SR-2 Big Band Drum Parts

[@bradcole8191]

Jason's tutorials are by far the best available anywhere online. He not only shows you how to do something, but also why. It's the "why" which helps you understand the mysterious architecture of Finale, so that you may find solutions to future problems on your own. If you find his lessons valuable, as I have, please consider making a donation to him. He obviously works very hard on these lessons and deserves some compensation for his time and talent.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Aw, thanks Brad! You’re too kind!

[@billtubehart]

Great to know! A little tricky but worth it.

[@riffraftmusic8669]

Jason, you keep de-mystifying Finale. Thanks!

[@samstewart3550]

Thanks for the videos. Very helpful. You can in fact use the Single Pitch plug-in in a percussion staff. After applying the plug-in, click Retranscribe in the MIDI/Audio menu.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Wow. I didn't even realize that would work like that! I learned something new today. The only downside to this is that Retranscribe will always delete your Articulations, and if you have any complex rhythms or beamings that are outside the scope of the Quantization Settings or the beam settings in the Document Options then those things will also get destroyed.

[@samstewart3550]

@@ConqueringFinale So THAT is why my articulations disappear! I’ve been pasteing the articulations back in with an edit filter...

[@ConqueringFinale]

@@samstewart3550 Yup. Retranscribe is a rather blunt tool in Finale! ;-) I think I found a slicker way to do this. If, for example, you want to copy the Trumpet Rhythm into the Drums: select the Trumpet part, use the single pitch plug-in, Copy, then cmd-Z undo(!), THEN go to the drum part and paste, and continue on with the Percussion Transposition process.

[@marcellonoia9418]

Great hints as usual. Thanks

[@pedro_formuladapartitura]

VERY GOOD! WONDERFULL VIDEO! AFTER WATCHING ALL THE KZbin SERIES GOT EASY TO TRY THESE EXAMPLES! THANKS!!

[@billtubehart]

This is great! A little tricky but worth it. Thanks Jason.

[@Hincharts]

Great tutorial! To skip the steps of having to use 'Transpose Percussion Note Type' for every note do the following: 1-Copy the tpt part into the drums staff 2-Plugins>Notes, Beams, Rest>Single pitch and set to G5 or whatever pitch you prefer, OK. Now you won't see a change yet until... 3-MIDI/Audio>Retranscribe. Now you will see normal noteheads on the G5 (or whatever you picked). Carry on from there.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Right around 4:11, I describe how to use this Single Pitch plug-in to make this faster using a spare trombone staff. I didn't realize that although the Single Pitch plug-in doesn't work exactly as expected in a Percussion Staff, it WILL actually work if you run Retranscribe immediately after you run that plug-in! That's a nifty trick. I literally never thought to try that. I mean... why would I think that would work! lol. Good call!

[@Hincharts]

Right? I picked it up from another video I saw on this subject. I would never have thought to do that either! Just another mystery from under the hood of Finale....@@ConqueringFinale

[@Hincharts]

I added a metatool keystroke to the Staff Style you suggested and was able to make a Keyboard Maestro that creates it all in one click after copying in the trumpet part. Thanks for all the great tutorials!

[@ConqueringFinale]

@@Hincharts Yeah, I too have a Keyboard shortcut to do this. The way I worked it out is that it’s a two step process. So it’s one KM script that would copy the trumpet part - and the way that works is that you would select the trumpet part, run the script which first runs the Single Note… plugin, then does cmd-C to copy it, then does cmd-Z to undo the plugin! THEN you select the drum set part and run the second script which pastes, runs the Percussion transposition, plus the Staff Style etc. I thought that was pretty clever, but I guess you can get around this by adding the Retranscribe to the pasting script so then you wouldn’t need the first script. Interesting! 🤔

[@gengee21]

Nice video! Sound like Jeff Goldblum lol

[@ConqueringFinale]

Wow. That's the first time anyone's ever said I sound like Jeff Goldblum. I'll take it!

[@SebSquonks]

A lot of things I didn't know about! A thing that is not really visible in the video is how the noteheads with half note value or longer are displayed. I hope it will be the same as the regular rhythmic notation staff style, so some sort of squared hollow slashes. I think I see something that looks something like a rounded up half note with an x?

[@ConqueringFinale]

Ah, I didn't show how to do it here, but in the Drum Set Percussion Layout Designer - for the Rhythm Cues Note Type, you can modify the noteheads for the half, whole, and double whole notes using the "Select..." buttons on the bottom right corner (somewhere around the 2:00 minute mark). However, the choices that you have for those characters are somewhat limited. At least in non-SMuFL files (pre-v27: this video was created in v26). If you're in v27 and using the new SMuFL fonts, I believe there are decent options now available for hollow versions of those slashes. *I think*... he says without actually checking! lol

[@garye4678]

Cool lesson Jason, thanks for sharing it. Do you have many other drum notation videos? Thanks in advance.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Thanks Gary! As of now, this is the only one-sort of a one-off for now. I’m planning a whole percussion/drums section for the series at some point though. Not sure when that’s happening but stay tuned!

[@garye4678]

@@ConqueringFinale I've been using Finale for around 6 years now. I've learnt from the internet and the tutorials, but I must say, I don't know half the methods and tricks you displayed in your video here. I mainly just notate drum set exercises, nothing too fancy. So I will keep a watch out for them. Thanks.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Well... I’m glad you learned a few things! Make sure you check out the website too. As I mentioned there isn’t a Percussion/Drums category yet, but I’m sure some of the other categories on things like Articulations, Expressions, Smart Shapes and even the Navigation or Selection Tool videos will be helpful in the general sense! www.conqueringfinale.com

[@DavidMorehead]

Thank you for the information. The process is cumbersome and takes too long for something so common. Makemusic needs to come up with a simple, fast way to do this.

[@DavidMorehead]

I tried this method just to make things easier. I am always looking for ways to speed this process up. kzbin.info/www/bejne/eqLYk4x-qc-VoMU

[@ConqueringFinale]

@@DavidMorehead Hmmm... this is an interesting way to do it as well. Using special Staff Styles for this isn't really all that cumbersome if you have the Staff Styles set up correctly in a Template, which is how I handle this. So the tedious work is done ahead of time in the template and then it's just a matter of knowing what layers to put the cues in. For me, I even have this mostly automated in Keyboard Maestro, so I can copy a trumpet line (imagine copying 16 bars worth of material), and then select the drum set part and run the script and it pastes it, sets it to the correct pitch for the cue and applies the right Staff Style. It's just one of those cases where a little bit of planning can go a long way in saving a lot of time.

[@ConqueringFinale]

I will say that the disadvantage of using a whole extra blank staff the way he does is that you have to remember to add that staff to the Linked Part, otherwise it won't show up. And even when you do that, it could potentially cause some formatting headaches in the Linked Part because now you have to deal with the spacing for that extra staff in a different way than if it was all one staff. In fact, having two staves would prevent you from using the JW Copy Part Layout plug-in, because you can't copy a 1-staff part (say the bass part) to a 2-staff part which the Drum Set would now be. So... yeah, it may be easier to set up initially, but perhaps down the road, you might lose any efficiency gains by having to deal with challenges in the Linked Part.

[@DavidMorehead]

A long time ago I wrote a script to do this. It stopped working when I upgraded to a new version of Finale. I need to write another script that works with my current version. I loved that script. I would select the part that had the rhythms I wanted (usually lead trumpet) and in a few seconds that part was notated as hits on the drum part. Lately I have been writing drum parts with exact notes I want to hear so I haven't had to do this style of drum part in a while.

[@michaelgarding516]

Great tutorial once again!! Is thee a way to save these new staff styles to use in future arrangements?

[@ConqueringFinale]

You can always Save the Staff Style Library. File>Save Library. And then Import that into your new document. File>Load Library.

[@riffraftmusic8669]

This is the 2nd time I've watched this video, going all the way through and making a drum part. HUGE help-thanks, Jason! Am seeking a way to put "Time for # measures" with something that looks like a multi-measure rest symbol for the drummers instead of putting it in a text box and leaving all the measures visible. Any ideas?

[@ConqueringFinale]

Hmmm… I’m not sure exactly how you want it to look, but if you create a multimeasure rest, you can edit that MMR in a specific way that will just give you a blank looking measure. First, set the minimum number of measures to display number to something really high, like 1000… just something so that the MMR doesn’t display a number. Then use use a custom shape for the H-Bar that’s simply a blank shape, you might have to create one. Once the MMR is totally blank, you can use whatever text or graphic notation that you want in that space.

[@umbachk1]

Jason. Well done video and channel. My question is when reducing note size for cues how do you keep the dynamics the proper size. Thanks

[@ConqueringFinale]

With the Expression tool, hold shift while double-clicking the handle of any Expression to pull up the Expression Assignment dialogue box. Uncheck the option to Scale Expression with Attached Note.

[@umbachk1]

@@ConqueringFinale thank you!

[@TeleStrat335]

Is there any way to assign a midi note value to the rhythm cues? That would simplify note entry.

[@ConqueringFinale]

Hmmmm... maybe... kind of. Not in a simple way though. I think one option would involve actually editing the Percussion MIDI Map to include a note somewhere that is in a place that doesn't have a sound mapped to it, and add that as a Note Type, then of course, that Note Type would be what you're using in the Percussion Layout. Kind of complicated to set up, and you'd have to find a note that doesn't have a sound which could be really high on the keyboard which might not be all that convenient if you've got a small 49 key keyboard for input. Perhaps a second option would be to just highjack an instrument you're not using, like tambourine or something, and redefine that in the Percussion Layout so that it looks like and is placed where the cue slashes would go. Of course that would mean that if you played back the score, you'd hear a lot of tambourine on every cue slash. But, if you're not concerned with playback, that would be a choice. You could also put those in a muted Layer anyway. So the short answer is... I think so, but it's not exactly simple.

[@Deech72]

Do you know if there's a way to change the notation itself in a drum part to a different font? I've seen different styles before but not sure how to go about doing it. Thanks!

[@ConqueringFinale]

Well... yes. But I don't know if you mean changing the individual notehead characters for certain instruments or choosing an entirely new font for the whole percussion line. Both are possible, but it's two separate things. This is a little bit more complex than what I can type in a KZbin comment, though. As I mentioned, I will at some point get going with lessons specifically on Percussion, but I have a LONG list of topics I want to cover so I have no idea when this particular category will come to fruition. If you're interested, I do teach private Zoom lessons for Finale and those lessons can be on ANY topic, not just the ones I've covered in the tutorials so far. Just shoot me an email and I'll be happy to set something up. ~Jason. [e-mail]

[@Deech72]

@@ConqueringFinale Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm writing a drumset part and just wanted to maybe change the whole look to something different. I've seen jazz scores and other notation software with a little more of a hip look. Looking for some hip in Finale! :)

[@ConqueringFinale]

Chris DeChiara You could try one of the Jazz or Broadway Copyist font styles from the Setup Wizard. Those will give you a hand-written look if you want.

[@Deech72]

@@ConqueringFinale Thanks! So can't do it after already inputting notes?

[@ConqueringFinale]

Chris DeChiara Document>Set Default Music Font... try either the Jazz font or the Broadway Copyist font. This will change the music fonts only which sucks because in the templates that come from the Setup Wizard those files have a whole bunch of other fonts and separate libraries with similar looking fonts for all the text items which will NOT get converted when you change the default music font. You could use the Font Utilities... in the Data Check submenu of the Document menu but... kind of a pain and you have to know EXACTLY what you’re replacing and with what.

[@gianniizzo7807]

Hi, si può avere video su Script Lua? Giovanni

[@ConqueringFinale]

Hello, Gianni. Unfortunately, I really don’t know anything about JW Lua (yet), so I would be a bit lost trying to teach that right now.

[@gianniizzo7807]

Conquering Finale Thanks

[@ConqueringFinale]

And thank you!

[@gianniizzo7807]

Conquering Finale In addition to the 6 tips, can you have other tricks on keyboard shortcuts?