A recent discussion over in PC got me thinking.

Some modern composers have developed notation where there is no time signature, and no measures. Obviously, one can do easily this by hand, but is there any way to do it with Finale or other notation software? Just curious.

I'm sure it is possible in Finale to achieve this result. Sibelius doesn't support it directly, but you can hide the time signatures and bar lines. When I have worked without time signatures, I usually select the (hidden) time signature according to how many beats there are in the current system (one bar per system). This way I don't need to adjust note spacings that would be changed because of hidden bar lines in the middle of the system.

Finale allows this as well - there are options that allow you to hide time sigs and barlines as Roger mentioned for Sibelius. Note spacing would likely be an issue, as Finale will, by default, still space the notes as though the barlines are not there. However, this can be adjusted. You can do it note by note, which would get tedious over a long piece. While I don't know of a specific way to adjust note spacings over a large section of a work, something tells me there's got to be an option for that though...

I've done this with Finale. As you say, you deselect "show time signatures" and "show barlines" in (I think, in my version anyway) document options. And I don't recall having any problems with spacing. Piece of cake.

It's possible in Finale. Can't remember how though. I think currawong is right.

About spacing, you can use three different spacing modes in Finale: Note spacing, beat spacing and time signature spacing.

My version just has note spacing and beat spacing, I think (unless time sig spacing is the default). But it is nearly 15 years old

Note Spacing usually works wonders in most situations. Finale 2006 upwards (not sure about older ones) has the option of re-defining the physical boundary of note-spacing that means that you can treat the barline as if it wasn't there.



Above at the top is a staff with time signatures hidden (a), and, below that, with barlines hidden (b). Select the Measure Tool, and use the Measure -> Show Measure Spacing Handles menu. Once checked, two additional handles will appear (red and green, c), defining the spacing at the left and right of the measure respectively. If you drag the right handle to overlap with the left handle (d), the music will space itself as if the barline wasn't there (e).

This is fine-tuning, but it's helpful to have this as a final polishing step. Also this allows you to set the hidden time signatures to reflect the musical sense of the passage independent of paper and staff sizes. The handles, as with all Finale handles, can be selected and moved in batch.

Just for completion regarding figure (c), the blue handle resizes the measure, and the grey handle allows manual adjustment of spacing of each note.

That could be useful - pretty sure my version doesn't have this, but as you say, note spacing works for most purposes.

Tar, I just wish I had some Finale questions, because you have all the answers!

Thanks, guys! Might be time to experiment some.

LILYPOND....

\cadenzaOn


\cadenzaOff


SIMPLE!

I use Finale 2008.

Oh, now I remember how I made the score without barlines. I used a 8/1 time signature (or something like that). Less barlines to adjust.

Gee thanks.

You can adjust all barlines in one go: just use Ctrl+A. All handles of the same kind will move/modify together in multiple selections.