Percussion

Whether you are creating music for drum set, orchestral percussion, or a drum line, Finale allows you to easily create, notate, and playback percussion parts.

Staves configured for percussion entry can be added with the Document Setup Wizard or the Staff Setup Wizard (Staff menu). These staves automatically ignore key signatures and transpositions, and are configured for intuitive entry whether you are using a mouse, computer keyboard, or MIDI keyboard for entry. See Percussion note entry.

Finale’s percussion notation offers a great deal of flexibility and control through the use of percussion layouts. A percussion layout is a list of defined percussion instruments available for use in a staff. This definition includes staff position, notehead style, and note type (snare drum, cymbols, etc.). The same percussion layout can be used for multiple staves and can be edited in the Percussion Layout Designer dialog box. See also To edit percussion layouts.

To ensure your percussion notation is configured properly for your playback instrument, select the appropriate Percussion MIDI Map in the Instrument List. See Configuring Percussion Playback for details.

Orange percussion notes indicate notes that are not assigned to a percussion layout in the Percussion Layout Designer dialog box. This may occur, for example, if you have opened a file that includes notes that were not used (not "highlighted") in the previous Finale version's Percussion Map Designer. These notes will look and playback correctly, but do not conform to Finale 2010's new Percussion Layout paradigm. To assign these notes, you can create the desired Note Type in the Percussion Layout Designer dialog box, then drag or nudge the orange notes into place with the Simple Entry Tool or Speedy Entry Tool.

Note that if your original percussion map was not one of the General MIDI maps, the wrong note types may have been assigned as your file was converted to the Finale 2010 format. You can reconvert Note Types to the Finale 2010 standard using the Change Note Types dialog box.

Percussion note entry

To enter percussion with Simple Entry

To enter percussion with Speedy Entry

To enter percussion with HyperScribe

To setup playback for a percussion staff

To setup an external MIDI device for percussion input & playback

To load a percussion layout library

To save a percussion layout library

To create a percussion staff

To edit percussion layouts

To create a percussion staff with a customized percussion layout

To adjust stem connections on noteheads

To create slashes-with-cues drum notation

To import a MIDI file with a standard percussion track