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Christoph
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2011
Total Posts : 2

Posted 9/7/2011 3:33 PM (GMT -6)

I am a newbie and I am trying to note a little children song that starts with un upbeat in 4/4 (which means 3 quarter notes are in the last measure of the song and 1 quarter note is at the very beginning before the first entire measure.

I don't find a way to do this and I didn't find anything in the forum.
Can anybody help?

Bill Stevens
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2000
Total Posts : 5408

Posted 9/7/2011 3:58 PM (GMT -6)

Finale calls it a pickup measure.

What program are you using?

Bill

Finale 2011c (all versions since 1.0)
Staff Paper and #2 Pencil with eraser
OS 10.7 Lion

arnocello
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 94

Posted 9/7/2011 5:13 PM (GMT -6)

If you create your document using the Setup Wizard, the option of creating an upbeat (as Bill says, Finale uses the term "Pickup") is on the third page. But in the document itself you can create a pickup measure under the Document Menu. (See the attached screen shot.)

Arnold Friedman
Composer and Cellist
Associate Professor of Composition, Berklee College of Music, Boston
Finale 2011b.r2
Mac OS X 10.5.8

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Zuill
"The Troll"

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077

Posted 9/7/2011 6:57 PM (GMT -6)

What the pickup option does not do is compensate in the last measure with only 3 beats. For that, you will need to create a measure of 3/4 to display as 4/4, so it will only have 3 beats, but will not show a time signature, and will space as 3 beats (not allowing for a 4th beat).

Zuill

"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

Finale 2002b, 2003a, 2004b, 2005b, Win XP SP3, 2011b Win 7 64bit

Favorite Forum quote: "Please, everybody, IGNORE THE TROLL!"

Christoph
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2011
Total Posts : 2

Posted 9/8/2011 9:30 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks for your help

I downloaded Finale Notepad 2011 Demo Version yesterday and I have a new MacBook Pro with OS Lion.
Only now I realize that there is Finale and Finale Notepad.

Finale will allow me to indtroduce Pickup measures, while Finale Notpad will not.
Which is only reasonable when you consider the cost of the 2 programs.

Post Edited (Christoph) : 9/8/2011 10:05:20 AM (GMT-5)

Zuill
"The Troll"

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077

Posted 9/8/2011 9:34 AM (GMT -6)

No. We didn't know you were talking about Notepad. No pickup there. Sorry for the confusion. Since there are different levels of programs with different features, I guess we thought you may have been talking about the full program called Finale. Notepad is a stripped down program without too many features. No pickup measure with Notepad.

Zuill

"When all is said and done, more is said than done."

Finale 2002b, 2003a, 2004b, 2005b, Win XP SP3, 2011b Win 7 64bit

Favorite Forum quote: "Please, everybody, IGNORE THE TROLL!"

Mike Rosen
himself

Date Joined Feb 2006
Total Posts : 14146

Posted 9/8/2011 10:34 AM (GMT -6)

But SongWriter and PrintMusic, both of which cost a lot less than Finale, do allow pickups. Neither allow you to "subtract" that beat from the last measure. However, it's been noted on this forum that this practice seems to be dying out.

Mike Rosen
www.specialmillwork.com

WebMaster and bass for the Seattle SeaChordsmen www.seachordsmen.org
Bass for What's Cookin' www.whatscookinvlq.com
FINALE TIPS at www.specialmillwork.com/finaletips.htm

Print Music 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010; Finale 2010b, 2011b
Simple Entry, QWERTY keyboard. That's my system, and I'm stickin' to it.

Favorite reference: Essential Dictionary of Music Notation, Gerou & Lusk, 1996

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Achilles
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2011
Total Posts : 37

Posted 9/8/2011 7:32 PM (GMT -6)

Mike Rosen said...
... However, it's been noted on this forum that this practice seems to be dying out.

...except before a repeat, where correct treatment of pickup and closing measures is surely essential. In most other cases, the practice is dying out.

PrintMusic 2011 * Alesis iO/14 * Blue Yeti USB microphone
21.5in iMac (2011) * 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 * 4GB RAM * OSX 10.7.1
15in MacBook Pro * 2 GHz Intel Core i5 * 4GB RAM * OSX 10.7.1
Clarinettist and arranger for church ensemble, bagpiper

jasako
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 1998
Total Posts : 440

Posted 9/9/2011 1:25 AM (GMT -6)

this stumped me early on too, I was driving me nuts looking for "anacrusis" when the Finale term was "pickup bar"

Adelaide Australia
(In the middle, down the bottom)
iMac 2.8 Ghz Intel Core Duo
OS 10.6.6
Finale 2011c.r1
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Achilles
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2011
Total Posts : 37

Posted 9/9/2011 2:39 AM (GMT -6)

jasako said...
this stumped me early on too, I was driving me nuts looking for "anacrusis" when the Finale term was "pickup bar"

I wanted to write "anacrusis", but I feared our US friends would not understand - it seems to be a British/Aussie thing.

Melbourne, Australia (near S. E. corner)
PrintMusic 2011 * Alesis iO/14 * Blue Yeti USB microphone
21.5in iMac (2011) * 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 * 4GB RAM * OSX 10.7.1
15in MacBook Pro * 2 GHz Intel Core i5 * 4GB RAM * OSX 10.7.1
Clarinettist and arranger for church ensemble, bagpiper

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 9/9/2011 4:10 AM (GMT -6)

Although one shouldn't try to make too much of these things (and I'm not sure that I would ever have said 'anacrusis' - I'd probably say 'up-beat bar' or something of that kind, although of course I have long understood the meaning of 'anacrusis'), I was sometimes stumped by the US terminology in the manual when I first started using Finale in 2001. I'd never knowingly met anyone who called a 'bar' a 'measure' or called 'brackets' 'parentheses' (what a fancy term!). However, I've since realized that there are people in the UK who DO routinely use this sort of terminology; just not orchestral musicians.

David Ward
www.composers-uk.com/davidward

Finale 2010b
Mac 10.6.8
full TGTools

Christopher Smith
Registered Member

Date Joined Sep 2007
Total Posts : 2290

Posted 9/9/2011 10:53 AM (GMT -6)

I think people who studied traditionally called a barLINE a bar, whereas what was BETWEEN the bar(line)s was called a measure. I know the two terms are almost interchangeable now, but no doubt they wanted to preserve a distinction for the purposes of talking about the program.

Around here, parentheses are distinctly round () and brackets are square [], though I don't know if that is true everywhere. Braces are curly {}.

I had never used the term "tuplet" before using Finale, and I am certainly happy to use it now, even though I'm not convinced it was in common use before Finale was out.

Christopher Smith

Mac 2 x 2 Ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
OSX 10.6
Finale 2011b
or
Mac iBook G4 733 Mhz
OSX 10.4.11
Finale 2010b r.1

migman
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2000
Total Posts : 2432

Posted 9/9/2011 11:37 AM (GMT -6)

I call it a measure, but terminology is ever-changing, and regional. For example, in the USA, I never heard of a hemi-demi-semi quaver or the key of Fa#, but that doesn't mean I never used them.

Finale 2008b • MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz • OS10.4.11 • 4GB Ram

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