biggest are non-continuing hyphens and word extensions. I think all of my gripes are 100% legitimate. The whole lyrics substructure should be redesigned from the bottom up and a new user interface created. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 8:47 AM 09/19/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: Certainly, and there are systems that work that way. But pitches have a much stronger linkage in all directions than words. And I think that what you're looking for is perfectly achievable if text still behaved like text, however the program worked underneath. Oh, OK. As long as I can still do all the text edit and grouping stuff, I'll be happy. I misunderstood what you were suggesting. I remember. And I was using a PC (you too?) where all that Mac-like behavior (and the requirement for Adobe Type Manager) was pretty frustrating. Nope, I've always been on Macs, until just recently when I've become bi-platform. Let's put aside what work programmers have to do for the moment, and just look at what you want. And perhaps I wasn't clear -- I type lyrics into score because I am trying to avoid all the Finale craziness. It isn't that I wouldn't enjoy the features you request below, it's just that Finale is not trustworthy if I am required to remember everything I've done in order to make sure I don't fall into some sort of invisibility trap (same goes for ownership, and for my regular request for rubber bands to indicate that). In my experience, it's type in score that has all the craziness and invisible traps. That's what got David into trouble, for instance. His problem began when he edited the copied lyrics with type in score, before he ever even looked at the Edit Lyrics box. The problems with the Edit Lyrics box all stem from the fact that when the user adds or subtracts a syllable in that box, Finale does not increment or decrement all the subsequent assignments accordingly, which I think is what the user intends 99% of the time. Obviously the routine to do this already exists, since that's what happens when you insert or delete a syllable via type-in-score. If only it were applied to Edit Lyrics edits as well, I think that would solve all problems not related to type-in-score. That's a simple fix, requiring no changes to the data structure. Why it hasn't been done before now is beyond me. (And for those rare occasions when one really does want to use an Edit Lyrics edit to kludge a lyric shift, there could be an option to turn it off.) - If I want to shift all syllables in a verse to the left or the right, I want that shift lyrics function to be there. Or individually. There's no reason to lose these features if text is text to start with. Highlight the text you want to shift, and move any word, or some of it, or all of it. I think you may have misunderstood what I mean by shift here (I meant change all the assignments to adjacent notes, as in the current Shift Lyrics function), but I can see it would be no problem in what you're describing. Turn it around. I'm saying that the text is its own entity and the notes, verses, etc., are assigned to *it*, not the other way around. If the computer establishes any table of relationships, set of pointers, or whatever the database-du-jour method is, then to my mind it would retain the text as any text block within Finale. That would allow anything to be called a lyric (and I do that with my special barline technique, using arbitrary barlines as one set of 'lyrics') and have a note/chord/barline/clef assigned to it -- without ever losing the text as an integral and integrated component. OK, that all works for me, but how does it solve the existing problems? Let's suppose that the text is now a separate entity and notes are attached to it, as you suggest: - I assume type-in-score still exists. (And if it doesn't, I'm sure many will object.) When you use type-in-score to create a lyric, how does Finale decide where in the text to create the new syllable? Does it add it to the end of the text, or does it insert it in the middle based on where in the music you're placing it? If the latter, the hyphens don't work properly. If the former, you've left the door open to weirdness, and if the user does the wrong thing, then the hyphens don't work properly. (For example, I enter four notes and type hal-le-lu-jah below them. Then I notice the middle two notes are entered wrong. To fix them, suppose I use Speedy Entry to delete them, and then re-enter two notes in insert mode. Not the only way to do it, of course, but a reasonable possibility. Now I see that I have deleted the le-lu syllables, so I re-type them. As a result, I have lost the hyphen between lu and jah. That's because the original le-lu- are still in place in the text stream, which now reads hal-le-lu-le-lu-jah.) - Can you use type-in-score to change the text to which a note is attached? If more than one note is attached to that syllable, would it not change the text in all instances? This is exactly one of the unexpected results many users have complained about. - Since lyrics are not assigned to notes, when you do Mass Copy, do the lyrics not copy at all? Does Finale review the lyric text for assigned notes and copy those assignments (ie, with
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
[CC to Coda. If replying to all, consider trimming headers.] At 7:13 AM 09/19/02, Robert Patterson wrote: Someone said that the implementation is geeky. It *is* geeky, but (as Mark Lew eloquently stated) it is very powerful. Sometimes geeky is okay, even if it requires a little more thought than we'd like. Thank you, Robert, for being so much more succinct than I am. I think you and I are in agreement on this. It seems to me that about 75% of the pitfalls which exist could be fixed fairly easily [*], and many of the rest could be fixed with a little more effort. I don't think that changing the basic format and structure of lyrics serves any good purpose. The reason I say we must accept it is that the implementation is fundamental. Lyrics by definition (inside Finale) are assignments from sylabbicized text. There is no option of an option. The other option would be text expressions, or else to glom on some new kind of lyric that is essentially a text expression. I'd be very interested in hearing from an engraver who does regular work with lyrics on a platform other than Finale. It seems to me that the main complaints here are mostly from people who use lyrics infrequently. As Dennis reminded me, these can be more instructive than input from those of us who are used to the system. Even so, I want to hear about alternate implementations from someone who has lengthy experience with vocal music. Has any other application developed an equally powerful lyric system with a different basis? When I first chose Finale, none of the others were even close. When Sibelius was new and I was contemplating whether to switch, a person who had tried it and whose judgment I trust told me that Sibelius lyrics were considerably less flexible than Finale's. But that was years ago, so maybe things have changed? mdl [*] For example: 1. On any Edit Lyrics edit, check to see if syllables have been added or deleted; if so, increment or decrement any assignment to subsequent syllables. Program option to turn this behavior off. 2. Some sort of visual indicator of what verse/chorus/section is current when in type-in-score. 3. After Mass Copy that includes lyrics, display a warning dialog Do you want to ...? * duplicate assignments, * create duplicate lyrics * don't copy lyrics at all Option to make a permanent selection and no longer display warning; place to set this behavior somewhere in the options. 4. Some sort of visual indicator on the screen to explain the four triangles better. 5. Utility which reviews the Edit Lyrics text and deletes any syllable that has no assignment anywhere. (Assignments to subsequent syllables are decremented accordingly.) Another idea worth considering is to implement an entirely separate Simple Lyrics system. These would be rudimentary note-attached items which behave like simple one-time expressions. Basic manipulation like position adjustment and text properties exist. Functions related to the underlying text (eg, click assignment, etc) do not. Any syllable with a hyphen has another syllable identified as its next syllable; some sort of default routine assigns it to the obvious next syllable in line, but there is a way to change it if necessary. Since most newbies and infrequent users of lyrics will likely prefer this, it can be the default. The current lyric system can be renamed advanced lyrics and be a separate option. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 18 Sep 2002 at 17:01, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: (You know about opt-click, right? This assigns ALL the syllables in the edit window to the notes automatically, from the first note you click until it encounters an empty measure or runs out of lyrics. Very cool. You can shift right or left using Shift Lyrics if a passage gets mis-aligned.) Know, my computer doesn't have an OPTION key. In any event, with a highly melismatic piece, the SHIFT LYRICS is very tedious, as it removes all assignments to the right of the syllable you are moving. However, I did use it to save my piece. The lyrics tool requires too much specialized knowledge to be useful for the person who uses it very seldom. That it was formerly much worse is really completely irrelevant since it is still extraordinarily badly implemented. Being dead is worse than being in a full-body cast, but neither is a desirable state. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 18 Sep 2002 at 17:08, Christopher BJ Smith wrote: At 9:33 AM -0400 9/18/02, David W. Fenton wrote: Oh, bollocks. This is an instance where Finale is fundamentally broken. The default behavior of the copy is one issue alone, an ill- chosen default with no sensible alternative. But the real issue is that the process is not *reversible*, that once the mistake has been made, you can't undo it. You can undo past the point where you made the first copy that created the mirror. . . . By the time I discovered the problem, it was too late -- I'd already closed Finale. But that's not the point -- I should still be able to undo the problem somehow with the user interface without needing to delete and completely re-assign large parts of the lyrics. Even the unusable mirrors allow you to convert a mirror to real text. The mirrored copied text should somehow allow you to do the same thing, with options of NEW VERSE or APPEND TO VERSE n when you do it. But there's nowhere in the user interface to allow you to suggest a block of lyrics in the score and perform an action on it. I think this is all very, very poorly implemented because the abstracted user interface allows the user to think about the data in a fashion that leads to problems while not actually providing sufficient connections between the representation and the underlying data store to make it safe to do so. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote: Anyway, on to my solution: I took someone's advice to insert and symbols in the lyrics via TYPE IN SCORE so that I could find them in the EDIT LYRICS window. What I saw was a jumble of lyrics, with parts of one word stuck in the middle of other words. Clearly, the order in which I'd entered was not exactly linear. Then I took Thomas's advice above and tried deleting lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window first, and found that I was then missing things in the score. So, following through with Thomas's advice, I then deleted the lyrics that remained in the score. This caused a mess with the rest of the lyrics of the piece Aha - I thought I was giving good advice - I guess I should have included one more fact: you can't just partially delete lyrics from the Edit window and hope the rest of your piece stays intact - everything is linked with each otherbut I guess you found that out in the meantime. If you wanted to keep part of your score as is, then the best way is to delete the lyrics with Mass Mover from the infected section, then use a new verse number, or type the text at the end!! of this verse and click assign it... (if you intend to edit the lyrics in the Edit window, then you better use a new verse number, so you can find them more easily). Thomas Schaller ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote: What I understand now is that the lyrics subsystem is designed around a number of assumptions about the way lyrics ought to work: 1. all voices will sing exactly the same lyrics at one time or the other. 2. the punctuation and capitalization of the lyrics in all the voices will be exactly the same. Thus, you should enter the lyrics once, and then click assign from the single statement of the lyrics to particular notes. I think this is a really poor assumption, for TYPE INTO SCORE is the more obvious entry method, and it can't work that way. It creates a complete jumble in the EDIT LYRICS window. I have to say this here now - too many people have indicated that the only reliable way of handling lyrics is to enter them via the Edit window and click assign them - well let me tell you guys, that until recently 90% of my workload was choral music and after I got comfortable with Finale's lyric scheme, I only used the Type into Score. Now granted, I'm not a composer, I am strictly an engraver working from finished products, so I don't have to go back in and maybe change a section - that might be trickier. But for engraving, I find typing into the score works like a charm; it is fast and I have had no problems whatsoever (actually here and there is a little hyphen bug flying around). I even don't use different verse numbers for different staves - all my lyrics are in Verse 1 - unless we have a piece that has 2 or more verses stacked - then, and only then, do I use Verse 2. Just thought I'd say that it is possible to work efficiently like that... Thomas Schaller ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
Robert Patterson wrote: On Thu, 19 September 2002, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. I agree with this statement, but I do not agree that Finale's lyrics implementation conforms to it. It is true that many users have this perception of Finale's lyrics implementation, but the perceptions stems from a failure to understand (and master) that implementation. Sorry. The lyrics implementation has a significant, though not fatal flaw, which is easily demonstrated in this simple test: 1) Create a two staff system, containing one measure in 4/4 time 2) Fill the measure on each staff with 4 quarter notes, your choice of pitch. 3) On each staff, assign the word one to the first quarter note in the upper staff, four to the last note in the upper staff, five to the first quarter note in the lower staff, and eight to the last note in the lower staff. It makes no difference whether this is done by type into score or by click-assigning syllables entered in the edit lyrics box. 4) Using type into score, add the syllable three to the third note of the upper staff. 5) Undo. 6) Using edit lyrics, insert three between one and four; close the edit window. 7) Undo. 8) Using type into score, delete the syllable four. 9) Undo 10) Using edit lyrics delete the syllable four and close the window. Now, undo will correct the lyric displacement that occurs in steps 6 and 10, but I submit that since lyric displacement does not happen on type into score, it should not happen after edit lyric, either. The results of inserting or deleting syllables in both modes should be exactly the same. Finally, using edit lyrics to clean up extraneous hyphens from a lyric block has results which I have not yet explored enough to understand completely. My experience thus far suggests that in some cases, if there are two hyphens in succession, with or without intermediate spaces, all but one of these can be removed from the lyrics block with no detrimental effect, and hyphens which prefix a syllable without an intermediate space can also be readily removed with no ill effect; but otherwise, the removal of hyphens using the edit lyrics block is beyond my present capability to predict. ns ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 9:33 AM 09/18/02, David W. Fenton wrote: However correct you may be as the voice of experience, that is the most ludicrous advice I've ever heard. [...] That's a really serious indictment of the stability of the Finale file format. First of all, David, welcome to the club. Those of us who use lyrics on a regular basis have been complaining about the weak implementation for years. If you have any more voice with Coda than we do, we will welcome your support. WinSupport has not responded to my email message. I solved the problem myself using hints from people on this list, and I'm quite grateful for the knowledge exhibited here. I did not take your advice, thankfully. I don't mean to give the wrong impression. I agree with you that there are serious problems with Finale's lyric system. I wouldn't use characterizations like corrupt, broken and bug the same as you do, but the fact that it's possible for a user to inadvertently make a mess of things is definitely a problem. Making a mess is not the problem -- it's the lack of capability for undoing the mess that is the problem. That's where corrupt, broken and bug come in. If it seems like I'm defensive of the system, it's because I'm a little miffed to see a person who, by his own admission, a week ago had no idea how lyrics work, and by the evidence of his posts still doesn't really understand it, nevertheless has the audacity to come along and tell us how the program ought to work. A lot of the suggestions you make which would make lyrics easier for you would make it less efficient for the rest of us. Dennis has already defended me adequately, I think. But the point is, if someone who has been using Finale since 1990 (i.e., someone who is quite accustomed to Finale's idiosyncracies and counterintuitive approaches to many things) has this much difficulty, then how much more difficult is it for the new user *without* all that experience? I understand perfectly well *why* Finale handles lyrics this way. I don't think understanding it justifies it, though. It's a fundamentally bad design, poorly implemented, precisely as Dennis says, because it requires the user to understand the inner workings of the program in order to avoid mistakes. I'm all in favor of making lyrics more intuitive and less treacherous for inexperienced users, but not if it comes at the cost of dumbing down functionality for those of us who know what we're doing. . . . Again, bollocks. Making a user interface that works does not require abandoning advanced features. It just requires designing the UI properly so that the novice user can't screw things up, and that when and if they do, they have all the tools they need to fix the problems. . . . The lyric system is definitely in need of improvement, . . . It is in need of a fundamental redesign. . . . but an intelligent improvement needs to take into account all of the functions that regular users of lyrics need. In that respect, you simply are not speaking from a position of knowledge. The system is designed around an assumption that the default and most desirable method for lyrics entry is to enter the words used one time, and then assign them all multiple times. That's a recipe for disaster, especially when there is no representation at all of what connects to what, either when viewed in the canonical version (EDIT LYRICS) or in the output representation (scroll or page view). That makes it very dangerous to edit anything, since you can't tell what the results of the edit will be. I will mail the file to Coda to ask them to fix it before I will even contemplate re-doing literally hours and hours of lyrics placement. Hours and hours? What kind of file takes hours and hours to assign lyrics? Either you're exaggerating or you work very slowly. If I had been forced to put the lyrics back in, it would have required 3-4 hours of tedious work. Working from a source full score to an arrangement where the parts move around in comparison to their original source means that I'd basically have to completely re- analyze the arrangement itself. That's not the worst thing in the world (I did, in fact, find one ommitted part, but that was during the original editing of the copied passage), but it is work I shouldn't have to do. Once I've done that, I then have to go back and re-proofread 120 measures of text that had already been proofread. That's several more hours of work. The whole point of my doing a copy was that I knew that having the text of the copied part finished and proofread would mean that the copy would be consistent with the original. And even if it were *one* hour of extra work, it shouldn't be necessary. If you want to email a copy of the file, I'd be happy to take a look. I don't know that it will be of much practical help, but it might help focus this discussion if I can figure out exactly where you went awry. A cc of whatever
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 0:42, Mark D. Lew wrote: I can't tell if your objection is only to the interface and its unexpected behavior, or to the basic concept of having lyrics be assignments to a separate, ordered list of items. If it's the latter you object to, then I would very much like to know what you have in mind instead. The problem is not the concept, but the fact that the user interface fails to hide the underlying implementation from the user. Or, more correctly, it doesn't expose enough information about the underlying information to allow the user to understand what is going on. If the user needs to know that a syllable is multi-assigned, then the UI needs to indicate that somehow and no allow the user to unknowlingly do something to that syllable that will corrupt the source data stream (such as deleting it in TYPE IN SCORE mode). The point is, the user shouldn't have to know -- the program should make it impossible for a user to unknowingly take an action that will potentially corrupt the underlying data stream. In a straight database program, you can't delete parent records if they have children attached to them. In terms of Finale, a syllable is a perent record and the each assignment of that syllable is a child record. If you delete the parent, Finale is tacitly cascading the deletion of the parent through to the children. That may very well be what the user wants, but a proper UI would allow the deletion of one syllable assignment. Finale does happen to allow that, yes, but it also allows the cascade deletion without any warning. And that's the fundamental problem -- Finale's UI is not making clear the consequence of edits. Nor does it represent in any way how the underlying data stream is being used. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 7:13, Robert Patterson wrote: On Thu, 19 September 2002, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. I agree with this statement, but I do not agree that Finale's lyrics implementation conforms to it. It is true that many users have this perception of Finale's lyrics implementation, but the perceptions stems from a failure to understand (and master) that implementation. . . . Understanding of the UI should be sufficient. In this instance, of the of interfaces (type in score) suggests a kind of understanding to the user that is counter to what is actually going on, yet is not designed in a way to account for those differences. . . . I've yet (in recent times) to see a situation where clearing and re-assigning did not clear up problems, which means it isn't irretrievably corrupted. Furthermore, with understanding and forethought, you'll never run into the problem in the first place. I was able to clear my problem and get the results I wanted. I will avoid lyrics whenever possible, however. This ate up far too much time. Someone said that the implementation is geeky. It *is* geeky, but (as Mark Lew eloquently stated) it is very powerful. Sometimes geeky is okay, even if it requires a little more thought than we'd like. Geeky is one thing. Deceptive is another. The reason I say we must accept it is that the implementation is fundamental. Lyrics by definition (inside Finale) are assignments from sylabbicized text. I think that an implementation that *forces* that on a user is a bad implementation. There is no option of an option. The other option would be text expressions, or else to glom on some new kind of lyric that is essentially a text expression. When copying a block of music, appending copies of the source lyrics to the end of the existing lyrics for the relevant verses strikes me as a completely viable option, one that makes musical and UI sense. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 12:16, Mark D. Lew wrote: At 4:49 AM 09/19/02, Dennis W. Manasco wrote: That is the most absurd part of the problem: That an error in judgement in manipulating lyrics can cause (seemingly) irreparable damage to your file. A database that allows itself to be irretrievably corrupted through reasonable user actions is a pretty fragile database. True, but just to clarify, when we say corrupted, what we mean is that the Finale interface makes it very easy to mess with the data in ways that you probably don't really want to. I agree that that's a bad thing that needs to be fixed, but it shouldn't be mistaken for an assertion that Finale actually fouls up the data on its own. No, it just makes it very easy for the user to make unintended errors in the data. But you leave out the most important part: Finale makes it extremely difficult to undo the unintended errors. [] 3. Never use Type-in-Score. Type your lyrics in the Edit Lyrics box, and enter them in the music using Click Assignment. (If you don't know how Click Assignment works, read the manual.) If you need to delete a lyric, do it from Adjust Syllables, not from Type in Score. The click assignment dialog box really sucks. It is not resizable and it is very easy to lose your place in it. It makes me queasy working that way, because I can't really tell what the hell is going on. And TYPE IN SCORE is the most intuitive and the only proper way for a graphical program to enter lyrics. Saying that it shouldn't be used shows that you admit that the implementation is fundamentally broken. 4. In the Edit Lyrics box, never delete anything, and never insert anything. If stuff is extraneous, just leave it there and ignore it. If you need to add more, append it to the end (or start fresh in a new verse.) If you need to change individual syllables, be sure that you don't add or subtract any spaces, hyphens, or carriage returns. That is counterintuitive in the extreme. And the documentation does nothing whatseover to make this kind of thing clear. Did I miss anything? Yes. 0. Lyrics in Finale are fundamentally broken. Use at your own risk. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 18 Sep 2002 at 8:52, Thomas Schaller wrote: Well, I've rescued the score, and fixed all the problems. Glad to hear it. I guess I was lucky that, for whatever reason, the lyrics for the top line of my score (the line that was messed) were, largely, the last thing that I entered. In the EDIT LYRICS window, all the problems were in the last block of lyrics. I'm guessing that if I'd entered the lyrics in a different order such that the top line's lyrics were in the beginning of the EDIT LYRICS window, that everything past that point would have been screwed up. Maybe, maybe not. I think if you were to clear the assignments on the staff and leave the syllables in place the the Edit Lyrics window, you'd probably be OK. Am I right in guessing that, when using TYPE IN SCORE, the EDIT LYRICS window is populated in the order in which you enter the lyrics, rather than in any logical order related to the score layout? That is, if the first thing you enter typing into the score is the bass line's lyrics, that will be the first thing in the EDIT LYRICS window? I've forgotten which version of Finale you're using. In an earlier version, I believe type-in-score lyrics were always appended to the end of the verse, as you describe. In the current version, Finale has some sort of scheme whereby it tries to interpret the context and place the new syllables in the Edit Lyrics window accordingly. For a basic insertion, it gets it right. Often it puts it on the end anyway (eg, if you're in a separate staff). Sometimes it guesses wrong and puts it somewhere other than what you might consider to be the most logical order. Also note that if you have changed the current verse, the new lyrics go into a separate window. I like to use a separate verse for separate staves, so I wouldn't have my bass lyrics in the same box as the soprano lyrics in any case. If that is so, then the whole user interface is incredibly badly designed from the get go! TYPE INTO SCORE should not work that way. That's why it has been changed in more recent versions of Finale, though it's still imperfect. What I understand now is that the lyrics subsystem is designed around a number of assumptions about the way lyrics ought to work: 1. all voices will sing exactly the same lyrics at one time or the other. No. 2. the punctuation and capitalization of the lyrics in all the voices will be exactly the same. No. Thus, you should enter the lyrics once, and then click assign from the single statement of the lyrics to particular notes. Well, that's what I prefer, but it's not the only way. I think this is a really poor assumption, for TYPE INTO SCORE is the more obvious entry method, and it can't work that way. It creates a complete jumble in the EDIT LYRICS window. It's much less of a jumble in the current system, though it's still impossible to get it perfect in every case, since that would require reading the user's mind in certain situations (as I've detailed in another post). Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I'd try typing in the lyrics and then click assigning. I understand the logic there, but the CLICK ASSIGNMENT window has got to be the most user unfriendly window I've ever seen -- the visual feedback is very poor, it can't be resized, you can't really tell where you are, it's hard to go back without losing your place. That's an excellent point. This could be made a lot more friendly. I'm not sure I could do that with a piece where there is lots of repetition of lyrics (as there is in Mozart's Requiem). If I were setting Mozart's Requiem, I'd enter the lyrics in their entirety, repeats and all (using copy-and-paste within the Edit Lyrics window where appropriate), then click-assign them all at once with option-click and shift as necessary. By the way, it's the option-click that makes click-assignment more efficient that type-in-score. If you're assigning each syllable individually, there's no real efficiency gain. Option-click also makes it easier to avoid the user-unfriendliness of the window, since you don't need to maneuver within it so much. My conclusion is that I'm not sure how to approach the problem next time. Yes, I understand better how it all works, but I didn't get any of that from the documentation (though I admit I have never done the lyrics tutorial -- TYPE INTO SCORE seems too straightforward to need a tutorial; lesson learned, I guess). And I really never got an explanation from the responses here on the list. Sorry. We tried our best. It may have helped if I'd realized you were in an earlier version. In many ways that's easier to deal with, because although its behavior is stupider, it is much more predictable (ie, lyrics always appear in the order that you entered them). You're right about the manual. It's little help in explaining how lyrics work. Some time spent with the program doing methodical testing is far more informative. That's true for many features besides lyrics. It's how I figured out all
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 16:20, Thomas Schaller wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: Anyway, on to my solution: I took someone's advice to insert and symbols in the lyrics via TYPE IN SCORE so that I could find them in the EDIT LYRICS window. What I saw was a jumble of lyrics, with parts of one word stuck in the middle of other words. Clearly, the order in which I'd entered was not exactly linear. Then I took Thomas's advice above and tried deleting lyrics in the EDIT LYRICS window first, and found that I was then missing things in the score. So, following through with Thomas's advice, I then deleted the lyrics that remained in the score. This caused a mess with the rest of the lyrics of the piece Aha - I thought I was giving good advice - I guess I should have included one more fact: you can't just partially delete lyrics from the Edit window and hope the rest of your piece stays intact - everything is linked with each otherbut I guess you found that out in the meantime. If you wanted to keep part of your score as is, then the best way is to delete the lyrics with Mass Mover from the infected section, then use a new verse number, or type the text at the end!! of this verse and click assign it... (if you intend to edit the lyrics in the Edit window, then you better use a new verse number, so you can find them more easily). Well, despite the tediousness of SHIFT LYRICS, I ended up with a correct result, and it didn't take all that long. Had the lyrics in question been at the *beginning* of the EDIT LYRICS window, then I would have been better off starting over from scratch. Thanks to all who've offered advice on recovery. I don't have to redo the lyrics, and for that I'm very glad. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 17:10, Thomas Schaller wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: There is no option of an option. The other option would be text expressions, or else to glom on some new kind of lyric that is essentially a text expression. When copying a block of music, appending copies of the source lyrics to the end of the existing lyrics for the relevant verses strikes me as a completely viable option, one that makes musical and UI sense. I just wanted to stress again that this is indeed possible by using Command-C and then pasting the music in the new place - that way the text will be copied into a new verse # - then you can edit until the sun goes down - you just have to adjust the baseline for that new line of text. Yes, but the downside is that you end up with extra copies of the articulations and expressions, so that, too, is unacceptable. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 15:09, Mark D. Lew wrote [quoting me] [] Knowing what I know now, I don't know if I'd try typing in the lyrics and then click assigning. I understand the logic there, but the CLICK ASSIGNMENT window has got to be the most user unfriendly window I've ever seen -- the visual feedback is very poor, it can't be resized, you can't really tell where you are, it's hard to go back without losing your place. That's an excellent point. This could be made a lot more friendly. It's a hideously scary dialog. I feel very, very uncomforable with it because I really can't see what the hell is going on. . . . I'm not sure I could do that with a piece where there is lots of repetition of lyrics (as there is in Mozart's Requiem). If I were setting Mozart's Requiem, I'd enter the lyrics in their entirety, repeats and all (using copy-and-paste within the Edit Lyrics window where appropriate), then click-assign them all at once with option-click and shift as necessary. . . . You assume that the repetition is the same in all voices. It isn't. . . . By the way, it's the option-click that makes click-assignment more efficient that type-in-score. If you're assigning each syllable individually, there's no real efficiency gain. Option-click also makes it easier to avoid the user-unfriendliness of the window, since you don't need to maneuver within it so much. You're lapsing into Mac-speak -- I have no idea what you mean by OPTION-CLICK. I understand that it's one of the shift keys, but it is peculiar to the Mac, and I don't know what it maps to on Windows, nor what it does. It seems to me that Finale is prejudiced towards homophonic music, in which there is one note per syllable and all the voices sing the text at the same time. For polyphonic, melismatic music, the assumption breaks down. Which version of the text should I type in? The Soprano version? The Alto version? The Tenor version? The Bass version? Each has different repetitions and different melismas. If you are recommending putting each in separately in EDIT LYRICS, then I simply so no virtue over TYPE IN SCORE, except in terms of it being closer to the metal in terms of the flaws in Finale's UI implementation. My conclusion is that I'm not sure how to approach the problem next time. Yes, I understand better how it all works, but I didn't get any of that from the documentation (though I admit I have never done the lyrics tutorial -- TYPE INTO SCORE seems too straightforward to need a tutorial; lesson learned, I guess). And I really never got an explanation from the responses here on the list. Sorry. We tried our best. It may have helped if I'd realized you were in an earlier version. . . . ??? I'm using WinFin2003. [] In short, this subsection of Finale is a horrid mess. It is built around a number of rigid assumptions about the way lyrics work in real musical situations and because of the rigidity with which those assumptions have driven the design of the user interface, the bolted- on TYPE INTO SCORE feature (by far the most intuitive way to enter lyrics, seems to me), which is very poorly connected to the underlying data storage, very easily leads users into creating a mess that will become corrupted very easily. I think the original assumption was that users who use Type In Score would never look at the Edit Lyrics windows at all. . . . A valid assumption, as until the point at which I had a problem, I had not looked at it, ever. And I think a proper UI should not *require* that you do so. . . . The fact that they did, with resulting complaints about the misordered text, is why it was updated so that Finale now attempts to logically order the lyrics within the Edit Lyrics window. This creates its own problems, but it's probably less offensive than the earlier versions. I had forgotten that you're using an earlier version of Finale. (When asking for assistance, it would be helpful if you remind us.) I am not using an earlier version. One of the reasons my lyrics were such a mess is because I entered them from an existing score, two pages at a time. That is, from one opening of my source score, for example, I typed in the bass lyrics, then the alto, then the soprano and then the tenor. That is a PERFECTLY LOGICAL entry method. If the music is not homophonic, I would recommend separate verses for each voice. (A verse is simply a grouping of lyric texts. The word verse shouldn't be taken too literally.) For SATB, I routinely put soprano in verse 1, alto in verse 2, tenor in verse 3, bass in verse 4. That way, I can enter the lyrics in whichever order I choose. In other words, you put them in in a manner that exhibits yet another counterintuitive approach. Mozart's Requiem has only one verse, and the fact that you recommend putting it in as thought it does not shows yet another adaptation to Finale's bollixed-up requirements. I think that's how
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote: Am I right in guessing that, when using TYPE IN SCORE, the EDIT LYRICS window is populated in the order in which you enter the lyrics, rather than in any logical order related to the score layout? That is, if the first thing you enter typing into the score is the bass line's lyrics, that will be the first thing in the EDIT LYRICS window? This is consistent with my experience, and as a matter of expedience, one of the first things I do when starting a new project, is to open the text window, and type in a label for each staff which should have lyrics, and the first and last words of each line. I then click assign the first syllable to the first note of each line when I am ready to begin entering lyrics. Thereafter, most of my lyrics work is done in type into score mode, as I use the entering lyrics process as a version of proofreading the musical score. However, I should say that this seems only to effect the staff order of the lyric assignments. Once the initial syllable is entered for any given line of music, all other syllables in that line are inserted into the block in the appropriate string. What I understand now is that the lyrics subsystem is designed around a number of assumptions about the way lyrics ought to work: My experience with the lyric systems does not support your supposition as to the assumptions around which the lyric system was based. In my experience the number of choral compositions in which the lyrics in all voices are identical is quite small. In any choral literature, there is almost always at least some independence in at least one vocal line, and I would submit that the assumption was that in most cases, the complete lyric would be entered for each line, but in order to minimize file size (and remember, FIN's most fundamental assumptions go back to days when a 50 MB hard disk was considered very big, and was priced accordingly), and minimize working time, the capabilities of mirroring lyrics was introduced. Thus, you should enter the lyrics once, and then click assign from the single statement of the lyrics to particular notes. Seems to me that this statement might be an accurate assessment of the initial programming parameters, but I suspect that the assumption would have inserted the words for each staff between the words lyrics and once above. And I never heard anything back from Coda, either. I conclude that writing to WinSupport is a waste of time. I've gotten back a response from WinSupport to every question I ever asked, though sometimes it has taken three or four days. In short, this subsection of Finale is a horrid mess. It is built around a number of rigid assumptions about the way lyrics work in real musical situations and because of the rigidity with which those assumptions have driven the design of the user interface, the bolted- on TYPE INTO SCORE feature (by far the most intuitive way to enter lyrics, seems to me), which is very poorly connected to the underlying data storage, very easily leads users into creating a mess that will become corrupted very easily. I disagree; I find the Type into Score method to be better connected to the underlying data storage than is the edit window method. One of the reasons my lyrics were such a mess is because I entered them from an existing score, two pages at a time. That is, from one opening of my source score, for example, I typed in the bass lyrics, then the alto, then the soprano and then the tenor. That is a PERFECTLY LOGICAL entry method. But because the user interface is not sufficiently abstracted from the data storage, this creates a huge mess in the EDIT LYRICS window (the canonical text). In fact, it seems to me that the canonical text is what displays in the score, not what displays out of context in the EDIT LYRICS window. Frankly, I have done the same thing, and do not find my experience to coincide with yours. It has been my experience that the only time that the sequence of typing lyrics into the score has a significant impact on order in the lyrics block is that the order of the subsets of the lyric block assigned to a particular staff is determined by the order in which the first lyric of each staff was entered, so that if the first syllable of the bass line was entered first, the string of syllables of the bass line will be first in the lyric block. The second string in the lyric block will be the string for the staff which was the second to have the first syllable entered into the score. So, I understand how and why, but I still think the whole thing is a huge mess, fraught with potential errors for the user that should be prevented by a properly designed and implemented user interface. I'm still not convinced it is not properly designed and implemented; I'd agree that it is badly documented, however. In Coda's defense, it seems appropriate here to note that the programmers who originally programmed Finale v. 1, and who made
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote, in part: The system is designed around an assumption that the default and most desirable method for lyrics entry is to enter the words used one time, and then assign them all multiple times. I'm not sure that that is the default assumption; I'd rather suspect that the assumption is that the user will enter all of the lyrics for each staff, but has the options, when it is expedient or convenient, to link several notes to a single syllable. The behavior of the lyrics susbsytem, IMO, supports both supposed assumptions equally well, but I cannot concieve of anyone, even a percussionist, making the assumption you assert was the basis for the design of thy lyrics system. (Although, I suppose, a conductor might) there is no representation at all of what connects to what, Is this plug-in territory? I don't yet know enough about programming to know for sure, but it seems logical that a plug in could examine a text block, list all of the assignments between a given lyric syllable and various lines, and make it simple to delete one or more assignments without affecting others. ns ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 02:06 PM 9/19/02 -0800, you wrote: - I assume type-in-score still exists. (And if it doesn't, I'm sure many will object.) When you use type-in-score to create a lyric, how does Finale decide where in the text to create the new syllable? Does it add it to the end of the text, or does it insert it in the middle based on where in the music you're placing it? If the latter, the hyphens don't work properly. If the former, you've left the door open to weirdness, and if the user does the wrong thing, then the hyphens don't work properly. I'm not following. Type in score breaks at spaces and hyphens. That is how it understands new syllables, no? You tell it. Can you re-ask this; I'm really not understanding the question you're posing. (Keep in mind I'm answering this question based on Finale's existing destructive lyrics editing.) (For example, I enter four notes and type hal-le-lu-jah below them. Then I notice the middle two notes are entered wrong. To fix them, suppose I use Speedy Entry to delete them, and then re-enter two notes in insert mode. Not the only way to do it, of course, but a reasonable possibility. Now I see that I have deleted the le-lu syllables, so I re-type them. As a result, I have lost the hyphen between lu and jah. That's because the original le-lu- are still in place in the text stream, which now reads hal-le-lu-le-lu-jah.) No. If the stream is interactive (it's gotta have *some* smarts) and based on a lyrics pool, there are at least two useful options. 1. The syllables disappear in both in-score and text stream. You must retype them. This is not desirable. 2. The syllables change color and 'float' until you rubber-band reassign them or delete them. Most of the time such corrections will just mean reassignment. 3. The syllables are part of a slip-editing stream (see later in this post). If there is still some sort of mirroring feature, a warning box would ask if the change is to be mirrored, or the mirror is to be broken and the mirrored content liberated. (This is not necessary in a slip-editing situation.) - Can you use type-in-score to change the text to which a note is attached? Drag and attach. Those rubber bands again. If more than one note is attached to that syllable, would it not change the text in all instances? No. The text is the text, from a pool. Any notes can be assigned to it. You could even reverse syllables (crossing 'rubber bands' and not changing the text) or drag-drop reverse syllables in the pool. The interaction of text and layout in Pagemaker is an interesting example of this, in how blocks of text can be broken, moved (etc.) and later re-attached, or the slip-editing features of video editors. - Since lyrics are not assigned to notes, when you do Mass Copy, do the lyrics not copy at all? Does Finale review the lyric text for assigned notes and copy those assignments (ie, with the same result as currently)? Or does Finale create new lyrics in the underlying text, and if so, where are they placed in the text stream? There are a few solutions, and I can hear objections to any of them. Keep in mind that I am always thinking of text as text, and a block of text as an entry in a text/lyrics pool (which would include titles, text elements, lyrics, etc.), and verses are merely separate blocks of text that can be broken into smaller segments, combined to make larger ones, or even broken out as individual words or syllables, if desired. A text block counter can be shown in the same way the current measure number is shown. A text block number is in an editing window, and it's shown as a thumbwheel when I'm in type-into-score mode. For mass-mover copies, then: 1. The text is not copied, just as some other aspects of the score are not copied in this process. 2. The copied text is pasted exactly where it appears in the current text stream. Not desirable to me. 3. The copied text becomes a new text stream (new block number), attached through a Pagemaker-like re-attach feature. Marginally useful. 4. The copied text 'floats' with the copied version until it's assigned as a mirror or as an independent state (which can be done at any time). 5. The copied text is merely another dip into the non-destructive editing database. This is the solution I would welcome. - If a note is deleted, should any lyric to which it is attached be deleted from the text stream? If no, then that's what results in the extraneous le-lu in the example above. If yes, then you're liable to mess up a person who uses click-assignment, if he deletes a passage of music and it destroys a selection of lyrics which he still planned to click-assign elsewhere.) There's no question that an arbitrary choice is made here. From my viewpoint, if you like click-assignment, then a text pool is the way to go. Think of it somewhat like slip-editing (aka non-destructive editing) in an audio or video editor. The original never disappears (unless it is deleted or edited from within the pool), but parts of it
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
In various posts, David W. Fenton wrote: Historically speaking, yes. But before I upgraded to WinFin2003, [...] Oh, so you're in Fin 2003 now. Does that mean it has changed back?? In MacFin2002, if I use type-in-score to enter lyrics out of order, but within a single staff and verse, Finale will arrange them in the Edit Lyrics window to match their order in the score. I can't see using click assignment for any large project. The user interface is hideous, with a non-resizable window and insufficient feedback about where you are in the text stream, and what is connected to what. I still don't know how to un-assign a syllable, except by deleting it using TYPE IN SCORE. If you're in Adjust Syllables mode and you delete a lyric, it removes the assignment but leaves it alone in the text stream. If you want to remove several assignments at once, Mass Mover-Clear Items-Entries-Lyrics also removes the assignment but leaves the text alone in the text stream. The whole lyrics substructure should be redesigned from the bottom up and a new user interface created. I would certainly oppose that. I want some sort of Edit Lyrics windows, and I don't want all of my files from previous versions to become unusable if I upgrade. -- Know, my computer doesn't have an OPTION key. OK, but I'm sure the same function exists with a different keystroke. In any event, with a highly melismatic piece, the SHIFT LYRICS is very tedious, as it removes all assignments to the right of the syllable you are moving. Another improvement I would like is if the multi-click-assign (the one that's option-click on the Mac) could examine the music for slurs and skip notes melismatically accordingly. Even if you're using a style in which you won't be keeping the slurs anyway, this could still be a help. And if you are entering the slurs, it will be automatic so long as you enter the slurs before the lyrics. I'm not sure what you mean by removing all assignments to the right of the syllable you are moving. The whole point of Shift Lyrics is that it moves the entire string, right? Making a user interface that works does not require abandoning advanced features. It just requires designing the UI properly so that the novice user can't screw things up, and that when and if they do, they have all the tools they need to fix the problems. So long as I keep the advanced features, I have no problem with whatever reform to the UI you recommend. But I still don't see why a restructure of the data is necessary, and if doing so fouls up the advanced features that currently exist, that's a problem. The lyrics tool requires too much specialized knowledge to be useful for the person who uses it very seldom. That it was formerly much worse is really completely irrelevant since it is still extraordinarily badly implemented. Being dead is worse than being in a full-body cast, but neither is a desirable state. The more I read, the more I'm thinking it would be a good idea to have a separate Simple Lyrics system, sort of like Simple Entry. The system is designed around an assumption that the default and most desirable method for lyrics entry is to enter the words used one time, and then assign them all multiple times. No, it's not. That's not how I operate, and that's not how sample files provided by Coda operate. That makes it very dangerous to edit anything, since you can't tell what the results of the edit will be. Much of the danger could be fixed with some simple reforms, short of redesigning the underlying data structure. The rest could be fixed with a more explicit UI, again without redesigning the underlying data structure. How you could call TYPE IN SCORE behind the scenes is beyond me. Looks like Stockholm syndrome to me. It's because I recognize the Edit Lyrics window as the canonical text (as you describe it), and I am accustomed to thinking of any changes there as being direct and any changes through type-in-score as being indirect. You are correct that this way of thinking is geeky and I only view it this way because I'm accustomed to thinking like Finale thinks. I've already acknowledged that behind the scenes was a poor choice of words. So, you agree that the user interface is fundamentally broken, because it allows changes to be made without indicating the consequences of those changes. Essentially, yes, though I probably wouldn't use the word fundamentally. To me, type in score is the only sensible way to enter lyrics, as I'm creating a score with lyrics in it. [...] For just about anything else, the simplest interface is TYPE IN SCORE. For me, it is much faster to type all the lyrics in the Edit Lyrics window and then assign them using (option-)click assignment, combined with shift lyrics. Others have different preferences. Finale should be able to accommodate both preferences, just as it accommodates both Simple Entry and Speedy Entry. That the results of the two interfaces to the same data store are not consistent,
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 4:44 PM 09/19/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Now, undo will correct the lyric displacement that occurs in steps 6 and 10, but I submit that since lyric displacement does not happen on type into score, it should not happen after edit lyric, either. The results of inserting or deleting syllables in both modes should be exactly the same. I agree that the two modes should be the same. More specifically, I think that inserting or deleting syllables in the Edit Lyrics should not result in lyric shift. This problem would be solved if every insertion or deletion in the Edit Lyrics box caused assignments to subsequent syllables to be incremented or decremented accordingly (as I recommended elsewhere). In the example you cite, that would make Edit Lyrics edits behave the same as Type in Score edits. All of this has nothing to do with undo, which behaves properly in all cases here. Finally, using edit lyrics to clean up extraneous hyphens from a lyric block has results which I have not yet explored enough to understand completely. My experience thus far suggests that in some cases, if there are two hyphens in succession, with or without intermediate spaces, all but one of these can be removed from the lyrics block with no detrimental effect, and hyphens which prefix a syllable without an intermediate space can also be readily removed with no ill effect; but otherwise, the removal of hyphens using the edit lyrics block is beyond my present capability to predict. Here, I'm at a disadvantage. In my usual method of lyric entry, I would never type consecutive hyphens, nor would I type a hyphen followed by a space. Furthermore, in my experimentation with Type-in-Score, I can't find a way to cause either of these to be created. Thus, I'm not sure why you'd ever have consecutive separators in the first place. But if you do, here's how it works. There are three characters which are treated as separators: space, hyphen, and carriage return. Any string of characters between separators is treated as a single syllable. Any number of consecutive separators is treated as a single separator. If that collection includes a hyphen, the separator will act like a single hyphen; if it does not, it will act like a single space. Consecutive hyphens are therefore redundant, and that's why you can safely remove all but one. Consecutive spaces are also redundant, and that why you can safely remove all but one. In a space-and-hyphen combination, the space is redundant. If you remove the space, it still acts like a hyphen; if you remove the hyphen, it will still behave like a space. If you delete a non-redundant hyphen or space, you have removed a separator. Without the separator, the text on either side combines into a single syllable. For example, if you had do-re-mi, you have three syllables. If you then delete the first hyphen, dore becomes a single syllable. You have essentially deleted a syllable, and mi will be shifted to the left, just as if you had deleted re outright. I don't know if this answers your question, since I'm not sure what your question is. If you're syllables are out of order on account of how they were entered in type-in-score, that could introduce other problems if you make changes in the Edit Lyrics window. A hyphen on the score behaves properly only if the syllable which follows it in the Edit Lyrics window is also the syllable which follows it for the purposes of hyphenation in the score. When you use Type-in-Score, Finale tries to determine the proper order of syllables within the Edit Lyrics window. Under normal circumstances, it will guess right. It may get confused, however, by certain combinations of deletions and insertions. And of course it will get it wrong if you deliberately mislead it, by entering the syllables in separate verses, for example. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 19 Sep 2002 at 17:04, Mark D. Lew wrote: In various posts, David W. Fenton wrote: Historically speaking, yes. But before I upgraded to WinFin2003, [...] Oh, so you're in Fin 2003 now. Does that mean it has changed back?? In MacFin2002, if I use type-in-score to enter lyrics out of order, but within a single staff and verse, Finale will arrange them in the Edit Lyrics window to match their order in the score. I don't know if it's changed, but the soprano lyrics are at the end. I think this is because I started with the beginning of the Requiem, and the basses enter first, the sopranos last. I haven't checked too carefully, because there's too much junk in there, all of it the same, for me to be able to tell what's linked to what. Which is, of course, one of the problems -- the interface doesn't give enough information to be useful. Had I entered the lyrics with each staff in a different verse, this would be more organized, but even when that the workaround is not used, UI should still give you sufficient information to know what's going on. [] The whole lyrics substructure should be redesigned from the bottom up and a new user interface created. I would certainly oppose that. I want some sort of Edit Lyrics windows, and I don't want all of my files from previous versions to become unusable if I upgrade. This is exactly what happened when we were discussing TYPE IN SCORE for expressions -- people oppposed it on the grounds that the people calling for it were going to gut the program of its existing features. That's not a viable debate tactic with me -- don't impute to me arguments I have no made. That is, I would not be calling for a removal of any functionality that is presently there, just a completely revision of how it is implemented. -- Know, my computer doesn't have an OPTION key. OK, but I'm sure the same function exists with a different keystroke. I don't know what function you are speaking of. Does it have a name? What does it do? In any event, with a highly melismatic piece, the SHIFT LYRICS is very tedious, as it removes all assignments to the right of the syllable you are moving. Another improvement I would like is if the multi-click-assign (the one that's option-click on the Mac) could examine the music for slurs and skip notes melismatically accordingly. Even if you're using a style in which you won't be keeping the slurs anyway, this could still be a help. And if you are entering the slurs, it will be automatic so long as you enter the slurs before the lyrics. I'm not sure what you mean by removing all assignments to the right of the syllable you are moving. The whole point of Shift Lyrics is that it moves the entire string, right? Yes, but it compresses everything into a syllabic assignment, removing any melismas in what is to the right of the shifted syllable. Making a user interface that works does not require abandoning advanced features. It just requires designing the UI properly so that the novice user can't screw things up, and that when and if they do, they have all the tools they need to fix the problems. So long as I keep the advanced features, I have no problem with whatever reform to the UI you recommend. But I still don't see why a restructure of the data is necessary, and if doing so fouls up the advanced features that currently exist, that's a problem. NO ONE IS CALLING FOR ANYTHING THAT WOULD FOUL UP EXISTING FEATURES. Geez. I get so tired of people arguing on the assumption that those who want the problems fixed are advocating the removal of features. The lyrics tool requires too much specialized knowledge to be useful for the person who uses it very seldom. That it was formerly much worse is really completely irrelevant since it is still extraordinarily badly implemented. Being dead is worse than being in a full-body cast, but neither is a desirable state. The more I read, the more I'm thinking it would be a good idea to have a separate Simple Lyrics system, sort of like Simple Entry. After my first day with Finale, I've never touched Simple Entry. If it were gone, I'd never miss it. Type in score, though, is completely different -- it is the obvious way to put lyrics into a score, and should be fixed so that it works. The system is designed around an assumption that the default and most desirable method for lyrics entry is to enter the words used one time, and then assign them all multiple times. No, it's not. That's not how I operate, and that's not how sample files provided by Coda operate. But that's the only justification for building the whole infrastructure around the notion of assignment of one syllable in the text stream to multiple notes. If that is not seen as being the point of it, then it is nonsensical to build it in that fashion. That makes it very dangerous to edit anything, since you can't tell what the results of the edit will be. Much
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 6:06 PM -0400 9/19/02, David W. Fenton wrote: But you leave out the most important part: Finale makes it extremely difficult to undo the unintended errors. THis is a bit of a change of subject, but speaking of unintended behaviours screwing up one's scores, how about the repeat tool? I put in a segno $ at the beginning of measure 5, showing where I will be jumping back to. I put in a segno at the END of measure 16, indicating from where I will be jumping. If I happen to scroll back to measure 5 at some point, the segno I put in at the BEGINNING of measure 5 is now at the END of the measure, in other words, duplicating the positioning I used in measure 16. If I never happen to look at measure 5 again, my segno is in the wrong place. If I move the measure 5 segno backt o where I think it should go, the measure 16 segno moves, too! There are two workarounds, one is creating a second segno, the other is using only staff expression segnos instead of Repeat Tool segnos, which NEVER change positioning once you have put them in. This bug... I mean, unexpected but very consistent behaviour, must have caught every single one of us at some time, possibly after the parts were printed. We are all so used to it now that we don't even think about the illogicity of it any more. Kind of like the lyric tool. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
I wrote, in part: Now, undo will correct the lyric displacement that occurs in steps 6 and 10, but I submit that since lyric displacement does not happen on type into score, it should not happen after edit lyric, either. The results of inserting or deleting syllables in both modes should be exactly the same. I agree that the two modes should be the same. More specifically, I think that inserting or deleting syllables in the Edit Lyrics should not result in lyric shift. This problem would be solved if every insertion or deletion in the Edit Lyrics box caused assignments to subsequent syllables to be incremented or decremented accordingly (as I recommended elsewhere). In the example you cite, that would make Edit Lyrics edits behave the same as Type in Score edits. All of this has nothing to do with undo, which behaves properly in all cases here. Finally, using edit lyrics to clean up extraneous hyphens from a lyric block has results which I have not yet explored enough to understand completely. My experience thus far suggests that in some cases, if there are two hyphens in succession, with or without intermediate spaces, all but one of these can be removed from the lyrics block with no detrimental effect, and hyphens which prefix a syllable without an intermediate space can also be readily removed with no ill effect; but otherwise, the removal of hyphens using the edit lyrics block is beyond my present capability to predict. to which Mark responded, in part: Furthermore, in my experimentation with Type-in-Score, I can't find a way to cause either of these to be created. Thus, I'm not sure why you'd ever have consecutive separators in the first place. I don't enter consecutive hyphens as much anymore either, but they get generated in type into score mode when one has typed a hyphenated word (Hal-le-lu-jah) in a melismatic passage, and gotten the wrong syllable attached to the wrong notes, i.e., the first syllable should have been assigned to the first note, the second to the fifth, the third to the eighth, and the last to the twelfth note, and through carelessness I assigned them to the fourth, ninth, and twelfth. If one goes into type into score and deletes the second and third syllable, and retypes them on the correct notes, the original separators persist, so that an examination of the lyrics block shows something on the order of Hal - - -le - lu- jah. Syllables can persist for other reasons, too. When I go back to some of my earliest efforts, I sometimes find ghost syllables in the lyrics box. Though I cannot be certain this is the case, I now suspect that these arise from deleting a note to which the syllable was assigned, entering a new note in the same place in the measure, and entering the new syllable with type into score. Today I would attach the old syllable to the new note using click assignment. ns ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 5:49 PM 09/19/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: Is this plug-in territory? I don't yet know enough about programming to know for sure, but it seems logical that a plug in could examine a text block, list all of the assignments between a given lyric syllable and various lines, and make it simple to delete one or more assignments without affecting others. I believe it would be useful to have a utility, whether plug-in or not, which examines the lyric text and removes any syllable which has no assignment anywhere. I believe this would rectify most of the hyphen problems which type-in-score users occasionally encounter, as I believe such problems are almost always the result of superfluous syllables inadvertently introduced to the lyric text. (Another possible solution to the same problem would be if deleting a note in speedy entry were to cause it's attached syllable to be deleted altogether so long as there is no other assignment to the same syllable, but that might sometimes result in unwanted deletions for click-assignment users.) mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 6:30 PM 09/19/02, David W. Fenton wrote: If I were setting Mozart's Requiem, I'd enter the lyrics in their entirety, repeats and all (using copy-and-paste within the Edit Lyrics window where appropriate), then click-assign them all at once with option-click and shift as necessary. . . . You assume that the repetition is the same in all voices. It isn't. No, I'm not assuming that at all. I enter the lyrics separately in a different verse for each voice. Where there is similarity, I may use copy-and-paste, but I certainly wouldn't click assign all four parts from the same verse. By habit, I never do that. Even on the occasions where the lyrics do match exactly, I'd rather keep then separate in case I want to make a change later. (I know the Mozart Requiem very well, by the way, having performed it once as a soloist, numerous times in the chorus, and once as rehearsal accompanist.) You're lapsing into Mac-speak -- I have no idea what you mean by OPTION-CLICK. I understand that it's one of the shift keys, but it is peculiar to the Mac, and I don't know what it maps to on Windows, nor what it does. Sorry. I don't know where the function is on PC. I'm sure it exists, but with a different keystroke. It seems to me that Finale is prejudiced towards homophonic music, in which there is one note per syllable and all the voices sing the text at the same time. One might argue that homophonic music is inherently easier since it simplifies copying. Anyway, you're assuming that one is using the same text stream for all voices, which I think is the exception not the norm. I don't do that even for homophonic music. For polyphonic, melismatic music, the assumption breaks down. Which version of the text should I type in? The Soprano version? The Alto version? The Tenor version? The Bass version? Each has different repetitions and different melismas. You should enter them all separate. See, for example, the Coda sample file De Lassus which I cited earlier. If you are recommending putting each in separately in EDIT LYRICS, then I simply so no virtue over TYPE IN SCORE, except in terms of it being closer to the metal in terms of the flaws in Finale's UI implementation. That's one advantage, yes. I also prefer being able to do all the typing separate from the assigning. I find the multi-click-assign method to be faster than type in score for getting all the lyrics into place where I want them. Also, I like being able to view the text all in one place, organized into verses as I choose. And I like being able to type the lyrics in a format with line breaks and spacing to match the poetry, or whatever other visual scheme I find most helpful. I think the original assumption was that users who use Type In Score would never look at the Edit Lyrics windows at all. . . . A valid assumption, as until the point at which I had a problem, I had not looked at it, ever. And I think a proper UI should not *require* that you do so. I'll buy that. I am not using an earlier version. My mistake. I was confused (and am still confused) by your description of syllables being ordered in the Edit Lyrics window to match the order they were entered. It is my understanding that that was only true in earlier versions. If you create a single bar with four quarter notes, and you type in four lyrics from right to left, do they not still appear in left-to-right order in the Edit Lyrics window? In MacFin 2002 they do. In other words, you put them in in a manner that exhibits yet another counterintuitive approach. Mozart's Requiem has only one verse, and the fact that you recommend putting it in as thought it does not shows yet another adaptation to Finale's bollixed-up requirements. The only bollix here is that verse is a silly name for it. It's not a verse at all, it's a separate lyric compartment. I agree that verse is a dumb name, but complaining about it is about as meaningful as protesting, But it's not a 'voice' at all, that's the piano part! Are voices counterintuitive because they might be played by trumpets or guitars? Layers aren't really layers either, and many articulations aren't really articulations, etc, etc. If it makes you feel better, you can ignore the verse boxes altogether put all your lyrics in the areas labeled section instead. They behave exactly the same. I think that's how most users do it. That's how it's done on the Finale sample files. See, eg, de Lassus, which incidentally also belies the two assumptions you suggested Finale makes about how lyrics will always be. I've not idea what your point of reference is. The CD which Coda ships has a folder named Music Samples which contains numerous sample files. The file I mentioned is in there. I am on MacFin 2002; perhaps it's different for WinFin 2003. That's fine if what displays in the score has an obvious order, but sometimes it doesn't. Sure it does! Everything in the top line of the score should come first, followed by everything
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 9:18 PM 09/19/02, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: I don't enter consecutive hyphens as much anymore either, but they get generated in type into score mode when one has [...] [...] the original separators persist, so that an examination of the lyrics block shows something on the order of Hal - - -le - lu- jah. Ah, OK, I get it now. Since I rarely use type in score, I wasn't familiar with such patterns. As I noted before, any group of consecutive separator characters is treated as a single separator, thus the redundant ones may be safely removed. Removing non-redundant separators will result in lyrics being shifted. Syllables can persist for other reasons, too. When I go back to some of my earliest efforts, I sometimes find ghost syllables in the lyrics box. Though I cannot be certain this is the case, I now suspect that these arise from deleting a note to which the syllable was assigned, entering a new note in the same place in the measure, and entering the new syllable with type into score. Yes, that procedure would yield the result you describe. I believe that this sort of thing is what causes the occasional errant hyphens experienced by type-in-score users. A utility to clear out all ghost syllables (ie, syllables not assigned anywhere) would provide a helpful way to clean up these pesky hyphen bugs. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 17 Sep 2002 at 20:09, Mark D. Lew wrote: In various posts, David W. Fenton wrote: This is completely unacceptable behavior -- it is basically completely unusable in any fashion, by any of the various methods. What the hell am I going to do here? I'm coming into this discussion a day late, so probably you've solved everything by now. If I had read your original post when it first came out, my immediate advice would have been to clear out ALL the lyrics in the entire file and re-enter them all from scratch in a logical fashion. I know that sounds draconian, but it's important to keep your syllables in good order. Once you've accidentally mucked them up, going back and trying to make repairs usually leads to further problems; chances are, you'll spend far more time (and frustration) chasing after every little bug, and when you're done you still won't be sure that everything is fixed. Re-entering all the lyrics from scratch seems like a lot of wasted time, but it's really not such a big deal. However correct you may be as the voice of experience, that is the most ludicrous advice I've ever heard. Being forced to completely re- enter data that's already in the file in order to get rid of some artifacts of an erroneous edit shows that the database is corrupted and that the database engine that Finale relies on is simply not reliable. That's a really serious indictment of the stability of the Finale file format. Indeed, if for some reason your file is still giving you lyric problems, that is STILL my advice: Clear out all the lyrics from the entire file and delete them from the Edit Lyrics windows, then start over in an organized fashion. I will mail the file to Coda to ask them to fix it before I will even contemplate re-doing literally hours and hours of lyrics placement. In fact, I'll used damned white out on the printed score before I would ever re-enter all of this. -- It's as though I've got two sets of lyrics on one baseline, and one is a big long word extension. That's exactly what you've got. Why are there no editing facilities that expose this for correction? When I choose EDIT LYRICS, this text is not even there! It's in there somewhere, probably a duplicate of a syllable you're using elsewhere. If you really want to find it, use the type in score function to change it to something ridiculously large and watch to see what else changes along with it. I don't understand. Change *what* to something large? When syllable assignments aren't consecutive, Finale gets confused. This is why it's a bad idea to copy and alter syllables haphazardly. From my point of view I was not doing anything haphazard. It's only in the crazy upside-down world of Finale lyrics copying that I was being haphazard. -- That's a bloody stupid default setting, seems to me. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. True. That's why you shouldn't change these lyrics at all. You should clear the copied assignments and enter new ones. How in the hell is somebody supposed to know that? There are no warnings in 1 type in the online manual, and I didn't read that until after I had a problem, in any case, because I thought I was doing something simple, copying pre-existing data to a later part of the file. This is something I've been doing for 12 years of using Finale (never before with lyrics, obviously), so I didn't *know* I needed to do something special. Your initial problem resulted from this. Your subsequent problems with hyphens, mixed up syllables, and so forth resulted from trying to go behind the scenes and patch together repairs. I did nothing but type-in-score corrections -- nothing behind-the- scenes at all. In fact, I used only the editing facilities exposed by the programmers, so the results should be reliable and consistent. That they are not shows that the program is fundamentally broken. It also means that I now have to jump through hoops to not lose the changes I've already made to the musical text (the rhythm is not the same). Yes, that's unfortunate. When you make an error which corrupts a file irreparably and then you proceed with further work not realizing that the file has been spoiled, you're going to lose all the extra work when the error is finally discovered. A reliable program does not corrupt a file irreparably when its proper editing facilities are used to change the file. In your case (and in most cases like this), the best course would have been to clear out all the lyrics and re-enter them. That way your changes to the music would be preserved. The changes to the musical text were trivial to recreate in comparison to the Draconian advice that I have to completely redo the lyrics from scratch. Could someone explain to me *why* this default is a good idea? And why it can't be turned off? The fact that mass copy creates aliases to the
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 17 Sep 2002 at 23:18, Robert Patterson wrote: If I were typesetting the Hallelujah Chorus, my Edit Lyrics box might well just contain the Hallelujah word once. (Well, actually probably twice: once at the beginning and once at the end.) I know this helps David very little now, but knowing how Finale lyrics work one can actually exploit the behavior rather than be irritated by it. I recognize the utility of Finale providing this *capability* as it reflects a real musical need. What I object to is that it is the default for a copy, that it cannot be turned off, and that once it's been done it is not fully reversible. Those are all indications of an ill-thought-out UI and bugs in the implementation. A user interface that allows changes to be made to underlying data but does not allow those changes to be reversed is a UI that is broken. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote: When I choose EDIT LYRICS, this text is not even there! It's in there somewhere, probably a duplicate of a syllable you're using elsewhere. If you really want to find it, use the type in score function to change it to something ridiculously large and watch to see what else changes along with it. I don't understand. Change *what* to something large? Change the word in the score and add let's say 7 exclamation marks after the last letter - when you go into your Lyric Edit window you will then find it easier. That approach is sometimes very useful when you get lost in your lyric mess... Thomas Schaller ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On Wed, 18 September 2002, David W. Fenton wrote: Those are all indications of an ill-thought-out UI and bugs in the implementation. David, David. This is Finale we are talking about. Aren't you one of its long-term users? Ill-thought-out UI and bugs in implementation have historically been the norm for Finale. The fact is, lyrics in Finale behave the way lyrics do. (That is, they are assignments back to an underlying text stream.) It isn't an option, it just is. We can rant about it, or we can accept it and figure out a way to move on. The fact is, if you understand how they work you can use it greatly to your advantage, whereas if the text were copied each time it was attached to a note, it would be easy for the novice but less powerful for experienced users. I believe it was Mark Lew who said that Coda made it worse by trying to protect users from knowing about it, and I agree. In teaching Finale seminars, I've seen users utterly trash their lyrics using type into score, whereas most of them get the hang of click assign right away. I still think there are some legitimate gripes. The two biggest are non-continuing hyphens and word extensions. -- Robert Patterson http://RobertGPatterson.com ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On Tuesday, Sep 17, 2002, at 05:42 US/Pacific, David W. Fenton wrote: Sorry I haven't been following this thread closely, but if there are messed up lyrics you can export all lyrics to a text file with the Extract Lyrics plugin and see what's going on. There is a labeling option which can be helpful in these circumstances. On Mac, it's more convenient to use the Text Editor plugin because it offers multiple windows and can re-assign the text directly from any window in Lyric mode. The latest version, which I'll announce as soon as I get it loaded onto my server, has a new scripting feature which permits assigning lyrics to a designated ID directly from file(s) on disk. Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 9:08 AM -0400 9/18/02, David W. Fenton wrote: On 17 Sep 2002 at 19:34, Thomas Schaller wrote: first of all - about the problem of having screwed up your original lyrics: I'm afraid that those lyrics are no good anymore - depending on how much you changed in the copied section you might be able to re-change everything, but it most likely is way too time-consuming and the outcome is questionable at best - sorry. I assume you mean only the lyrics for the staff that I'd edited. I've deleted and re-entered, and the incorrect hyphens are still there. In any event, this is unacceptable -- it means data in the database has been corrupted by a legal editing operation in a fashion that is not reversable. That means the database engine is not reliable. Yes, we knew that already. It used to be WAY worse, believe me. The question is, how to avoid running into the problem. The endless hyphen comes most likely from a first syllable that has been separated from its second. If you find that syllable, then you can un-assign it, that is, undo its assignment to that note without deleting it from the list of lyrics. You go to Adjust Lyrics, click on the note with the errant syllable, then select the handle for the lyric (not the note, you have two handles, select the bottom one!) and press Delete. If you delete the syllable in any other way except this (or Mass MoverClear ItemsLyrics) then you will lose the syllable in the Edit Lyrics window. To avoid this problem in the future, never delete or copy a portion of music that splits a hyphenated word. It's a pain, I know, but the consequences are much worse than the infraction. To save your work, I suggest the Mass Mover Clear Items to undo all lyric assignments. Then go to the Edit Lyrics window and restore the order of words in the first verse the way you like it. Then, by using Copy and Paste, create a second verse inside the same edit window. Click-assign this new copy to the second verse, which you will be able to change as you like without affecting the first verse. (You know about opt-click, right? This assigns ALL the syllables in the edit window to the notes automatically, from the first note you click until it encounters an empty measure or runs out of lyrics. Very cool. You can shift right or left using Shift Lyrics if a passage gets mis-aligned.) I don't see the issue at all. Everything that is copied should create the appropriate new records in the database, rather than creating new records for some things and links to existing records for others. What it used to do when copying music with lyrics is create a new verse, which meant that in every succeeding verse that you copied the lyrics got lower and lower below the music. I wish it would simply copy the lyrics automatically in the SAME verse, instead of mirroring, as you said. You are right, it IS counter-intuitive. You should bug Coda about it, stressing the fact that you are far from being a newbie yet you had problems using it, and that this is the kind of thing that keeps away casual users. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 03:58 PM 9/18/02 -0800, Mark D. Lew wrote: If it seems like I'm defensive of the system, it's because I'm a little miffed to see a person who, by his own admission, a week ago had no idea how lyrics work, and by the evidence of his posts still doesn't really understand it, nevertheless has the audacity to come along and tell us how the program ought to work. I'm gonna defend David on this one, because although I've used Finale for nearly 11 years, I despise using lyrics and find the whole system distasteful and regressive. When lyrics are not considered simple straight text as the default state, but rather some sort of 'objects', then you're in geek mode. I think that's just not acceptable behavior, and that anyone has adapted to it is only a statement of their flexibility, not Finale's inherently nonsensical implementation. In other words, David's freshes view is very likely the one to return to in order to re-evaluate how it should be done for the next update. Lyrics are not notes or expressions. To treat them as such (and Finale is not alone in this; Graphire does it as well) is programmer mentality, something that should gradually vanish from all software that is not about itself. Lyrics should be more like text and less like symlinks, even if those features can be enabled. I have avoided the whole lyrics nonsense by taking advantage of my typing speed and entering everything always separately, no matter how many times the same words are used. That's the only reliable way to be sure that what you see is what you get. In fact -- because the software is so abysmally poor at indicating ownership -- I try to avoid most of Finale's invisible features like note mirrors and lyrics clones. I'm still waiting for the day when rubber band connections are shown for all expressions, and lyrics have identifying shadows when they are copies/clones/mirrors -- along with a way to detach such connections easily from their origins and reconnect them, make them independent, or simply 'float' them as needed. But that's a whole 'nother discussion. It's just that lyrics nightmares remind me of how much psychological energy and time I've invested in this program -- probably more than it took me to learn notation in the first place! Dennis Malted/Media http://maltedmedia.com/ Equestrian Music http://equestrianmusic.com/ Kalvos Damian's New Music Bazaarhttp://kalvos.org/ NonPop International Network http://nonpopradio.com/ Ought-One Festival http://ought-one.com/ ZipThree Festival http://zipthree.com/ Erzsebet The Vampire Opera http://bathory.org/ Accessibility Reportshttp://orbitaccess.com/ The Transitive Empire http://maltedmedia.com/empire/ My Resumehttp://maltedmedia.com/bathory/bathres.html My Music on MP3.com http://www.mp3.com/bathory/ My Downloadable Scoreshttp://maltedmedia.com/scores/ Buy Detritus of Mating http://www.cdbaby.com/bathory/ The Middle-Aged Hiker http://maltedmedia.com/books/mah/ ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
--Op 16-09-2002 22:30 -0400 schreef David W. Fenton: So, I copied and pasted a large chunk of music with lyrics from the beginning of a piece to the end, because the music returns with different lyrics. But now when I change the lyrics at the end, it changes them at the beginning too. I don't understand. What is going on? Finale doesn't actually copy the lyrics, but simply assigns the same verse to the copied notes (even if you type the lyrics directly into the score, Finale stores them in a verse). So when editing, you're actually editing this doubly assigned verse, which is why they also change at the beginning. You'll need to create a new verse and assign those lyrics to the copied notes. _ Patrick Hubers [EMAIL PROTECTED] Solve IT Postbus 5063 3502 JB Utrecht ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 16 Sep 2002 at 23:32, Noel Stoutenburg wrote: David W. Fenton wrote: So, I copied and pasted a large chunk of music with lyrics from the beginning of a piece to the end, because the music returns with different lyrics. But now when I change the lyrics at the end, it changes them at the beginning too. I don't understand. What is going on? when you copy a portion of music containing lyrics, you do not create a new copy of the lyrics, you create pointers (aliases) to the original ones. To achieve what you want to do, specify that you want to copy the section of music with only specified items, and make sure _NOT_ to copy the lyrics. Then you can go in and edit the new lyrics as you need to. That's a bloody stupid default setting, seems to me. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. It also means that I now have to jump through hoops to not lose the changes I've already made to the musical text (the rhythm is not the same). Could someone explain to me *why* this default is a good idea? And why it can't be turned off? -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
Hi, I've been caught by the same thing in opera scores where there are many parts all singing words that are almost - but not completely - identical. I've settled on putting all vocal lines as separate 'verses' and copying and pasting them within the lyric editor. I then reapplying them to the next line (click-assign makes a good start), adjust the baseline, and I then know I can edit those lines without worrying about others vocal lines. Michael Withers >Patrick Hubers < [EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: > Finale doesn't actually copy the lyrics, but simply assigns the same verse > > to the copied notes (even if you type the lyrics directly into the score, > > Finale stores them in a verse). So when editing, you're actually editing > this doubly assigned verse, which is why they also change at the > beginning. > You'll need to create a new verse and assign those lyrics to the copied > notes. > > _ > Patrick Hubers > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Changed your e-mail? Keep your contacts! Use this free e-mail change of address service from Return Path. Register now!
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 17 Sep 2002 at 17:24, David W. Fenton wrote: On 17 Sep 2002 at 17:38, Raimund Lintzen wrote: So why don't you copy your music+lyrics into a new (empty) file - then copy it again back to your first file. This procedure will make your lyrics be in a new verse. It also has a lot of really bad effects: 1. score expressions lose their staff list assignments. 2. duplicate expressions and articulations are created. Those alone are more time to fix than copying the original without the lyrics. Why does this whole operation work so incredibly poorly? Isn't linking to the same verse the *exception* when repeating music? Shouldn't it be an option instead of the default? This is something that seems to me to be incredibly badly implemented. All right, I'm beginning to get really angry. Having decided that pasting from a different file is too much work, I decided to try copying without the lyrics. The result, after many false starts where it didn't work at all, I see the lyrics being copied *anyway*, even though it is the one thing I have *unchecked*, and, like with the recent report on the madrigals, the baselines of the lyrics *from the beginning of the file* (i.e., not just what was newly pasted, but the original lyrics as well) has now been changed so that everything is about one staff too low. This is completely unacceptable behavior -- it is basically completely unusable in any fashion, by any of the various methods. What the hell am I going to do here? -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 17 Sep 2002 at 17:44, David W. Fenton wrote: Having decided that pasting from a different file is too much work, I decided to try copying without the lyrics. The result, after many false starts where it didn't work at all, I see the lyrics being copied *anyway*, even though it is the one thing I have *unchecked*, and, like with the recent report on the madrigals, the baselines of the lyrics *from the beginning of the file* (i.e., not just what was newly pasted, but the original lyrics as well) has now been changed so that everything is about one staff too low. OK, I realized what I was doing wrong, and finally got the music pasted without the lyrics. I think that's a better method anyway because it forces me to go through all of the music putting in the new lyrics, and so I'm more likely to find all the changes in the musical text that way. But the original lyrics are still messed, the ones that got edited by mistake from the copy. The two phrases that got edited have been corrected now, but I'm getting double hyphens. Instead of: Te de - cet hy - mnus De - us in Si- on I'm getting: Te de - cet -hy -- -mnus-De -- us -in Si -- -o-n, -- -- -- etc. --- -- -- -- (-- in the second line means an overstrike) It's as though I've got two sets of lyrics on one baseline, and one is a big long word extension. When I choose EDIT LYRICS, this text is not even there! I don't understand, and this is pretty damned confusing and difficult -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
In a message dated 9/17/02 4:45:15 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What the hell am I going to do here? You can start by calming down. Once you know how this works (or doesn't - for you) you can plan your approach. First of all - you can NOT selectively copy different elements BETWEEN documents. Coda has implemented some safeguards that you might appreciate more if your situation were different. One of them is how lyric verses are treated when copying between documents. It works like this - *IF* there are lyrics present in the target document than the pasted lyrics are placed in the next open verse number - this could be verse #13, for instance, especially if you've done a lot of pasting with lyrics. This can cause a lot of baselines to be far from where you'd want the lyrics placed. It is a simple matter of changing the baseline numbers of all of those verses to reflect the same numbers as verse #1, or (w/type into score selected) click on a low lyric to display the cursor and hit shift-dn arrow until the lyric highlights and drag the first triangle where you want the baseline for the selected verse. In the situation you just described I would delete the lyric from the section you want to copy - copy/paste into your target document - then Undo in your source file to return the lyrics to their proper placement. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. If you use the Selection Tool to select the lyric in question, this will automatically take you to the current verse that the lyric assigned to. Articulations are duplicated for similar reasons to the lyrics issue. If they are truly the same, then what's the problem? I, personally, would swap them out (see change articulation) but that might be too much work for you. If Finale had to compare every articulation, lyric verse, element, etc. when copying between documents, imagine how awful that would be and how long it would take. Are you suggesting that as the alternative? We all have to learn to deal with these issues and get our jobs done. If you know how these things work, it will help you get through it. This is clearly the first time you have needed to do this, David, or you wouldn't be so shocked. You haven't just uncovered some hidden bug that nobody knows about - this is how it works and has for a very long time. I hope you can deal with it and get through your project. ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
when you copy a portion of music containing lyrics, you do not create a new copy of the lyrics, you create pointers (aliases) to the original ones. To achieve what you want to do, specify that you want to copy the section of music with only specified items, and make sure _NOT_ to copy the lyrics. Then you can go in and edit the new lyrics as you need to. That's a bloody stupid default setting, seems to me. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. It also means that I now have to jump through hoops to not lose the changes I've already made to the musical text (the rhythm is not the same). Could someone explain to me *why* this default is a good idea? And why it can't be turned off? I can't explain it, and have been emailing Coda with requests to have an option to Copy the lyrics rather than make aliases of them for at least 5 years now. May I suggest that everyone else who is profoundly irritated by it (as I am) send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] and request that they fix it! And while we're on the lyrics track, maybe people might like to paraphrase the following feature request that I sent in to Coda recently... Dear Macsupport, I would like to request in future versions of Finale that the little box with triangles to the left of the staff when used with the Lyric tool display the verse/chorus number for easy reference. This works really well with the V1/V2 function within the Speedy Entry box, and would be very useful within the Lyric tool as well. Even more useful would be if this number could be clicked upon in order to change the verse number without having to go up to the Menu and dialog box all the time. Or alternatively, if there were a keyboard shortcut for next verse and previous verse. Thanks for considering this request, Matthew Hindson Matthew ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
David W. Fenton wrote: What the hell am I going to do here? Open a blank email message, describe the problem, attach a copy of the file (and ask support to fix and return it) and send it to Coda as a bug report ns ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 17 Sep 2002 at 18:28, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 9/17/02 4:45:15 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What the hell am I going to do here? You can start by calming down. Once you know how this works (or doesn't - for you) you can plan your approach. The fact is, it *doesn't* work. I can only get the right result by drag copying within the file with lyrics copying turned off. That's a really bad alternative, but the best of it. But, the fact that I didn't know that the copy's lyrics would be a mirror of the original lyrics leaves my original lyrics in an unacceptables state that I can't seem to rectify. I've written to WinSupport and we'll see what they say. [] In the situation you just described I would delete the lyric from the section you want to copy - copy/paste into your target document - then Undo in your source file to return the lyrics to their proper placement. Copying between documents is just not a good solkution. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. If you use the Selection Tool to select the lyric in question, this will automatically take you to the current verse that the lyric assigned to. Articulations are duplicated for similar reasons to the lyrics issue. If they are truly the same, then what's the problem? I, personally, would swap them out (see change articulation) but that might be too much work for you. Well, I'm simply not going to copy between files, as it makes far worse problems than having to re-enter the lyrics. If Finale had to compare every articulation, lyric verse, element, etc. when copying between documents, imagine how awful that would be and how long it would take. Are you suggesting that as the alternative? That would seem the logical thing to me. If there are apparent duplicates (same font, same character, same positioning), then Finale should ask me with a dialog that allows me to decide what it wants me to do. The number of articulation definitions is actually quite small compared to the number of entries, so it should be able to compare the articulations used in the source file to those in the destination file and where Finale thinks there are duplicates ask you what to do, with something like: o create new (possibly duplicate) articulations/expressions o convert the copied articulation/expressions to the exact duplicates in the destination o ask me for each case of: x articulations x expressions x staff lists Or something to that effect. It's not hard, really, as the number of comparisons required is actually quite small. Absent that, it would be nice to have a plugin that would find exact duplicate expression/articulation definitions (exactly the same in all respects) and that would change all instances of a chosen one of the duplicate pair to the other, and then remove the duplicate from the definitions. Then, at least, the cleanup process would be pretty easy. We all have to learn to deal with these issues and get our jobs done. If you know how these things work, it will help you get through it. This is clearly the first time you have needed to do this, David, or you wouldn't be so shocked. You haven't just uncovered some hidden bug that nobody knows about - this is how it works and has for a very long time. I hope you can deal with it and get through your project. I'm stunned that after all these years, working with lyrics is so incredibly fraught with counter-intuitive defaults that mess up your files beyond the end users' ability to rectify. The whole copying mechanism overall is not nearly intuitive enough. I still struggle with remembering how to insert a set of new blank measures. Used to be I'd click the tool devoted to that function, or highlight with mass mover and choose INSERT. Yes, it's more logical to have that functionality on the measure tool, but now you've got TWO selection tools, so the INSERT functionality ought to be in both. But I still don't understand the logic behind mirroring lyrics BY DEFAULT. Yes, it's an obviously useful OPTION, but as a default behavior with no acceptable alternative for doing otherwise, it boggles the mind. I guess I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that something so fundamental should be so poorly implemented in such a mature product. -- David W. Fenton | http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates | http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
On 9/17/02 7:25 PM or thereabouts, David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] intoned: But I still don't understand the logic behind mirroring lyrics BY DEFAULT. Yes, it's an obviously useful OPTION, but as a default behavior with no acceptable alternative for doing otherwise, it boggles the mind. I gotta agree with David here. I work infrequently with lyrics, so I guess I knew in the back of my mind that copying results in mirrored lyrics rather than duplicated lyrics, but somehow I always seem to forget. Or perhaps I figure that Coda will surely have FIXED THIS by the next time I have to work with lyrics (usually once a year or so). But regardless, by trying to save a few seconds by copying and pasting rather than re-entering the lyrics (for the sake of a *one word* difference between verses), I screwed up the lyric assignment for the entire piece and had to delete them all and put them in again via click-assignment. - Darcy -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston, MA ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
Darcy James Argue wrote: But I still don't understand the logic behind mirroring lyrics BY DEFAULT. Yes, it's an obviously useful OPTION, but as a default behavior with no acceptable alternative for doing otherwise, it boggles the mind. I gotta agree with David here. I work infrequently with lyrics, so I guess I knew in the back of my mind that copying results in mirrored lyrics rather than duplicated lyrics, but somehow I always seem to forget. Or perhaps I figure that Coda will surely have FIXED THIS by the next time I have to work with lyrics (usually once a year or so). But regardless, by trying to save a few seconds by copying and pasting rather than re-entering the lyrics (for the sake of a *one word* difference between verses), I screwed up the lyric assignment for the entire piece and had to delete them all and put them in again via click-assignment. OK, David - here are my 2 cents: first of all - about the problem of having screwed up your original lyrics: I'm afraid that those lyrics are no good anymore - depending on how much you changed in the copied section you might be able to re-change everything, but it most likely is way too time-consuming and the outcome is questionable at best - sorry. second - here are some procedures that you might want to follow in the future (these hints only affect copying within the same document): when you drag-copy or copy by using Shift-Option-Click (you know, you highlight the original bars and then go to the measure where you want your copy to appear and you shift-option-click it in therewell, these 2 methods will give you a mirror to your original lyrics - anything you change, will also change in the original. If you want to change the new lyrics you would have to use a different approach. You would highlight the original and hit Command-C, then you paste the copied music where you want it (paste and insert produces the same result) - then you will get your lyrics in the next open verse (which might be verse 13, like John Blane pointed out) - in this scenario you always have to adjust the baseline for the new section. My advice is to only include the lyrics in a copy procedure when they won't change. What I have done in the past for let's say a 4-part vocal piece with very independent parts, is to input the soprano in verse 1, then copy the whole text into verse 2, adjust the baseline, and then click it into the alto line, and so forth. I agree that this is somewhat tedious and one really has to think hard while working with lyrics - but the only way out of this dilemma would be that lyrics, once placed, are no longer linked to the Edit Lyrics window, but rather behave like an independent element, like a note that you simply copy from another section (copy, and NOT mirror) Good luck, Thomas Schaller ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
In various posts, David W. Fenton wrote: This is completely unacceptable behavior -- it is basically completely unusable in any fashion, by any of the various methods. What the hell am I going to do here? I'm coming into this discussion a day late, so probably you've solved everything by now. If I had read your original post when it first came out, my immediate advice would have been to clear out ALL the lyrics in the entire file and re-enter them all from scratch in a logical fashion. I know that sounds draconian, but it's important to keep your syllables in good order. Once you've accidentally mucked them up, going back and trying to make repairs usually leads to further problems; chances are, you'll spend far more time (and frustration) chasing after every little bug, and when you're done you still won't be sure that everything is fixed. Re-entering all the lyrics from scratch seems like a lot of wasted time, but it's really not such a big deal. Indeed, if for some reason your file is still giving you lyric problems, that is STILL my advice: Clear out all the lyrics from the entire file and delete them from the Edit Lyrics windows, then start over in an organized fashion. -- It's as though I've got two sets of lyrics on one baseline, and one is a big long word extension. That's exactly what you've got. When I choose EDIT LYRICS, this text is not even there! It's in there somewhere, probably a duplicate of a syllable you're using elsewhere. If you really want to find it, use the type in score function to change it to something ridiculously large and watch to see what else changes along with it. When syllable assignments aren't consecutive, Finale gets confused. This is why it's a bad idea to copy and alter syllables haphazardly. -- That's a bloody stupid default setting, seems to me. It means that I don't get the benefit of knowing where the lyrics are that I'm going to change. True. That's why you shouldn't change these lyrics at all. You should clear the copied assignments and enter new ones. Your initial problem resulted from this. Your subsequent problems with hyphens, mixed up syllables, and so forth resulted from trying to go behind the scenes and patch together repairs. It also means that I now have to jump through hoops to not lose the changes I've already made to the musical text (the rhythm is not the same). Yes, that's unfortunate. When you make an error which corrupts a file irreparably and then you proceed with further work not realizing that the file has been spoiled, you're going to lose all the extra work when the error is finally discovered. In your case (and in most cases like this), the best course would have been to clear out all the lyrics and re-enter them. That way your changes to the music would be preserved. Could someone explain to me *why* this default is a good idea? And why it can't be turned off? The fact that mass copy creates aliases to the lyrics as opposed to new ones is not illogical at all. It is exactly analogous to how articulations and expressions work. If you were to copy several measures of music complete with all the expressions, and then went in to change individual instances of mf or cresc to mp or dimin., you would make a hash of your expression list and foul up other instances of those same expressions in the same document. The difference is that with lyrics, with its type-in-score function and no separate window for the changes, this process is less obvious to the user. Hence, a user unfamiliar with how the lyric system works is more likely to screw things up without realizing it. (This, incidentally, should set off alarm bells for the plan -- advocated by many in this group -- of devising a type-in-score scheme for expressions. Under the type-in-score expression ideas we've sketched out here, I could very easily imagine some unwary user doing a similar mass copy, followed by type-in-score alterations to the markings, leading to chaos of the exact same sort that you encountered with lyrics.) I think we all agree that the lyric system is somewhat clumsy and confusing. I do agree that Coda would do well to make it more idiot-proof so that newbies can't so easily get themselves into trouble[*]. But I would not join with those who think that copy should default to creating a whole new set of syllables. Unless you're revamping the whole lyric scheme altogether, that would be illogical and inconsistent with how the system works. Would you have it do the same thing for expressions? Once you have a feel for how the program keeps track of lyric syllables, it's pretty easy to get the results you want. Like many things in Finale, it takes a few jobs to get the hang of it. If you're copying music to make a second verse with different lyrics, the sensible course is to do the mass copy, then clear all the lyrics in the new version, then enter the new lyrics from scratch. If it's a different set of lyrics, it's logical and easier to enter
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
I actually prefer the mirrored lyrics approach, but it requires forethought and discipline. Generally, unless you are truly writing a multiverse piece, such as a hymn, you should put all your lyrics in a single verse. This avoids the baseline headaches that others have mentioned. Personally, being the normalization freak that I am, I typically write in a vocal text exactly as the lyricist or poet wrote it. If my text-setting repeats words, I back up the click assigner and assign the same syllables multiple times. If I were typesetting the Hallelujah Chorus, my Edit Lyrics box might well just contain the Hallelujah word once. (Well, actually probably twice: once at the beginning and once at the end.) I know this helps David very little now, but knowing how Finale lyrics work one can actually exploit the behavior rather than be irritated by it. In the mean time, I'll mention that my Mass Copy plugin can clear lyric assignments. Its behavior in this regard is no better that Mass Mover, except it is more efficient in many situations. Also, Mass Copy can replicate (mirrored) lyric assignments on partial measures--something that Mass Mover (ahem, Edit) cannot do. -- Robert Patterson http://RobertGPatterson.com ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 7:25 PM 09/17/02, David W. Fenton wrote: The fact is, it *doesn't* work. I can only get the right result by drag copying within the file with lyrics copying turned off. That's a really bad alternative, but the best of it. When I want to copy a section of music but without the lyrics, I just leave it at copy everything and then follow by doing Clear Lyrics on the newly copied section. I find that's easier than trying to get it to copy everything but lyrics in the first place. I do this VERY often, by the way, since I make abundant use of mass-copy and I never want lyrics assignments copied. But, the fact that I didn't know that the copy's lyrics would be a mirror of the original lyrics leaves my original lyrics in an unacceptables state that I can't seem to rectify. The syntax of your sentence is perhaps unintended but it is accurate. The problem is the fact that [you] didn't know that copied lyrics would behave like a mirror. Now that you know, you won't have the problem again. As for rectifying the current file, I still say your best course is to clear out all the lyrics and re-enter them from scratch. I'm stunned that after all these years, working with lyrics is so incredibly fraught with counter-intuitive defaults that mess up your files beyond the end users' ability to rectify. It was less counter-intuitive before they tried to make it more user-friendly. That is, the whole system was indirect, but since you had no choice but to follow along with the computer's indirect scheme, you at least understood what was going on. To satisfy users who found that system too complicated, they made it easier to just type syllables directly. But the system is still just as complicated; it's just easier to ignore it now. When a syllable is attached to a note, what is really attached it a pointer to a syllable in the syllable list. The essential problem is that it is possible to change the syllable on the screen in type-in-score mode. The unwary user believes he is changing the syllable in one place only, but in fact he is changing the element on the list, which affects any assignment that points to it. If you never assign the same syllable to more than one place, then there's no problem, but by using the mass-copy function you have created multiple assignments. That's what got you into trouble. But I still don't understand the logic behind mirroring lyrics BY DEFAULT. Yes, it's an obviously useful OPTION, but as a default behavior with no acceptable alternative for doing otherwise, it boggles the mind. The entire system of lyrics is based on the system of indirection. Everything else derives from that fact. Your intuition is telling you that each syllable should be a unique element attached directly to a note, rather than a pointer to an item from a list. That's not how it works. Sure, it could have been done that way, just as expressions or articulations could have been done that way, but that's not the choice Coda made. True, lyrics are somewhat different from expressions, since the list tends to be longer and independent from file to file; nevertheless, there are still advantages in the indirection. It is what makes possible the various conveniences of click assignment and shifting, selective baseline adjustment, comprehensive font change, etc. There are arguments for the other way, I suppose, but I believe that if you had more experience with lyrics you'd more readily see the advantages of this way. I guess I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that something so fundamental should be so poorly implemented in such a mature product. Well, for one thing, those of us who use lyrics regularly seem to be an unimportant minority in the user base. I've often felt that the developers don't much care about us. Things like word extension lines, hyphens (not) crossing over a system break, problems with non-breaking hyphens and spaces, unavailability of an alternate hyphen character, no support for kerning in lyrics, etc., are all less than perfect. From the developers' point of view, I can see how dealing with lyrics is a difficult problem. Some users want to simply type on to the screen and have it be there. Others want to keep the power of the original system which lets us manipulate lyrics in complicated ways. The program has had to evolve to satisfy both. It's not clear to me what you're proposing instead. If every syllable were simple a one-time note-attached text, you'd be giving up an awful lot of functionality. I do agree that there are several safeguards that Coda could lay on top to keep users from shooting themselves in the foot, but I don't see how changing the fundamental scheme would be an improvement. If people really want a setting that tells mass-copy to create a duplicate set of lyrics and write new assignments to the duplicates, instead of simply copying the assignments, I have no problem with that. And if Coda decides that the program should ship with this option turned on
Re: [Finale] Lyrics Freakout
At 11:18 PM 09/17/02, Robert Patterson wrote: I actually prefer the mirrored lyrics approach, but it requires forethought and discipline. I concur on that. Generally, unless you are truly writing a multiverse piece, such as a hymn, you should put all your lyrics in a single verse. This avoids the baseline headaches that others have mentioned. Interesting. On this, I am the opposite. If there are logical sectional breaks in the text, I tend to put them in separate verse boxes. I have no problem with baselines. All of my templates have the baselines set uniformly for the first ten verses or so. Sometimes I like the ability to adjust the baselines separately for separate sections. For instance, if the layout changes from soloist to hymnbook style between verse and refrain, I might very well want a different baseline for each section. If they're all in the same verse box, you have to do that at the system level instead. Personally, being the normalization freak that I am, I typically write in a vocal text exactly as the lyricist or poet wrote it. If my text-setting repeats words, I back up the click assigner and assign the same syllables multiple times. If I were typesetting the Hallelujah Chorus, my Edit Lyrics box might well just contain the Hallelujah word once. (Well, actually probably twice: once at the beginning and once at the end.) Wow, that feels very wrong to me. I guess so long as you proceed in an orderly manner there's no serious problems. Still, don't you run into trouble with capitalization that way? Staying within the Messiah, what about the Glory to God chorus? The first time it's Glory to God, glory to God in the highest; the second time it's Glory to God, glory to God, glory to God in the highest. I'm not sure what the original text is, but it seems to me that by your method you're going to end up with a capitalized glory which shouldn't be, a missing comma after God, or both. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
