Scores with a lot of dialog and specially-formatted piano/vocal, vocal, or other partsIndividual pieces of music, each designed to be performed by a single musician or section of an ensemble. present special challenges when passing from Finale to another program via XML. What option comes closest to the original Finale file with minimal editing?
Sibelius is also powerful, but the newly opened XML was a godawful mess that would need complete reformatting.
The answer is Dorico, especially if certain conditions are met before import.
XML Import Settings for Finale XML Files
In Dorico’s Preferences>Music XML Import, make the following selections (checked items are imported with the XML. Unchecked items are ignored, and handled by Dorico’s advanced layout algorithms instead):
- Notea symbol used to represent a specific pitch and duration Durations √ Stem Directions √
- TieA curved line connecting two notes of the same pitch, indicating that they are to be played as a single, sustained note. Placement and appearance √ BeamA horizontal line connecting multiple eighth or sixteenth notes to show that they are played as a group. Groups √
- Accidental Visibility ☐ Articulation Placement ☐
- Tuplet Placement ☐ Enforce order of Tuplet Nesting ☐
- RestA symbol indicating a period of silence in a piece of music. Durations √ Rest Positions √
- Rest Visibility √
- DynamicsThe relative loudness or softness of an element of piece of music, indicated by symbols, or controlled by MIDI values placement √ Glissando Line Style and Text ☐
- Slur DirectionInstructions for an arranger or composer indicating style, instrumentation, mood, and purpose ☐ Text Items √ > Import font style information √
The rest can be unchecked. Dorico does a really good job handling most things, but the big takeaway here is that importing Text Items MUST be checked to get them into the new file.
Turn off the Flow Title
Once you’re in there, you will probably want to turn off the display of the “Flow title.” Dorico uses flows for things like new movements of a piece. You could, with this tool, potentially put your whole show into one Dorico file, but for now, let’s stick with the one file coming in. To turn off the flow title display (that accounts for the “echoA form of countermelody, restating the previous melodic passage in the musical space that follows it” of the title on the first page), go into Layout Options (Library>Layout Options, or ⌘⇧L (Mac), to the section Page Setup>Flows>Show Flow Headings and select “Not for First Flow.”
Blocks are Converted to Lines
Your imported text blocks will be redefined, each as a collection of one-line text blocks, associated with a particular measureA unit of musical time, defined by a specific number of beats.. The placement of text will need editing, particularly if there’s any above the first system in the scoreA written representation of a piece of music, including the notation for all parts of an ensemble. – and you’ll need to know how to do this anywhere else in the score as well.
Text Expression elements or blocks that come in via XML are linked to a barA line that separates measures in sheet music., as they were in Finale. In Write mode, with the selection tool active, clicking in a bar will select all of the text associated with it. You may need to right-click and filtera process that removes or reduces certain frequency ranges from an audio signal. your selection if there are also notes in the bar to choose Text only.
Once you make your selection, you will find your edit options are severely constrained, mainly by the fact that you can’t seem to move the block. If you select one line and try to move it, it will jump out of place.
Going immediately into Engrave mode at this point, you’ll find you can drag the whole selection smoothly, as if you were editing in Finale. You can also un-select, then select independent lines of text, or shift-click to create a group selection.
Note that you can’t marquee-select text in Engrave. Once selected, you can drag lines anywhere you like to replicate your old layout exactly.
You can also make a selection, and option-arrow (alt-arrow Windows) , and nudge it with the arrow keys.
Frame Break to Move a System to the Next Page
Another thing essential to know – if you need to move a staff system to a new page in order to accommodate a lot of dialog above it, you can do so with the Frame Break tool.
In Engrave, with the select tool, Marquee-select the left bar line of the system you want to move, then either click the little Frame Break icon, or hit the command ⇧F.
Moving Systems on the Page
Choosing the Staff Spacing tool, you can drag the remaining system down the page with the red or blue bar along the top of the system, and format the text. You can drag staves by clicking in them and dragging, independently of the other staves in the system.
If you want to move the text as a “block” again , go back to Write mode and click in the bar (and Filter for text if needed) to select it as a block again.
Dorico’s formatting algorithms make for beautiful parts. Once the particular tricks of text block manipulation are familiar, you can make a beautiful replica of your Finale layout without a lot of stress.
If you don’t want to mess with any of this, but would rather instead have us convert your Musical Theater Finale XML files to Dorico, we’d be happy to do it.
We’d need to have a look at the mxl/xml to quote it. You can send files via the site contact formThe structure or organization of a piece of music, including its sections, repetitions, and overall shape..
