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Re: Flats in sheet music

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-05-01 20:43

Paul Aviles wrote:

> ...a courtesy 'natural' that
> brings the note 'back' to the original state
>
> I say this because there are a LOT of "Finale" Rangers out
> there who (are otherwise decent arrangers) who neglect to do
> this in situations where it is not always clear.
>

There are several things that aren't technically correct about Finale's handling of this.

The default behavior, at least in my installation of Finale, is to mark the return to the state dictated by the key signature immediately after the note that the chromatic is applied to if it's in the same bar. This is pretty straightforward. To place repeated accidentals within a bar, you have to keep altering it, although the chromatic sign doesn't show up on the repeated notes. But that's not a "courtesy" chromatic marking - it's needed to cancel the accidental if that's what's intended.

I think to Paul's point, when I mark a B (for example) on beat 4 with a flat sign and then tie it to a B in the next bar on beat 1, there is no automatic "courtesy" accidental to return a B later in the bar to B natural. However, what I hadn't ever noticed (until I tried it just now) is that Finale doesn't recognize that the accidental is carried over by the tie, which I discovered by listening to Finale's audio rendition. The B on beat 1, even though it's tied to a Bb, plays as a B-natural, so as far as Finale is concerned, no further markings are needed. If I re-enter the flat for the tied-to B (and then hide the flat sign), a natural sign is added to the next B in that bar. So Finale's problem is that by default it apparently doesn't recognize the tie as a continuation of the previous pitch.

Of course, a courtesy chromatic *should* have parentheses around it so the performer doesn't think it's the alteration rather than the return, and Finale doesn't do that by default, either, so you have to do it manually.

Finale Rangers, beware.