Note Mover tool

This tool lets you move one note at a time (or several within a measure) to another measure, even on a different staff. For example, you can create cross-staff notation. Or, after transcribing a two-handed performance with HyperScribe, you can correct split-point errors by moving notes from the upper staff to the lower staff. You can move several notes in a measure horizontally as well; for example, you can copy a particular motif into the next measure. For full instructions, see Cross-staff notes and Recording with HyperScribe. The target (destination) measure must be within 128 measures of the source (original) measure.

All of the Note Mover actions begin the same way. Click a measure; a handleA small square which appears on currently "selectable" elements in the score. Handles allow you to select, edit and adjust musical elements in the score. appears on every notehead. Select the handles of the notes you want to move or copy; select one note by clicking, additional ones by SHIFT-clicking, a group of notes by drag-enclosing their handles, or all notes in the measure by choosing Edit > Select All. Then, after making sure you've chosen the appropriate copying command in the Note Mover menu, drag any one of the selected handles to the staff lines of the target measure.

When you click this tool, the Note Mover menu appears, containing all the commands you need to move selected notes in a measure to other measures. The first seven items in the Note Mover menu let you tell Finale what kind of action to take when you drag selected notes (from the "source" measure) to a new place (the "target" measure). When you choose one of these items, nothing appears to happen on the screen, except that a check mark appears next to the menu item. In other words, you choose the action you want Finale to perform before you drag the selected notes to the target measure. The Note Mover tool also gives you access to Finale’s Search and Replace feature, which lets you search for every occurrence of a particular note or group of notes and modify them in some consistent way. For full instructions, see Search and replace.

Note that you can also use the Note Mover to copy a note or group of notes within the same measure. If you drag a note to the end of its own measure, you create a copy of it there, after all the existing notes. If you drag a note to the middle or beginning of its own measure, you insert a copy of it at the beginning of the measure. Note, first of all, that you can perform these copying maneuvers within a single measure regardless of the currently selected Note Mover menu command. Second, note that you can only copy notes in this way if the measure is not completely full (based on the current time signature). If the measure is rhythmically full, nothing at all will happen if you drag a note within its own measure.

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