Note shapes

A notehead can be any shape in Finale, including X, diamond, square, circle, slash—you can even create invisible noteheads. You can globally define noteheads to be a particular shape on the basis of rhythmic value, position on the staff, or both. You can also change individual noteheads to any shape.

To change the shape of a notehead

1. Click the Special Tools Tool  , and click the measure in question.
2. Click the Note Shape Tool  . A handle appears on each notehead.
3. Double-click the handle of the notehead you want to change. The Symbol Selection dialog box appears, displaying every character in the music font.
4. Double-click the desired replacement notehead shape. To restore the notehead to its original shape, click its handle and press delete.

To copy individual notehead changes to other measures

If you require a more global note shape configuration that can’t be addressed by changing all notes of a specified pitch and duration to a specified shape (see “To change all notehead shapes of a specified duration and pitch”), you can create the changes manually and then paste only the note shape information onto other measures.

1. Change the notehead shapes manually in the first measure or measures. See “To change the shape of a notehead.”
2. Click the Selection Tool  , and select the modified measure or measures. See Selecting music for some region-selecting shortcuts.
3. From the Edit Menu, choose Edit Filter. A dialog box appears, listing elements of the music that you can copy individually.
4. Click Notehead, Accidental and Tablature String Alterations. Click OK.   
5. Drag the first highlighted measure so that it’s superimposed on the first target measure. If the target measure isn’t visible on the screen, scroll until it’s visible, then option–shift-click it. Unless the target measures are directly above or below the source measures, the “How many times?” box appears.
6. Enter the number of times you want the notehead shape information copied. Click OK (or press return). To restore the noteheads to their original shapes, select the region using the Selection Tool. Choose Clear Items from the Edit Menu. Proceeding through the dialog boxes, click as follows: Only Selected Items; Entries; Notehead, Accidental and Tablature String Alterations. Click OK (or press return) twice.

To change all notehead shapes of a specified duration and pitch

This technique is especially useful for Shape Note Music, where the shape of a note indicates its pitch, and for drum parts, where you might want all notes on the spaces of the staff to have X noteheads (cymbals and hi-hat), but all notes on lines of the staff to have normal noteheads (tom-toms and bass drum).

You can assign a different notehead shape to each step of the scale.

1. Click the Staff Tool  ; then double-click the staff in question. The Staff Attributes dialog box appears for the staff you clicked. You grant permission for changeable note shapes one staff at a time.
2. Under the heading Independent Elements, select Notehead font; then click Select. The FontFont dialog box appears.
3. Select the font, and size of the Notehead you want to use, then click OK. For Shape Note music or percussion noteheads, use Maestro Percussion or JazzPerc.
4. Select Note Shapes from the Notation Style popup menu,
5. Click on the Select button next to the Notation Style popup menu, The Note Shapes options appear.
6. From the popup menu, choose the first notehead shape you want to change. The four basic note shapes in Finale are the quarter notehead (also used by eighth, sixteenth, and smaller note values), the half notehead , the whole notehead , and the double whole note. For each note of the scale, you can specify an alternate notehead shape (X, diamond, and so on) for each of these four basic shapes. For example, you could specify that every half note occurring on the third scale degree will appear as an X notehead. See Shape Note music for a chart of note shapes and scale degrees.
7. Specify the scale degree for which you want to modify the selected notehead. Enter the scale degree into the “scale degree” text box, or click the up and down arrows until the scale degree number is the one you want.
8. Click Select. The Symbol Selection dialog box appears, displaying every character in the music font.
9. Double-click the symbol you want to serve as the alternate notehead shape. You can continue this way, using the arrow buttons to move through the scale degrees, and clicking Select to choose a new notehead shape.
10. Click OK twice. You return to the document, where the noteheads of the type and scale degree you specified have automatically changed to the alternate note shapes you selected. If you anticipate creating other scores with the same configuration, save this piece on your disk as a template (a blank document without any notes in it), so that you won’t have to repeat the process the next time you need to create alternate note shapes.