Finesse with Finale

Tips for using music notation software for mountain dulcimer tab.

By Geoff Black

Editor’s Note: Finale is a registered trademark of MakeMusic, Inc. The menus, actions, and illustrations in this article refer to Finale version 25.  Finale is now releasing version 27, so some menu and other options may be slightly different. This issue’s “Sussex Carol” was arranged by Geoff Black using Finale.

Introduction

Finale, by MakeMusic Inc., is one of the best-known heavyweight music programs available internationally. It is a complex piece of software designed for professional or serious amateur musicians – composers, conductors, arrangers – and has a wide range of tools to produce anything from a simple song to a full symphony orchestra score.

Put simply, it is an immensely powerful word processor for music. Normally expensive, it can be bought relatively cheaply during periodic sales (it was recently 66% off) or if you are part of an educational body. 

But with power, comes complexity. Finale can do almost anything in terms of music notation and publication. The end results are highly polished and professional – BUT, you have to learn how to fly it first!

The other caveat is that although it has options for lots of folk instruments, including the mountain dulcimer, it is not fully designed for the many variations of tab this requires. Dulcimer tab can be specified, handled easily, and displayed very professionally, but it does need a helping hand in specific instances, as explained below.

Getting Started

You can import xml files or enter notation (and tab) manually. Use the Set Up Wizard to create a blank document. This prompts you to enter: 

• Ensemble (the number and type of staves required – I use Dulcimer DAD Score & Tab as my starting point) and Page Size
• Score Information (Title, Composer, Arranger, Copyright etc)
• Score Settings (Time Signature, Key, etc.)

Entering Music

Simple Entry lets you pick a note duration and place it on the notation staff wherever you want. Finale plays the note as you enter it. You can move the note up or down the staff lines using your keyboard arrows. 

Finale will always ensure the note and rest values in each measure add up correctly to match the time signature. To delete a note, click on it and press Delete on your keyboard or pick the Eraser option on the Simple Entry ribbon at the top.

Entering Tab

The program defaults to a 3 string dulcimer layout, but can easily be edited to provide 4 if required. If you use different tunings (DAA, DAC, etc), Finale will let you edit the tab staff from Window/Score Manager/Instrument List. Go into the tab settings and edit your instrument to be 3 or 4 strings, and any tuning you wish, using pitch expressed as MIDI numbers (DAD = 50-57-62; DAA = 50-57-57 etc.).

You can also enter notes on the tab staff using Simple Entry. When you place the tab note, it defaults to zero but you can just press a number on your keyboard to alter it to a higher fret. Fret 10 or above means pressing two numbers in quick succession. 

Again, you can move the note between strings by using your keyboard arrows, but this time it changes the fret number to match the pitch. For example, if you move a 4 from the melody string in DAD, it automatically changes to a 7 on the middle string.

Copying Across Staffs

I usually speed things up by notating the tune as a single line melody first, then copying across the whole of the notation staff to the tab staff in one go, using the Measure Tool. Select, then copy and paste, just like a word processor. The fret numbers will automatically adjust to the string pitches. 

And here’s the first BUT… BUT you do need to check that the notation comes across in the right octave to be playable (easily edited using Utilities/Transpose) and that it has correctly allocated all the notes to the strings you want (again, easily edited as described above).

The other major issue to manually correct is the 6/6+ frets. 

Finale does not yet recognize the 6 fret. In DAD tuning this is C on the melody and bass strings and G on the middle string. When copying from notation to tab, for these notes it gives you a 5 in brown which you simply overwrite with a 6. 

It also copies C#/G# as 6, to which you need to add a “+” using the Articulation Tool. You can create a 1+ in the same way if required.

You can also create the tab first, then copy it onto the notation staff. BUT, as before, check that Finale has done it accurately. Minor adjustments are easy, however. 

Helpfully, Finale will play what you have set out (Midi-Audio/Start Playback), using a dulcimer-like sound. It always plays the notation (and articulations) accurately, but is less secure on the tab, due to the issue noted with the 6/6+ frets and any other manually altered tab notes.

Conclusion

This rapid tour through some of the most useful features of Finale does not do justice to the flexibility and complexity of the program. I hope it shows, however, that you can easily produce tab to exceptional display standards.

You can change just about every aspect of what you create, just as you can with a word processor. And the program has a very thorough, searchable online User Manual just in case you get lost!

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More about Formatting

Finale has several tools for polishing up and formatting arrangements.

• Expression Tool: add information to the tab staff, i.e. DAD, Capo 1; rehearsal marks; tempo markings; part names.
• Resize Tool: change the display size of the notes and tab staffs independently, for example, 115% for notation and 150% for tab.
• Measure Tool: adjust the number of measures per line using the measure tool and the up/down arrow keys to move measures to the line above or below.
• Articulation Tool: add pause symbols, brackets, etc. This is where you find the “+” symbol for half frets.
• Repeat Menu: create simple repeats and endings.
• Smart Shape Tool: indicate slurs, bends, glissandos, etc.
• Staff Attributes: show or hide rests, note stems, dots on dotted notes on the tab staff.
• Lyric Tool: add lyrics, match them to notes, and change their style. Finale® automatically adjusts for best fit.

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Sussex Carol

History

The words were first published by Luke Wadding, Bishop of Ferns, in his 1684 book “A Smale Garland, of Pious and Godly Songs,” p. 40.

“On Christmas Night All Christians Sing” became popularized as the “Sussex Carol” because Mrs. Verrall, from whom Ralph Vaughan Williams notated it in 1904, was from Sussex.

He published the tune in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 2, No. 7 (1905), p. 127, following a version notated in 1892 by Lucy Broadwood, another well-known folk song collector, from the singing of Mr. Grantham of Surrey.

The editors of the journal note that the two sang almost exactly the same words. They also reference the tune “Hark! Hark! What News” in William Sandys’ “Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern,” 1833. Words, p. 145; tune, 14th in the unnumbered appendix.

Williams included “On Christmas Night,” an arrangement based on the song collected from Mrs. Verrall, in “Eight Traditional English Carols,” 1919.

Cecil Sharp recorded “On Christmas Night” from Mr. William Bayliss of Buckland, Gloucestershire, and included it in “English Folk-Carols,” 1911.