On 26 Sep 2005 at 19:12, Ken Moore wrote: > "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I don't understand how a rest in another layer will delay the 2nd > > 16th-note in the first layer by 1/32nd rest, which is the desired > > result. I need the sound of 16th note, 32nd rest, 3 16th notes. I > > don't know how that can be done without putting the rest in the same > > layer, or by doing what I did, which was to put the 32nd rest after > > the 4th 16th and then adjusting the start/stop times of the last 3 > > 16ths to be a 32nd note late > > I haven't tried this, but it seems simple enough to work: > > Use a display-only articulation to reduce the length of the 16th note > by 1/3, a display-only note expression to slow it down to 2/3 speed, > and another expression to return the next note to the original speed. > Defining the three play-back effects is rather a lot of key strokes, > but it might be worth doing if you wanted the effect lots of times.
Well, that's exactly the kind of fussiness I'm trying to avoid -- it's the way I've done these things in the past on a larger scale, and now I want a simpler method. I've been using changing the meter and inserting small rests for these kinds of phrase endings and it's *substantially* easier than what you suggest. The only circumstances where I've ever run into a problem are: 1. when I needed to insert a phrase break of a 16th-note rest between the 1st and 2nd notes of a triplet (you just can't do this, of course, and it's perfectly understandable why), AND 2. when I needed to insert a phrase break of a 32nd note between the first 2 of a group of 4 sixteenth notes, AND MAINTAIN THE STANDARD BEAMING OF 4 16THS. I don't ever expect a solution to #1, and simply moved the rest to *before* the first triple, then changed the start/stop times for the first triple to put it in the right place (in this case, all the other parts were resting or sustaining a note, so it didn't matter where the rest was in the part with the phrase break). But since the problem with #2 was related to secondary beam breaks, and Finale supposedly provides tools for controlling secondary beams. But for some reason, the control does not extend to unbreaking them for hidden rests. I can identify no reason why this should be the case (as I clearly can in the case of the triplet), and it seems to me that the secondary beam tools just don't have all the functionality they ought to have (let alone a comprehensible UI; 4096th notes? What the hell is *that* about? 1EVPU in length? tempo of molto super-duper largississimo?). Yes, I used basically the same workaround, and it's a good one -- consistent and using tools that are easy to use -- but it's still a workaround to avoid something that Finale should allow me to fix without the workaround. As to the use of tempo expressions, those don't really implement musically the results I really want. That is, when you put a breath of air between two phrases that is outside the time of the measure (i.e., not subtracted from the rhythmic value of the last note of the ending phrase), what you are doing is inserting a rest into the measure -- you're changing the meter. It doesn't actually sound like that to a listener because they understand what you're doing musically, but from a metronomic standpoint, that's what's happening. I've found that inserting a dotted 16th, an 8th, a dotted 32nd, a 16th or a 32nd is exactly what's needed (depends on the tempo/meter and the "drama" of the phrase break). What is happening musically is *not* a change of tempo at all, and implementing it that way, while it can get the right results, is not easy to manage. It requires creating non-printing tempo expressions (I have plenty of these for defining ritards and accellerandos, so I'm not at all opposed to them) that are often specific to each of the phrase endings being defined. Also, it requires an "a tempo" marking to restore the original tempo, which is great as long as you don't decide later on to change the overall tempo of the movement, in which case, you have to remember to change the non-printing "a tempo" marking as well (this is where my idea of sub-classing of expressions comes in -- if your non-printing a tempo were just an instance of the basic tempo marking of the movement, just set to not print, then you would be able to change the base tempo for the movement and that would cascade through to the non-printing a tempo, which is sub- classed from the main tempo marking; but I digress). And then there's the 3rd step of figuring out how much to decrease the note value of the phrase ending. Last of all, you often have to make adjustments to the note lengths in other parts, as well (though that's the case with any method, since with the meter change/hidden rest method requires hidden rests in other parts too, if the phrase break occurs in the middle of a measure and there are note events in other parts after the phrase break). I've never found it easy to set the kind of tempo changes you suggest -- I have to fiddle with them. I find fiddling with the change of meter and the hidden rest is much easier because it doesn't require changing as many different items. Also, it has no dependencies outside the individual instance. That is, if you use a non-printing expression, you either have to be careful and make a unique tempo change for each phrase break, or you have to make sure that if you use an expression that's used somewhere else, too, that you don't alter it (and muck up the tempo somewhere else). Now, if the tempo tool worked reliably, this would be *much* easier -- though the a tempo problem would still be there, at least you could experiment with setting the tempo without having to create/edit a non- printing tempo expression. I'd prefer to use the tempo tool, but have found that with selected files, the changes don't play back or save into MIDI files (and, yes, I know about creating the expression to play tempo tool changes). Nonetheless, I philosophically find the hidden rest method to be musically preferable, since it actually implements what I do when performing in the source for my MIDI performance. It's just that in some instances, Finale prevents me from doing it that way. It's a small issue, yes indeed, but there are so many cases where I find that as soon as I need something that Finale supposedly provides, I discover that the Finale really can't do what it's advertised to do. That's the case with many, many dark corners of Finale, unfortunately, and if MakeMusic doesn't fix them, they will never survive in a market with a sleek competitor like Sibelius. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
