NOTATIO

My slur is manually edited. What, every one? Wow. I'm not sure I would have the time to do that. And even if I did, I'm not sure that's how I'd want to spend my time! :) I am however keen to get the best results from the settings possible in Finale. So I'd love to see your settings for slurs. Or in...

It has always been a matter of economics for publishers to place as much music on each page as possible and thus reduce the number of pages and increase profit. And not only to reduce the number of pages, but to make that number divisible by 4. Nothing worse than laying out music on 5 pages with 3 ...

I deliberately bought Dorico before the cross-grade deal expires, even though I doubt I'll use it for much at the moment. It holds promise, and while it often achieves printed results that are better and easier than Finale, there are still things that Dorico doesn't yet do; or that Finale does bette...

I think it stems from sheet engraving practice, where as Gray says, you work from the top down. So you start with the print area of your plate, and you start casting off to fill it. Computers can easily do all the maths to work upwards, which gives you one system and two fat measures on a page. (Int...

Octo - isn't your slur more curved and less flat? I thought flatter slurs were the ideal, which I presumed meant small inset values.
What inset values do you use?

I thought you all might like to read the following extract from "A Note on Music Engraving and Printing" by Norman Gray, published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1952.

Try changing the Inset Percentage. Yes, but to what? :) Finale's defaults are between 30% (for a short slur) and 20% (for a long one). I thought I was making slurs flatter by reducing that figure significantly and limiting the height. Can you post a document with your dream Finale slurs? As for the...

Yes, always more proof-reading. I noticed the first one as I put up the post. Having more room to play with on the X axis is quite useful, particularly for adjusting voice parts within the organ texture. I'll print out sample pages with different line thicknesses and see which I prefer. I've done si...

How would I change the slur settings in Finale to be less curved? Printed out, I like the balance of the lines: I think if the lines are too heavy, the notes get lost. The staff lines are 0.625 pt; the hairpins 0.5. The barlines are heavier at 0.875 pt, but the differences are tiny. I'll try heavier...

As an experiment, and my idea of fun, I decide to re-set an old Novello classic from the end of the 19th century in Finale, matching the pages and system breaks. Trying to match a layout is much harder than just letting things fall where they may and seeing how many pages you've got. The Novello sco...