I wholeheartedly second this sentiment.
1 Like
Can you tell me how you did this to get the mark tree line to work?
Thank you.
I’m not at my computer right now and haven’t done this in a little while, but I’ll do my best to at least outline it conceptually. First, I made the mark tree a percussion kit, and set it to display on a 5-line staff. Then, in the kit editor, I put mark tree instruments on each staff position where I wanted to enter notes. Once I had entered the notes, I then entered a generic squiggly line from the lines table (i.e. NOT a gliss), set to anchor to the rhythmic positions, NOT the note heads. Then I tweaked it in Engrave mode to make the line look right. (Required different tweaks for score and parts.)
Next time, I will probably just use a xylophone and rename it Mark Tree. That way, I can use a real gliss line and not have to mess with the kit or engrave mode tweaks. But of course then it won’t play back properly.
What I’ve been doing for playback of the mark tree glissandi are the Jazz doit and fall ornaments. Those trigger certain specific playback techniques and can be used in the expression maps to trigger the correct sound. They look like glissando lines too and you can choose the wavy versions, the only difference is that the endpoint doesn’t connect to anything.
You can also use the arpeggio up or down arrows (those should work) but you don’t get correct playback with those. So I’ve been using the Jazz doit and fall ornaments instead because they work with playback and they are still clear to the performer and they know what to do.
1 Like
This sentence is unclear to me. How do I attach a squigly line anchored to a rhythmic position rather than a notehead?
Thanks so much.
Thanks so much. Playback is not an issue on the Mark Tree as I already have a Playback file in Finale. I just need a graphic representation that lloks right. Not familiar yet with the Jazz ornaments. I’ll have to snoop around and see if I can find them.
In the “Ornaments” panel on the right (the trill icon) you’ll find the jazz ornaments and also the vertical arpeggiation lines which have arrows on them
Thanks so much for your help.
That worked!! Thanks so much for the help. After using Finale for 34 years this transition has been a struggle for me.
Thanks again.
Gary
1 Like
Here’s a workaround I’ve been doing which I personally find a bit easier & faster than creating two separate mark trees combined into a kit etc.
Simply, I duplicated a single-staff Marimba (any pitched percussion 5-line staff instrument will do), and renamed this as “Mark Tree (5-line staff)” and hit that star to save it as a default for the future. Important - clef should say ‘Treble’ at this time, as I discovered a percussion staff won’t allow you to move notes up and down the staff for some reason. If you duplicated from a single-staff Marimba this shouldn’t be a problem.
Now add this instrument to your score and connect it to the VST of your choice (it usually will default to a piano sound until you do). Next for a gliss I added connecting lines as per my book How To Write for Percussion (Samuel Solomon, pg. 168). Looks like this:
The advantage here is that I can select the desired notes to be played in my VST. However if the VST’s keyboard range doesn’t allow you to achieve this, I would then simply use the Midi Trigger Region feature and manually enter the midi notes I want to trigger, and then in the bottom panel suppress playback of the written notes (they will turn gray):
So now you can have the best of both worlds, ideal playback (if you have a sample library that supports different gliss types) + ideal score.
Finally, when preparing your final parts for live presentation, go into the instrument editor and change the clef to ‘Percussion’:
Resulting in this final score:
I have found this to work very well!
3 Likes
Went crazy last night creating a lengthy passage of “continuous gliss” - the midi trigger region is so cool and such a time-saver!
in this case I’m using a sample library that has a “continuous gliss” on a specific key, so I use the midi trigger region to play that through all those bars, and simply notated it based on my book’s suggestion (up and down notes with gliss, and wavy gliss line above. It sounds and looks great!
I suppose an alternate notation could be showing the direction of the initial gliss, and then placing a continuous wavy gliss line in the center of the bar through the end:
Either way, this is a great discovery for not only M.T. but various percussion instruments requiring similar workarounds and playback!
4 Likes
What a great idea. I wish I had done mine this way.
1 Like