Rebeam to Lyrics dialog box

How to get there

  1. Choose the Selection tool icon, and select a region of measures.
  2. Choose Utilities > Rebeam > Rebeam to Lyrics.

What it does

A convention used in opera or art song notation is beaming to lyrics. In this scheme, eighth, sixteenth, and shorter notes are never beamed together in the vocal line except when a syllable is sustained through more than one note (as a melisma). This dialog box lets you specify the lyrics you want rebeamed in this way.

  • Break Beams at Each Syllable in: All Lyrics • All Verses • All Choruses • All Sections. When the first option is selected the pop-up menu allowing you to select All Lyrics, All Verses, All Choruses, and All Sections is used. With this menu you can instruct Finale to impose word-by-word beaming for a certain lyric type, such as Verses or Sections. (Verses, Choruses, and Sections are functionally identical; they just give you a convenient method of subdividing your lyrics.)
  • Break Beams at Each Syllable in: Verse • Chorus • Section ___ . When the second option is selected, this pop-up menu and the associated text box are used. With this pop-up menu you can select a specific set of lyrics whose notes you want to rebeam. Choose the lyric type from the pop-up menu, then type the lyric number (Verse 1, for example) into the text box.
  • Also Break Beams at Each Beat in the Time Signature.Select this check box if you want the beams in melismatic passages (where a single syllable is sustained through more than one note) broken at the beginning of each beat, as they would be if they were beamed normally, according to the time signature. If you don’t select this option, Finale beams together all notes in a melismatic passage, even if it results in (for example) all eight eighth notes in a 4/4 measure being beamed together.
  • OK • Cancel. Click OK to confirm the settings you’ve made; you return to the score, where Finale performs the rebeaming operation. Click Cancel if you decide not to do any rebeaming. You return to the score.

See also:

Rebeam to Time Signature