A video tutorial series teaching a comprehensive understanding of Finale Music Notation Software
Subscriber Requests
Welcome to the Subscriber Request Page!
These videos are all questions or problems posed by subscribers to Conquering Finale.
Here's how YOU can submit a request.
1. Become a subscriber!
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel
or Sign up for the Mailing List
2. Email me a question or problem or topic* that you would like me to talk about.
3. If your request makes it to video, please consider making a donation to the cause. Thank you!
*I will take requests for anything, but try to ask about things that I may not have covered already or things that need further clarification. Please avoid tech support questions as those generally don't make good tutorial videos and will likely only help you personally. Ideally, these videos should be about things that everyone can learn from.
You can send me Finale files along with your requests but only if you're ok with them being posted to YouTube. (Consider submission of a file as consent for me to publicly post pictures of that file). However, do not send files with material that is not in the public domain because I won't be able to post them.
Index of Subscriber Request videos
Subscriber Request #1
Page Layout vs Page Format
Welcome to the first Subscriber Request video submitted by… me! Actually page formatting and mismatching page or system sizes or spacing is one of those issues I see ALL the time on the forums and Facebook pages, so I guess this video has likely been already submitted by many of you!
In this video I’ll take the time to explain how the Page Format window and the Page Layout Tool interact with each other because it’s not at all obvious, and misunderstanding it is the main reason why people run into the dreaded situation where new pages or systems don’t match the existing ones.
Finale V26.3
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #2
Big Band Drum Parts
Submitted by Martin Nickless
This request comes from Martin Nickless and it’s about how to write Big Band Drum Parts! Specifically how to write drum parts where you have slashes (or one bar repeats) with cue notes above. This is a multi-step process so this tutorial will be a bit of a walk-through of how to do this. In the process you may learn a few other neat tricks and techniques along the way, so it’s worth a watch even if you don’t need to write drum set parts specifically.
Finale V26.3
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #3
Harmonization Tools
Submitted by Josh Oxford
If you’re someone that likes to compose or arrange directly in Finale you simple must know these handful of harmonization tools! A big thanks to Josh Oxford for suggesting I do a video on this topic. If you’re writing in Finale it’s critical to know a few essential shortcuts, the Transposition Utility (2:19), the Explode and Implode Utilities (6:12) as well as the Canonic Utilities plug-in (8:59). And if you don’t have it, you should ABSOLUTELY get the JW Staff Polyphony plug-in (11:57) which is the “killer-app” in my opinion when it comes to Layers, Staff and Chord manipulations in Finale. This video introduces all of these tools and will give you a taste of what they’re capable of doing to help speed up your writing process.
Finale V26.3
Here's the Link to the JW plug-ins website!
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #4
Jason's Top Ten Efficiency Tips!
Submitted by Giovanni Izzo
Giovanni Izzo asked how he could get faster with Finale; it inspired me to create a “Top Ten List” of things that I do to improve the efficiency of my workflow in Finale. This is a very personal and subjective list, and some of these things have been covered in this series before but seeing what I consider the most important efficiency tips hopefully will inspire you to try out some new techniques to help speed your own workflow.
Finale V26.3
Links mentioned in the video:
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Subscriber Request #5
Parenthetical Notes
Submitted by Peter de Mets
This request comes from Peter de Mets who wants to know the best way to put parenthesis around notes in Finale for Handbell Choirs. Parenthetical Notes are not a native feature in Finale so in order to create them we have to choose between using the Articulation Tool or the Expression Tool, neither of which are particularly well suited to this task. So, I’ll explore the pros and cons of doing it with either tool. Spoiler alert, my preferences is for the Expression Tool, but you can certainly choose whichever method makes the most sense to you!
Finale V26.3
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #6
Arrows for Measure Number Skips
Submitted by Mike Ruckles
This request comes from Mike Ruckles who is wondering if I can come up with a good way to create the little arrows that often can be found before a measure number when there are skipped numbers. The most obvious solution is to use an Expression, but I think I came up with a better solution for this that avoids all the headaches that using an Expression for this would cause.
Finale V26.3
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #7
String Divisi
Submitted by Jorge Hoyos Rentería
This request comes from Jorge Hoyos Rentería, and it’s all about String divisi. Dividing strings into multiple staves in Finale is no walk in the park, but if you have a solid understanding of the Staff Tool the job becomes much easier. This tutorial comes hot on the heals of the completion of the Staff Tool Strategies series of videos, so this is a great way to put all of those lessons to practical use. I’ll show you simple multi-staff divisi and more complex divisi involving cutaway scores. I’ll also show you how to make this all work for Linked Parts. This is a lengthy one, but it will be well worth the time because this video is chock-full of helpful information.
Finale V26.3
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #8
Ambitus and Incipits (Vocal Ranges)
Submitted by Kevin Loughman
This request comes from Kevin Loughman who wants to know how to create an ambitus to show the vocal ranges of a piece. These are sometimes called Incipits, and although I’m not 100% sure if the terms are unique or interchangeable, I’m using the two terms here to distinguish between two unique ways of showing vocal ranges. An ambitus, (as I’ve decided to define it), will be where the ranges get put in the staff just before the first clef (1:28) and an incipit will be where you have a whole measure that’s separated and to the left of the first system (11:55). Either way is common and acceptable, but in Finale, they require similar, but ultimately divergent techniques to achieve.
Finale V27.0
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #9
Play Only 1st or 2nd Time
Submitted by Vinny Ciro and Murilo Alvarenga
This topic has been requested by both Vinny Ciro and Murilo Alvarenga, and possibly other people that I’ve forgotten. It’s a common question that I get asked formally and informally all the time and a question that gets asked on the forums quite often. So, without any further delay(!), this video will show you my method for getting Finale to playback notes only the 1st or 2nd time in repeats. There are two scenarios covered here, the first is when an instrument just needs to play a note in the first bar of a repeat the 1st time only and/or plays a pick-up phrase at the end of the repeat the 2nd time only. The second scenario (5:11) is what to do when you have alternate lines in the same measures of a repeated passage. Using Layers 1 and 2, and some other sorcery, it’s possible to get the right lines to play during the correct passes of the repeat.
Finale V27.0
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #10
Clean Up Your Lyrics Window
Submitted by an anonymous client
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten files with Lyrics Windows that are stuffed with old lyrics from songs that were decades old. This occurs because people don’t realize that clearing music from a file to use as a template for a new song doesn’t remove the lyrics from the Lyrics Window. Believe it or not, it wasn’t until a client approached me recently with a severe case of this problem that I actually discovered an old hack that had been kicking around the Finale community for quite some time which completely solves this problem without resorting to clearing out the entire Lyrics Window and typing lyrics from scratch. So, my new (old) knowledge will now be yours, as I walk you through this hack to completely clean up your Lyrics Window!
Finale 27.2
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #11
Tacets During Cadenzas
Submitted by Barry Nitikman
Cadenzas can be tricky in Finale to set up in the first place, but also tricky is what to do with the other instruments that are resting during a cadenza. Barry Nitikman had asked me how to do this, and although there are actually several ways to accomplish this, I’ve come up with a somewhat novel approach when the cadenza covers more than one bar using a custom shape as a Multimeasure rest character!
Finale 27.2
Please subscribe to the YouTube channel and/or sign up for the Mailing List so that you can submit your own request!
Subscriber Request #12
Cue Staves
Submitted by Rachel Barton Pine & Sylvia Pine
Rachel Barton Pine and Sylvia Pine asked me to help them figure out how to cue a violin cadenza in the other three parts of a string quartet. I didn’t have a video that explicitly shows how to do this, so I thought this would make for a good Subscriber Request video! I’ve demonstrated this on a different score to show a few other potential variables related to transposing instruments. You’ll learn how to add a cue staff to a Linked Part as well as all you need to know about the few random oddities that can occur when you do this.
Finale 27.4.1
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