User manual

517
Entering and editing notes
• Generally the program adds ties where necessary (if a note
stretches over a beat), but not always. For more “modern” no-
tation of syncopated notes (less ties), you will need to use the
syncopation feature, see “Syncopation” on page 505.
The same note, without and with Syncopation.
• If you want a long note to be displayed as two (or more) tied
notes, you can use the Cut Notes tool for this.
• If a note has the wrong accidental, this can be changed. See
“Accidentals and enharmonic shift” on page 544.
• If two notes on the same position are too close to each other
or if you want their “graphical order” in the score reversed, you
can do this without affecting playback. See “Graphic moving
of notes” on page 552.
• Stem direction and length is normally automatic, but you can
set it yourself. See “Background: Note stems” on page 542.
• If you are scoring for piano and therefore (or for other reasons)
need a split staff, there are special techniques for this, see
“Split (piano) staves” on page 523 and “Polyphonic voicing”
on page 531.
If you run into trouble
Below you can find some questions and answers that will
help you pinpoint some common mistakes:
• The note I put in has the wrong length. For example, I
added a sixteenth and got a quarter note.
You probably have the wrong display quantize value set. Open the Score
Settings–Staff page. If Auto Quantize is activated, deactivate it, unless
you have mixed triplets and regular notes. Also check the Notes and
Rests display quantize values. If the settings are too “coarse”, change
them to a smaller note value. If you for example need the program to dis-
play an eighth note rest, Rests display quantize must be set to “8” or a
smaller value (please refer to the chapter “How the Score Editor works”
on page 485). If No Overlap is activated, you might want to turn it off.
• There is a pause after a note that I don’t want.
You probably added a note with the wrong note value. Either lengthen
the note (physically or graphically – see “Changing the length of notes”
on page 521) or delete the one you have (see “Deleting notes” on page
525) and add a new one with the correct note value.
• There is no pause after the note although there should
be one.
Either the note is too long (delete and enter a new one or change the cur-
rent note length, physically or graphically). Or Rests display quantize is set
to too large a note value. Open the Score Settings–Staff page and lower it.
• The note has an accidental when it shouldn’t, or it
doesn’t when it should.
Maybe the note is simply of the wrong pitch? Click on it (using the Ob-
ject Selection tool) and look at the info line (if this is not shown, see “The
info line” on page 494). Move it to the correct pitch (see “Editing pitches
of individual notes” on page 520). If this is not the reason, maybe you
have the wrong key set? And finally, you can also use enharmonic shift-
ing (see “Accidentals and enharmonic shift” on page 544).
• Notes are not grouped under beams the way I want it.
Normally the program groups eighth notes, sixteenths etc. under beams.
This can be deactivated. There is also detailed control of which notes are
grouped under a beam, see “Handling beaming” on page 547.
Selecting notes
In the operations described in the rest of this chapter, you
will often work on selected notes. The text below de-
scribes how to select notes in various ways:
By clicking
To select a note, click on its note head with the Object
Selection tool. The note head turns red to indicate that it is
selected.
• To select more notes, hold down [Shift] and click on
them.
• To deselect notes, hold down [Shift] and click on them
again.
• If you hold down [Shift] and double-click on a note, this
note and all the following notes in the same staff are se-
lected.
Selected notes