mark already gave some practical advice but there is not really any such thing in practice as "real" proportional music spacing. or rather, all music spacing is proportional to varying degrees but some circumstances warrant an *almost* 2:1 ratio in horizontal spacing of doubled durational values.
however, to properly implement "real" 2:1 spacing you would have to have each system (on all systems and pages) exactly the same real-time duration or adjust every single system width according to the amount of music (i.e. elapsed time). plus you have to account for the extra space needed for everything from clefs to accidentals (think 10-note piano chords vs. a monodic line...) to even the barline widths. the resulting minimum space needed for the smallest durational value encountered in the piece has to be the measure for everything else. you can see how this very quickly becomes unmanageable. you don't have to be an expert in new music notation (with much greater irregularity in the range of durational values, melodic leaps [larger ones benefit greatly from wider spacing], widths of accidentals and accidental clusters, etc.) to understand the many hindrances to "real" 2:1 spacing. all notation is a compromise on various levels, so it is possible to successfully notate music that warrants being spaced closer to the 2:1 proportion, by -- first -- accepting that "true proportionalty" does not exist. there are many tricks to "time-space" or supposed "proportional" notation, but the most important is giving the score LOOOOOOTS of space / don't cramp the music. whether you are notating non-metric or metric-based music with no barlines, break it down into the smallest parts and hide barlines as needed. this gives ouy a HUUUUUUUUUUGE advantage in working out an appropriate layout. if you can post an example of what you are going to notate i might be able to offer some more concrete tips. another thing, again, depending on the music, if possible, refuse to make individual parts, because there are not only HUUUUGE problems doing parts with such notation, musicians need cues even more to coordinate themselves when there are no common meter / rhythmic structures to guide them. (a good start: use a music spacing of "2" [don't use time sig spacing, you will inevitably have unresolvable collisions]; check out robert patterson's spacing plugin (yay! compresses for ledger lines; in doc options possibly set spacing before music larger than normal; check other global settings that can improve things in 80% of the cases BEFORE you start making individual changes and adjustments; prepare to become an expert in adjusting the beat charts) -- neueweise -- fonts for new music (and traditional) notation [JAN 2016] v. 1.002 for Finale 2014.5 and PC http://newmusicnotation.com/fonts.html shirling & neueweise | http://newmusicnotation.com new music notation + arts management + translation [FB] http://facebook.com/neueweise | [TW] http://twitter.com/neueweise _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: [email protected]
