A video tutorial series teaching a comprehensive understanding of Finale Music Notation Software
**Work Space**
23-6B The Missing Link(ed) Parts Lesson 6B (Advanced)
27.2 Update: Fixed-Sized H-Bars
In the 27.2 update, Finale managed to sneak in an extra option into the Multimeasure Rest Document Options and Multimeasure Rest Edit window that allows you to not stretch the shape. This makes it much easier to get Fixed-Size H-Bars for your Multimeasure Rests in Finale!
Finale V27.2
Subscriber Request #11
Tacets During Cadenzas
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!
Finale 27 was released on June 15th, 2021.
Many of the videos on this site were created using Finale 26, but unless otherwise noted, they are all still very relevant to version 27. The videos here will summarize the changes made in version 27 and will also serve as addendums to several of the categories that may have been impacted by those changes, particularly the addition of the SMuFL fonts.
You can also check out the official Finale 27 Review I did with Philip Rothman at Scoring Notes:
Finale version 27 review: SMuFL and MusicXML 4.0 support
And the Podcast:
Finale 27 and the SMuFL Shuffle
On 11/16/21, Finale released the first maintenance update, Finale 27.1
Check out the Scoring Notes review here:
Finale version 27.1: SMuFL burrows deeper
On 3/2/22, Finale released the second maintenance update, Finale 27.2 (Anchor Link)
Check out the Scoring Notes review here:
The Latest News
11/3/22 - New Category!
Music Spacing: The Finale Frontier
It's been a while since a whole new category has been released. This one is a big one! There is a LOT going on with Music Spacing in Finale. This may be one journey that you never thought to take, but may be glad that you did! The majority of this category discusses all the options available in the Music Spacing pane of the Document Options, which may not seem like much, but there's a lot to know about exactly HOW Finale handles music spacing before you can really make any informed decisions about those options. We'll cover everything from Measure Widths, to manual note spacing, to Grace Notes, to Duration Allotment tables, to Music Spacing Libraries, and seemingly everything in between! Bring your calculator and some coffee, because you're gonna need both of those things on this journey through Music Spacing!
9/22/22 -
Big news: The Conquering Finale YouTube channel has now crossed 2,000 subscribers AND 100,000-lifetime views!! Wow!
In addition to that, thanks to a newly acquired 4K monitor, all of the videos will now be recorded in 4K and at the proper 16:9 aspect ratio starting with this new Subscriber Request video. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all the supporters of the project!
I'm now offering one-on-one online Finale lessons!
If you're interested in booking a one-on-one Finale lesson with me through Zoom, go to the Book a Lesson page for more details!
Don't forget to sign up for the Mailing List, subscribe to the YouTube channel or follow me on Twitter at @JConquersFinale
Spotlight on Plug-ins #17
JW Staff Polyphony...
Brand new in the 27.3 maintenance update is the newly refreshed, de-bugged, and native to Apple Silicon version of JW Staff Polyphony…! For those of you uninitiated into the wonderful world of 3rd party plug-ins, eight of the JW plug-ins are no longer “3rd Party”, they are now natively installed with Finale, so there’s no excuse not to know about them and use them! The JW Staff Polyphony gives you four categories of things to do to help you transform the material in your staves in unique and powerful ways allowing you to quickly create four Horn parts out of block chords, or transpose, add, or delete a single line of notes from a series of chords, or even simply swap the contents of one staff with another! There’s a lot it can do with Layers, Staves, Chord Lines, and Percussion Lines. And there are a lot of sub-options and filters as well, making this plug-in almost unimaginably flexible in a myriad of scenarios. At (23:11), I give a nice demo of how to turn block chords in a Violin I staff into a fully realized string section. That’s just one of the many practical things you can do with this incredible plug-in
Finale V27.3
Spotlight on Plug-ins #14
Chord Kerner
To download the Chord Kerner Lua script, visit this page on Michael McClennan’s website:
https://michaelmcclennan.com/macros/finale-lua-scripts/
Michael McClennan has created an incredible tool for editing chord suffixes called Chord Kerner. Chord Kerner, which runs on RGP Lua, effectively replaces Finale’s built-in Chord Suffix Editor. If you’ve ever tried to use that editor, you’ll understand how horrible it really is. Michael’s Chord Kerner does everything that the Chord Suffix Editor does (and a little more) except with a much better user interface! Changing the positions of individual characters (4:24) is a breeze, as is adjusting fonts, styles, and the characters themselves (9:30). There’s even a (nuclear) option that will show you every chord in your suffix library in your score (13:56). There’s some bonus material towards the end of the video that’s definitely worth watching if you’re curious about James Darcy Argue’s Jazz chord library. I even demonstrate a version of his library that I created using the Arial font (19:08).
I’m making that Arial Chord Suffix Library available for free to anybody that wants to have it! It was an INCREDIBLE amount of work (all done with the Chord Kerner tool), so although it’s free… a donation to the Conquering Finale series is always welcome! Click the link below to download the ZIP file. When you open it, you’ll get a .lib file as well as a PDF with instructions on how to install the library and some other recommended settings for the Document Options to give you the best results. This library will only work with v27.2 and later.
Finale V27.2
Jason's Arial Chord Suffix Library