Hymn Template

Primary Song Template

Solo Instrument & Piano Template

SATB & Organ Template

Dr. Doug's "Order of Operations" cheat sheet. Getting your file setup for success and the step-by-step order I use every time I do a professional (or non-professional) typesetting job.

Lay of the land overview. Conquering all the most important tools in Finale so you can clearly communicate crucial information to your musicians.

Small and simple shortcuts that go the extra mile to make your music look great. Things like pickup measures, proper use of instrument names, and other tools that, if you don't learn these quick mastery tricks make you look like an amateur at first glance. But with just a few simple clicks your music goes from looking amateur to professional.

3 ways to enter notes on the staff. More importantly, which one I avoid like the PLAGUE and which I use most, even when typesetting huge pieces like my operas and other large-scale works. HINT: you don't need any special keyboards or wires or other gadgets to make this work.

Fastest and least cumbersome way to enter triplets and other tuplets. Triplets get messy FAST if you're not careful. So, rather than make a mess of it, just follow these simple steps and you won't have to call in the emergency notation clean-up crew.

Simply beautiful polyphony notation even your basic Primary Songs need to look great. These tools also make your Ward Choir's life MUCH easier. Without them, the poor altos and basses get so mixed up they'd rather pay 15% tithing than come to choir practice.

Subtle composer shorthand secrets giving your music texture and color with nothing more than a few squiggles. With all the keyboard shortcuts available, you can add texture to your music with lightning speed.

Ties and slurs are the same thing, right? WRONG! They may look similar, but using a tie where a slur goes is one of the biggest "messy" mistakes I see in poor Finale notation. This tool solves removes the "yuck" look and just by appearing in the right place at the right time makes your music more inviting. Better still, it communicates the type of phrasing you want without you having to say a word to your musicians.

Oh where, oh where do the dynamics go? This is another common snafu I find all over poorly set Church music. Entering dynamics on vocal staves vs instrumental staves is very different. You will conquer it once and for all in this module.

The difference between Tempo Markings, Rehearsal Markings, Basic Expressions, and Technique Markings. They are VERY similar in nature. But misunderstanding their differences, as many Church music writers do, causes a whole bunch of unnecessary confusion. You'll never have to deal with this musical communication breakdown again once you apply the "expression" techniques in this module.

Lyrics and text are definitely NOT created equally. When it comes to writing any kind of vocal music, mastering lyric entry is crucial. Otherwise, the singers get all befuddled. Following the steps laid out in this module, you'll make your lyrics easy to read, the right size for easy readability, and not cluttered or colliding all over the page like most copies of Church music.

Intricate adjustments taking your lyrics to the next level. For example, how do you get that number 1 or 2 or 3 to properly attach itself to the start of each verse? How do you get that nice little space between the period after the number and the first syllable of the verse without assigning the wrong syllable to the wrong note? After this module you'll never wonder again and your singers will praise your name to the heavens.

What about those little chord symbols above the staff in the Primary Book? Yep, we'll cover those too. Be careful with these. Just a few wrong strokes of the keyboard and you'll muddy up your otherwise lovely sheet music. 

The voodoo magic of staff positioning and measure spacing. Probably the most under-used and misunderstood topic in digital sheet music preparation... but when you use the simple principles I'll teach you to govern your music preparation, your music suddenly becomes as clear as reading the gold plates through the Urim and Thumim. 

Customizing each and every staff system so you don't waste space on each page. This is the difference between a 3-minute piece requiring 10 pieces of printed paper, or a very tidy 4 pages. Hiding empty staves, and other tricks, make all the difference. But go too far and when your choir turns the page, they'll be lost. So, make sure to use these tools WHILE putting your mind in the mind of the musicians. This will save you from the gnashing teeth of a Ward Choir director who has to waste her very precious and almost non-existent rehearsal time because you didn't think like a singer and make your notation match.

Small, medium, large? What goes where? Why and when? How big should these things appear? And how can simple drag-and-drop techniques make reading your music easy-peasy? This module will solve just about all these problems if you follow along carefully.

The only RIGHT time to use the text tool and the best sizes for the nicest overall appeal. Almost all the text in your music should NOT be created with the "Text Tool," except for these items, which shouldn't EVER be created with anything else.

Endings and repeats might be the 2nd or 3rd biggest notation pet peeve of mind. It's so simple to get them WRONG and confuse the heck out of your musicians. But it's equally as easy to get the RIGHT. So, in this module, we'll help you solve them once and for all.

The wizardry of "Linked Parts" so you don't have to do double, triple, quadruple (or more) the work to finish your sheet music preparations. In the olden days of early notation software, getting individual instrument parts prepared was such a PAIN in the behind. Now it's a sinch! But don't rely ONLY on the automatic Finale tools. You've gotta take a few extra steps after the software does its magic to make them even more readable and user-friendly for your musicians. I'll show you how in this module.

4 complete walk-throughs of top-level sheet music creation. Watch over my shoulder as I re-create a Hymn, Primary Song, Violin & Piano Arrangement, and SATB and Organ piece. Hear me talk through my order of operations for note and other data entry... and even more importantly... watch as I use the white-black contrast and spacial recognition needed to finish off a super-nice-looking piece of sheet music.

Hymn Template

Primary Song Template

Solo Instrument & Piano Template

SATB & Organ Template