Walking Through Our Project - "Ain't Got You" - Part 3

So...

We have entered our first notes in Finale!

Let's continue entering bass notes - Bs in the second measure, As in the third measure and Gs in the fourth measure.

****Now, let me take a minute here to talk about using your key commands.

When you work in Finale (or write a chart by hand for that matter), always look for patterns that can be repeated. This is how you work fast and efficiently (and also avoid carpal-tunnel syndrome!)

In the intro, if you look back to the last post, you can see that the chord changes repeat themselves after the first 4 bars. So, instead of entering the notes by hand, you can copy them two different ways.

Let's start at the beginning, with Select.

'Select' is computer-speak for anything that you pick to work with. You can 'select' in many different ways and with many different tools, but it is the same function. In order to change any item, it must be 'selected'. When an item is selected, there is usually an obvious visual cue to let you know what has been selected - it may be highlighted with a color, it may have a box around it, or little dotted lines, but you will be able to tell by looking at it that it is selected and therefore able to be modified.

When you select text, for instance, in a Word document or any other word processor, it is highlighted. You know then that you can change the color or size or font, or add a link to it or underline it or change the formatting to bold or italic, but only what is highlighted is affected - nothing else. It's the same thing in Finale.


The Selection tool is the all-purpose tool for selecting items in Finale. You can click and drag to enclose anything you want to work with. Also, while using the Selection tool, if you click on an element of your chart, such as a chord or a note or a repeat, it will activate the tool that is associated with that item. Click on a chord, and it will bring up the Chord Tool.

When you click on a measure, it will highlight to show you that it can be worked with. A very useful and important key to use with selection is the Shift key.

Shift/Select:

When you want to select a region of measures, but you don't have the screen real-estate to fit them all inside the selection box, you will want to use Shift/Select. Here's how it's done:

First, you select one measure -






Then, you hold down the Shift key and click on the last measure that you want as part of your selection -

and all the measures in between are selected.

Now, we have two choices. We can either copy and paste, or drag-copy, meaning you click on the selected area and drag it into the next open measure, which will show a dark black border to let you know where you're dragging it to. Either way, you have copied the four measures.






Now the bass line for the intro is complete.