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Change Key For Free With Finale NotePad >home
If you want to change key or edit the arrangement
you have our permission to do so using any
of the Finale software packages or Sibelius.
If you don't own Finale
or Sibelius, you can change the key with the free Finale
NotePad. NotePad has limited editing capabilities and won't perfectly preserve the staff spacing,
but with a little tweaking you can print
out a working, readable key change (although
it might not be as pretty as the original.)
1. Free Download. Download the free Finale NotePad for Mac
or PC:
http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad
2. Install the software. Install, then open any HymnCharts .mus file
(the Finale format.) Try the free "All Hail the Power"
praise choir version. I've created the files in the old version
of Finale 2000 for maximum capability (current
versions of Finale back to version 2000 will
still be able to open the files.)
Notepad will open
the file and convert
it
to the new format,
and the original
will
be unchanged. So,
click the "ok"
button when you open
the file to convert
it. |
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| 3. Transpose the music. "All Hail The Power" is in E major
and modulates to F major on the last chorus.
To change key to D major modulating to Eb
major, click the KEY SIGNATURE TOOL at the top of the window. It has an image
of a little key signature on the button. |
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key signature tool |
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| You'll see NotePad reads the key as E major.
Select D major. Since you're transposing down, click the
"down" button. Conversely, if you wanted to transpose
up, you'd click the "up" button. |
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4. Clean it up. The music is now transposed, but the free
NotePad has limited editing capabilities
and won't preserve the original staff spacing
of the sheet music, and you can't change
that. However, you can clean up the main
problem area. (You can change staff spacing
with higher levels of Finale software like
SongWriter and PrintMusic.)
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| The main problem area is at the bottom of
the first page. Notice that the staves have stretched out
to the bottom of the first page and are in
the way of the copyright info at the bottom.
Simply delete the copyright info! Click the TEXT TOOL at the top of the window. It's the button
with the capital "A." Scroll down,
select the copyright info and delete it. |
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text tool |
Go to the next page (page 2.) You'll see that the staves have
also stretched down to the bottom. If the
title and page number bother you, delete
that, too. Other parts, like the Instrumental parts and Synth Strings, have similar text boxes you can either
delete or move out of the way.
Also note that you can't change the key mid-arrangement - it's all or nothing. (Other versions of
Finale can change the key in mid-arrangement.)
This particular arrangement has a "built
in" half-step transposition. So if you
wanted to transpose from E major to F major,
the last verse would end up in F# - and nobody
wants to play in F#! What works is D to Eb,
or Eb to E. Or, you could just use the sheet
music for the first 3 verses in one key and
not use the last verse transposition. Some
HymnCharts arrangements have a key change
on the last verse, some don't.
Some of the markings are off a little bit
(things like "solo" and "parts"
and "men only") but all in all
you now have a readable, transposed piece
of sheet music - for free!
Next: Revolutionize Your Worship!
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