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Finale 2104.5

Mac OS 10.13.6

Question: 

Is there a way to add lyrics without attaching them to notes? I have a section that will just have spoken text over several measures. I tried using the text tool, but that does not keep the text with the measures. 

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You can do it by staying in the lyric tool, but using a hard space between the words.

 

Or, use the text tool, with a measure-attached text block.

 

Instructions for both are in your help files.

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>You can do it by staying in the lyric tool, but using a hard space between the words.<

 

Option spacebar gives you this. In this example, I also added a hyphen but only because I was breaking up words. Had they been different words, I would have just used spaces.

 

 

 

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Mike Halloran, In your example, the measure you show has a note in it. I'm trying to attach lyrics to measures that have no notes. Can I do that? 

 

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Mike Rosen,

I tried using the text block idea, and I'll probably have to just go with that, but I couldn't find a way to make it wrap to the measures I want the text to cover when the score is in pages. I'll look again at the help files, but so far, the text block just extends out beyond the page, or if it starts in the middle of the page, it won't go to the next line at the beginning of the page but is just a rectangle extending down from the starting point in the middle of the page. 

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Well, you’re doing something that the program is not designed to do, so you have to work within its limitations. That may involve resizing or shifting measures to accomodate the text steings.

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That was basically my question: Is the program designed to allow text attached to measures without notes. Thanks for the clarification. Although it seems like a pretty basic thing, to be able to insert spoken text that covers a given spread of time but that is not attached to any particular pitch or rhythm. 

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You can do that. It’s just that the program won’t, so you need to do it, yourself.

 

If you can post a picture of what you need, we can maybe give you a more specific answer.

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A fine distinction. That must come from the "zendesk" area of MakeMusic. 

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Well, if you want to draw fine distinctions, words “not attached to any particular pitch or rhythm” would be speech, not music.

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You can do almost anything you want in Finale—more than any other notation app.

 

Finale cannot do everything the way you think it can/should be done. No app can.

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M. Rosen: Precisely. As I said in my initial post, "I have a section that will just have spoken text over several measures." I'll figure out a way to make it look right once I'm at the stage of making the final score and parts. 

M. Halloran: Noted. 

 

thanks to both of you for responding.

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Fritz Hansen,

 

Hopefully you are aware that a text block can be attached to a page, or attached to a measure/staff.

If you add a text block from Scroll View, then it will automatically be measure/staff attached.

 

To examine/edit a text block’s attachment, select the text block handle, and go to

Text menu > Frame Attributes…

(or use the keyboard shortcut Shift-Return)

 

Also, note the bottom of the Text menu:

Assign to Measure

Assign to Page

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Yes. Aware of that. Thanks.

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I hope I'm not misunderstanding something, but this should work ...

I'm on windows, so don't know if it's different on mac. I'm now on 25, but have done the same thing on 2014.5.

What about approximating the rhythm of the text on the staff in a separate layer, maybe layer 4 and attaching the "lyrics" to the notes, normally, and  then hide that layer. You could just put eighth notes, sixteenths (or whatever you need to be the closest to the spoken text) on a single note, "b" or something. After attaching the "lyrics" to the hidden notes, the lyrics still show.

Under staff attributes, choose settings for alternate notation. Pick blank notation and apply to layer 4. Under that is an option to show lyrics.

Be sure to attach the "lyrics" while you're in the same layer that is hidden. While you're working on it View/Show/Show Hidden notes and rests. When you're done, uncheck so that the hidden notes don't even show. If you need to playback, you can tell it not to play layer 4 under document options/layers. Or you can just as easily change all the notes to rests and not have to worry about that.

Because it's "text" and not real lyrics, you can enter a whole multi-syllable word on a note, so it won't have dashes. You can also click on each word and move it around a bit, if needed.

Then, in layer one just put whole rests and change the view to not show hidden notes and rests.

This is pretty much the same way to do it when you have extra chord changes that you need to attach to the measure on certain beats, while the melody is on a whole note.



 

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Thanks Ronautta. That's a really good idea. I'll give it a try. Seems like it will work well for my purposes. 

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