Adding multiple-measure ossias in Finale

There appears to be no way to add multiple-measure ossias in Finale. An ossia measure is an alternate measure, meaning a bar that illustrates a different way of playing a passage, or that suggests how ornaments might be performed, or that explains how "swing" notes should be performed, etc.

Finale has a handy feature called an "ossia tool," but it has two flaws: It only allows you to add a single ossia measure at a time, and it does not include ties. This last is obviously a glitch, and I see they finally fixed it in Finale 2009, although I believe they still don't allow you to add multiple ossia bars (i.e., alternative version of bars 23-25).

→ The workaround is to create a graphics file of the multiple ossia measures, and paste it in the desired location on the page.

1. Notate the ossia bars somewhere. This could be at the end of your file (i.e., on an extra page), or in a different file. If your ossia bars are on only one staff (as opposed to all staves), you may wish to optimize staff systems for those bars so that only the desired bar is shown (Page Layout Tool/Page Layout Menu). Don't worry about the size; you can adjust that later.

2. Use the Graphics Tool to select the ossia bars (double-click and drag), then choose "Export Selection" from the Graphics menu, and choose the desired format from the dialogue box (EPS, PICT, TIFF; DPI resolution, etc.), and save it to your desired location (some place you can easily find it!). Make sure you choose a very high resolution for best print quality.

3. Go to the page on which the ossia measures will be placed, and choose "Place Graphic" from the Graphics menu (Graphics Tool). It will then ask you to locate the graphics file, and once you do this, click Okay. The ossia measures should show up somewhere on your page; now you just grab the image (click and drag) and position it wherever you wish. If you want to reduce the size, which is common for ossia bars, control-click the graphics image on your page and choose "Edit Graphic Attributes," then enter the desired height and width percentages in the "Scale" section.

• Only thing to add is that this is now attached to your page, so if you change the measures on that page in any way you may have to manually reposition the graphic file.

What now?

Now that the winter semester (2009) course is over, my blogging frequency will decrease drastically until the next course begins (in the fall of 2009), but I will post occasionally during the summer. I sometimes find it helpful to work out work out composition-related thoughts by writing, so even if no one reads the posts, there is some value in the exercise.

Feel free to check in periodically; with any luck there will be something new from time to time. Enjoy a restful and productive summer!

Done!

Hi all, I just finished several marathon days of marking, and handed in marks for the course. Please pick up your scores from the box outside my door at your earliest convenience; I spent a fair bit of time writing critiques of everyone's compositions, so I hope you have the chance to read them, and that you find them useful.

If you are out of town and want me to send your critique to you electronically, please E-mail me and let me know.

Have a great summer!

Please Submit Recordings

Please send me an MP3 MIDI recording of your second composition I mentioned it in our last class (and it is listed as a requirement in the course outline), so I bring it up it here as a gentle reminder. (ASAP, please.)

Here is the course evaluation procedure, followed by information about participation in the class blog (which is what you are reading now) and your weekly journals, all taken from the course outline:

• Class participation 9%
• Blog participation: 8%
• On-line Journal: 8%
• Weekly compositional preparedness: 25%
• 2 Compositions: 50%

3) Blog participation marks are earned by commenting on, or joining a discussion about, blog entries posted by your instructor. 10 reasonably thoughtful comments will get you full marks.

4) The On-line Journal is your weekly record of (a) class/instructor feedback received, and (b) your brief reaction to it (and any other thoughts you may have about your own composition process). It can be in point form, and need not be more than a paragraph every week.

Some have asked how many journal entries are needed, and while the answer is relatively clear from the above (i.e., one for every week), to make things simpler for all I will set the number at 9. The only thing to add is that it is not too late to post to this blog or your journal; I will make Tuesday, April 14, 5 PM the deadline for doing so, so anything you post before then will be counted.

Keep? Discard?

Simon's guest blog (below; March 16, 2009) mentions having varying degrees of attachment to his own musical ideas, which I suspect anyone who creates things has experienced. You've come up with idea x, which you really like (and to which you become quite attached), but you're not so sure about idea y.

I think this is a normal occurrence in the creative process. More importantly, I think it is an essential aspect of the creative process. If a composer were to like everything s/he created, chances are that composer would be not a very discerning individual, and their music would likely reflect that.

One of the skills that I think composers need to develop is discernment; the ability to evaluate whether idea y is worth pursuing or not.

The difficulty for most student composers, as I have mentioned before, is that their level of musical sophistication exceeds their level of compositional technique.

Why? At Memorial University (where I teach), most students don't start formal training in composition until their fourth semester, by which point they have spent years developing performance skills and, once they are in university, learning music theory and being exposed to at least some "great" music (I realize that greatness is a potentially problematic term, but perhaps I will discuss the use of this term in a later post). By the time that most students are just starting their compositional training, they already have a pretty good idea of what they like and don't like in music, which, when applied to their own compositions, results in the phenomenon of knowing that a piece, section, or musical idea is not as good as they would like it to be, but not knowing exactly how to go about improving it.

The solution I typically recommend is to push forward with your musical ideas as best you can, even if you are not convinced of their quality, because it is often only by doing this this you discover the potential of ideas to grow into something bigger or different, or at least something to which you can feel more attached. I consider that part of my job as a composition professor is to suggest strategies for building on their compositional ideas in order to grow/transform them into something they like better.

It doesn't mean you necessarily keep and develop every musical idea you ever come up with; it just means that you often need to work with an idea for a while until you come to a better understanding of what it can develop into.

Should you ever discard your musical ideas?

I don't think so. For two reasons:

1. If you have worked very hard on a musical idea, there is a good chance that it has value.


2. You don't have to use it right away. You may find a use for it later, possibly in a different section of the same piece, or possibly in a different composition. You also may never find a use for it, but since we don't know whether we will eventually find a place for it or not, it makes sense to keep the idea, but just set it aside for now if you don't feel it works in the particular section of your composition for which it was originally intended.


3. There is no reason to throw anything away, even if you are convinced that it is garbage! Notation files on computers use very little disk-storage space; instead of dumping a file in the trash, just put it in a compositional scraps folder because you never know if the idea might evolve into a useful idea in a different piece.

But it all starts with working harder with the musical idea to which you were initially not very attached — not being too quick to give up on it — and frankly, my experience as both a teacher and composer leads me to feel that, if you do this, you will often find a place for that idea in the composition on which you are working.