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John Ruggero
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2000
Total Posts : 820

Posted 11/15/2016 2:39 PM (GMT -6)

I just received the following MakeMusic tip showing how easy it is to make system dividers in Finale:

www.finalemusic.com/blog/quick-music-notation-tips-score-system-divider/?utm_source=responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feature&utm_content=november

I have never seen score dividers placed like this, flush with the left bar lines, and, in fact, it is non-standard, at least according to E. Gould:

"Place the dividers midway between the systems, with the strokes protruding halfway into the margin." Behind Bars p. 521

Is there now to be a new standard, simply because Finale has a problem placing objects in the margins?

Mac mini (OS 10.8.5) with dual monitors, Finale 2014d (Finale 2011 as a backup) with GPO 4
Kurzweil Mark 5 with M-Audio Midisport 2 x 2, Adobe InDesign CS4 SmartScore X Pro, JW Plug-ins
www.cantilenapress.com

The better the composer, the better the notation.

Post Edited (John Ruggero) : 11/15/2016 1:42:09 PM (GMT-6)

Zuill
"The Troll"

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 29077

Posted 11/15/2016 2:44 PM (GMT -6)

You can adjust the horizontal position to whatever you want with the plugin.

Zuill

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

Win 7 64bit, 2011b, 2012c, 2014d, 2014.5

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

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 11/15/2016 3:12 PM (GMT -6)

John Ruggero said...
I have never seen score dividers placed like this, flush with the left bar lines, and, in fact, it is non-standard, at least according to E. Gould:

Taking a few scores down at random, I don't think there's any one standard for system dividers. Some are left only while others are both sides; some are small, some are rather large &c. Similarly, whether or not they go into the margin seems to vary, even with the same publisher of the same composer in the same period of his career. Example: Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 2 and Symphony No 15 line them with left barlines, while Symphony No 14 has them half in the left margins - all Edition Sikorski.

I'd say this can be a matter of personal taste, as long as the meaning is clear.

David Ward
www.composers-uk.com/davidward

Finale 2014d & 2014.5 with Mac 10.9.5 & 10.11.6
Finale 2010b with Mac 10.6.8
full TGTools

Since 2001 have used F 2001, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2014

“We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” JFK

Michel R. E.
Registered Member

Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 7430

Posted 11/15/2016 3:19 PM (GMT -6)

Gould , while an absolutely excellent resource for engraving (especially for us composers), CAN at times be a bit "definitive" in her statements. I think a lot of her "must" statements can be taken with a grain of salt.

Finale (started with ver. 3.0) using 2012 (2014 has been shelved for its lack of support for older Garritan libraries), putting Finale 25 through its paces.
Windows 8.1
basically ALL Garritan libraries, plus XSample Chamber Ensemble.

"Art critics suffer from Pigeon Syndrome. Pigeons like to leave their mark on monuments. But at the end of the day, the pigeon remains a pigeon, and the monument remains a monument."

John Ruggero
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2000
Total Posts : 820

Posted 11/15/2016 3:57 PM (GMT -6)

David Ward said...
I'd say this can be a matter of personal taste, as long as the meaning is clear.

It may be a question of taste, David, but the majority of standard scores position the dividers as Gould describes, and for a good reason: they alert without obtruding into the field of vision and distracting. They are also commonly smaller than the ones shown, for the same reason.

Zuill said...
You can adjust the horizontal position to whatever you want with the plugin.

You are absolutely right Zuill, I failed to input negative numbers in the box and just used the up and down arrows.

So Finale is perfectly capable of positioning the dividers correctly. I wish they had done it in the illustration.

Motet
Isorhythmic

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 12849

Posted 11/15/2016 4:07 PM (GMT -6)

I agree with you both as to size and placement.

Finale 2014.5, 2011b, 2005, TGTools
Windows 7, MIDI input
Finale Transposition Chart

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 11/15/2016 5:24 PM (GMT -6)

John, I can say that no conductor with whom I've worked either as composer or player, whether in concert hall, studio or theatre has ever commented in my presence on any aspect of system dividers other than to bemoan their absence from a few scores (not mine). This includes when going through my scores in exhaustive page by page detail in private session with the conductor. Maybe my eyes function differently from yours, but I don't really see how these dividers might be a distraction rather than an aid unless they are extreme in either their placement or their size. My own belief, but I do understand that I may be wrong, is that fairly (not excessively) large and bold dividers may actually be a help when conducting in the theatre (opera house) as the conductor is continually glancing between the variously lit stage, the pit and the score and may even have to cope with stage mishaps so calmly as to make them almost unnoticed by most in the audience.

Any conductors (especially of opera) on the forum with an opinion?

John Ruggero
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2000
Total Posts : 820

Posted 11/15/2016 7:06 PM (GMT -6)

David, I believe that most traditions in music engraving have a practical foundation. In this case, the tradition is as Gould describes it: the divider sticks out into the margin, distinguishing it from the systems themselves and grabbing the eye, but it doesn't run far enough into the page to distract from what is going on in the systems themselves.

This is the way I drew countless numbers of them by hand in operatic scores for some of the most important composers of that time; and if I had done it otherwise, I would have lost my job.

That doesn't mean that there can't be a better way. But this new system, if that is what it is, doesn't seem to me to be an improvement on what has worked so successfully for generations.

Post Edited (John Ruggero) : 11/15/2016 6:09:12 PM (GMT-6)

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 11/16/2016 3:29 AM (GMT -6)

John Ruggero said...
… … and if I had done it otherwise, I would have lost my job.

You would have lost your job over the exact style and placement of system dividers? If so, might that not have been a case of not seeing the wood for the trees (giving your care over so many vastly more important details)?

I'm sure you (and Gould) are correct about how score dividers ought to be, but … I doubt if there would be any gain from my adjusting those in already existing scores. New scores may be a different matter, if all it requires is an easy change to the plug-in's settings.

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 11/16/2016 6:17 AM (GMT -6)

These two PDF pages show 1) how I have habitually done dividers in manuscript and 2) how I have recently done them in Finale. It would seem the MS ones are too long (although no-one has ever remarked on them) and the Finale ones too fat and wrongly placed. Part of me at least wishes I'd not been brought to thinking about these: it's bothersome enough finding errors (both musical and engraving) that are likely to cause passing havoc and delays in rehearsal; but (very grudgingly) I suppose one ought to try to get these things right.

Post Edited (David Ward) : 11/16/2016 5:35:29 AM (GMT-6)

File Attachment :
p572.pdf 634KB (application/pdf)

This file has been downloaded 431 time(s).

File Attachment :
p209.pdf 115KB (application/pdf)

This file has been downloaded 395 time(s).

John Ruggero
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2000
Total Posts : 820

Posted 11/16/2016 10:11 AM (GMT -6)

David, your scores are so well done that no one would comment about the system dividers. And what one composer choses to do is their own business. My comment was directed at MakeMusic. One expects to see standard practice displayed in examples put out by the preeminent company in its field. To see otherwise leaves a bad impression. Another is left by the fact that one must adjust and even use a little ingenuity to place the system dividers correctly in Finale.

I would have lost my job because my boss was Arnold Arnstein: house rules were house rules and one abided by them or else! Before I started working for him, I made up my own notational practices; that ended the day he went over my copying examples and pointed out that I was reinventing the wheel.

David Ward
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2009
Total Posts : 2834

Posted 11/17/2016 7:10 AM (GMT -6)

Here's an intriguing little extra about system dividers and Finale, which I intend to run past MM support in case they have an explanation.

I noticed that in a 2,000-plus bar combined PDF made from 12 Finale files, the system divider was absent from one page. I opened the Finale file, earlier pages of which do have the dividers, and tried to add the divider on the page from which it was absent. Nothing I could do with the plug-in would add the divider. In the end I copied and pasted the divider from earlier in the file (and then had to go through three extra steps: hide, unlink from all parts, show). There's nothing special as far as I can tell about the two systems on this last 'real' page of the file. There is one extra page, consisting of only one bar and not printed to PDF, as there is a cautionary time signature change at the end of the file which is 'attacca' to the next; but surely that should make no difference.

Very odd!

Peter Thomsen
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2000
Total Posts : 8331

Posted 11/17/2016 4:01 PM (GMT -6)

David Ward said...
… There is one extra page, consisting of only one bar and not printed to PDF, as there is a cautionary time signature change at the end of the file which is 'attacca' to the next …

Instead of having this “extra” system on a separate page that is not printed to PDF, I keep the system on the previous page, but moved to the right so that the “extra” system is outside the page’s right edge.
In that way the “extra” system will not print.
And I do not have to remember, not to print a certain “extra” page to PDF.

Peter

Mac Finale, 2012c, 2014d & 2014.5, Dolet 6.6 plug-in, Mac OS X 10.11.6, iMac Intel Core i7, 2.93 GHz, 16 GB RAM

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