Choral music

There are no specific instructions for working with choral scores, only a few tips.

Work from one of the Setup Wizard's choral Document Styles, a template (a blank, preformatted document—in your Templates folder), or one of your own design. This way, you’ll save yourself the trouble of reconstructing the system each time you create a new document with the same format.

To enter choral music quickly, such as SATB (soprano, alto, tenor bass) parts: Use the Simple Entry, Speedy Entry, or HyperScribe tool (see Simple Entry, Speedy Entry or Recording with HyperScribe) to create the music as a series of four-note chords on one staff. Then use Finale’s Explode Music command to strip the chordal passage into four separate one-line staves. See Exploding music for instructions.

If the choir sings a section of homophonic music—where all voices sing the same rhythms and same words—use the Clone Lyric command in the Lyrics menu to copy lyrics from one line to another. This way, if you need to change a lyric, you only have to edit it once (in a single Lyrics window) and the change will ripple through all vocal parts.

For setting alignment and justification of syllables with word extensions throughout the document see Document Options - Lyrics.

The tenor part is often notated an octave higher than it sounds. Use the ScoreManager to make the tenor staff a transposing part (see Transposing instruments) or use the Treble 8vb clef for that staff (see Clefs).

Remember the Piano Reduction plug-in if you want to create a piano reduction. See Piano Reduction Plug-in.

See also:

Hymns

Lyrics