... invisible notes/rests consuming no horizontal space.
Lawrie will know this, but new users might not: To make notes invisible without losing the horizontal space, use blank noteheads and stem length = zero.
... I had used the "X" command to add chords above the top staff, for the benefit of guitars playing along. These chords were caught when I highlighted the rests. When I hid the rests, the chords were hidden as well. I tried vertical offset for the chord placement,
Instead of using text for chords, try ChordPlay.nw from the Insert menu last item, "Objects..." or simply type a capital J. If you also want to show guitar tablature for each chord, use Mike's GuitarChord.ms object instead, again at Insert/Objects.
You might consider using a "conductor" staff as your first staff, set to layer with next staff. A conductor staff will be the first staff in Page Setup, set to layer with the next staff. Fill it with rests and bars, visibility = never.
Many things to be printed on each part can be written here - time signatures, metronome markings, rehearsal marks, whatever. Every time you want to print a part, have the conductor staff and the desired printed part open. If you need to place notes in the conductor staff to anchor items, make them invisible and muted. A conductor staff saves a lot of time and effort because it will have many items you now only have to write once instead of on every staff. If things on the conductor staff collide with high notes on the staff it will be printed with, it's easy to adjust the height of conductor staff items; you just need to check Print Preview before printing.
I have previously entered chords as lyrics, Alignment TOP but this means playing with each note's Lyric Syllable in the Note Properties menu. If you go this route, I would put the lyric on the conductor staff, anchoring the lyric "words" with muted invisible noted.
Overall, I think the two Objects would be much easier to use.
Sorry not to reply earlier, Warren, I just saw your message last night.
This qualifies as a "drats!" Had I known about or remembered your Triplets page, I would have saved most of the ten hours I spent rewriting the score and parts.
Your tool did in a second or two what took me forever to do manually. Comparing the results I only found one thing I did (and would always do) differently.
Original bar in common time: !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:3 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet|Pos:#2 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:3 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:5 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:5^ |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=First|Pos:5|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet|Pos:3|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:5|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
My questions starts after this Preamble I have a score in common time at a slow tempo (quarter = 90). It is a pop ballad from 40 or 50 years ago and has many triplet groupings, some of which are hard for an ensemble to sight read, an example being !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0^ |Bar |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=First|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0^ |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=First|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
I've decided to rewrite the chart in 12 8 time to make it easier for the ensemble to play such phrases correctly the first time when sightreading the chart.
Converting eighth, quarter, half and whole notes is easy - just add an augmention dot.
This is a bit more complicated !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |TimeSig|Signature:Common |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=End|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th,Triplet=First|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0^ |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=First|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Up,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Up,Beam |Note|Dur:8th,Triplet=End|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Up,Beam=End |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End It becomes !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |TimeSig|Signature:12/8 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0^ |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End or, for more clarity, !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |TimeSig|Signature:12/8 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0^|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:0 |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0^ |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=First |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam |Note|Dur:8th|Pos:0|Opts:Stem=Down,Beam=End |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
My rationale for converting the time signature: While the piece is only 38 bars long, but has 10 sets of triplet eighths, 8 sets of triplet quarters, 4 tripletized quarter-eighths, 2 or 3 tripletized eighth-quarters, and a few tripletized half-quarter note figures. Many of the triplets are syncopated, either beginning with an inbound tie or ending with an outgoing tied note. My question: Several parts have this rhythm in common time: !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |TimeSig|Signature:Common |Note|Dur:Half,Dotted|Pos:4 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:4 |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End It is necessary in common time to notate the fourth beat separately because it begins a new glissando phrase, and will change pitch before the end of the bar.
Converting to 12 8 time, the bar becomes !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar |TimeSig|Signature:12/8 |Note|Dur:Half,Dotted,Slur|Pos:4^| |Note|Dur:4th,Dotted,Slur|Pos:4 |Note|Dur:4th,Dotted|Pos:4 |Bar !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
Is there a more efficient presentation of this bar's rhythm, so as to reduce the double curved arches (tie and slur) to just one arch?
As stated at the top of the topic, Hairpin.ms is an ornament only, and has no effect on playback. I created it as an alternative to the native hairpins, ...
Sorry, Mike, I was writing about the native hairpin in response to SEBC. I should have been clearer.
I thought I’d update this post. I’ve been using the stamp feature in PDF to stamp a “revised date “ prominently on my scores and that has been helpful. It’s not automatic so I’m not always consistent.
I use FoxIt Phantom for "printing" NWC to PDF and for working with my PDFs. Its Watermark can be used on all pages in the file, at whatever position you select, and you can use either text or something from another file. There's also a button to update it. Again, it's not automatic, but it might be easier to be consistent than with the program you use?
Creative WaveStudio is old but it's good. It used to come bundled with the Creative Soundblaster sound card. It's still available and it's free. Or you can upload your file to the company's website, IIRC, and do the editing there.
I used to use CWS to remove noise from clicks from tape recordings I was making from old records.
As with Audacity you can silence sections way smaller than 1/1000 of a second, so small that you won't notice a gap in the music during playback.
CWS saves directly to .WAV, .RAW or .WMA formats, .WAV being the CD standard, whereas Audacity requires an export to other formats.
As difficult as it is to remain isolated, and as devastating as it is to every nation's economies, I wouldn't want to see us rush into declaring the emergency to be over.
Around here, people go outside at 7 p.m. to cheer for our front line heath care workers and support people. I've taken to taking one or another of my saxes out to the end of my driveway to play O Canada. Since we are a suburb of immigrants, I also play the national anthems of Fiji, the Philippines and India, and my neighbours seem to appreciate it. Yesterday the family across the road set up lawn chairs and the father brought out a conga drum to play along. I think it's important for everyone to know they are not alone during these troubling times.
I like broccoli even if I can't spell it. This morning's paper had a story about farmers possibly not being able to harvest broccoli and other produce if migrant workers cannot enter Canada. And most migrant workers will be banned under the restrictions announced yesterday.
The removal routine has been running about 15 minutes and its green status bar shows it has only completed about 10% of the removal. There is a popup saying "Invalid file handle 32" This supposedly indicates a font is in use, but no NWC files nor NWC itself were open.
Hmm. Each time I click its OK button, the green bar shows more progress. Funny.
And now it's completed.
Let's try the Setup. The same error message pops up but again it was only a matter of clicking the OK button several times to complete the intallation.
Looking into new file Page Setup and your fonts are present, so I guess it worked. Many thanks.
It will be sad if NWC abandons this forum and tries to replace it with Facebook.
Facebook is not meant to be a user reference and is a pain to use. When I have a problem or suggestion, I don't relish the idea of potentially millions of commenters who know little about the program but will offer advice anyway.
and the "=" should definitely be centred on the barline.
...except when there's a system break, forced or naturally occurring?
I don't have an opinion about centering the object over a bar line, but if you do that, sometimes you have to accomodate a lot of clutter at a system break (key and tempo changes, perhaps text for the title of the next tune in a medley.
The tool needs to be flexible for printing both a full score and separate instrumental/vocal parts. The system breaks likely won't occur at the same measure number from part to part, since some parts have lots of notes and others have lots of multibar rests, so the clutter will differ for each system's breaks.
If I'm writing for lots of instruments, the object probably needs to automatically adjust for different clutter in each part, otherwise there's going to need to be too much line by line fine-tuning.
Would these challenges be accommodated with giving the user two choices: 1. Placement: Right Justify, As Staff Signature or 2. Placement: Left Justify?
3. ... Maybe I should check more then the name alone and provide more elaborate information when there's a mismatch. The properties shown in the score review panel might be an inspiration?.
Yes, I think so. Fools like me need "watch fors". Depending on why I'm notating the music, I may or may not use the transposition or instrument settings and even where I do use them, I might not remember today the substitutes I used for the rarer instruments in a file I created a few years earlier ( rare instruments such as piccolo trumpet, flugelhorn, euphonium, bass sax, bass trombone, or the four lower members of the clarinet family ). Or I may just not need to set transposition on the particular file I'm working on today but transposition has been set in the previously created target file.
I haven't tried the object yet; won't have time this weekend to get really into trying it.
Some quick thoughts though, if you haven't dealt with them already?
I think there are two uses for the tool: Creating two or more songs on the same page of printed music, or alternatively, to combine songs into a medley.
I might want:
1. Options to have the transferred song continue with or without a system break.
2. Where there's to be a system break, it would be useful to have an option to increase the upper vertical space on the first top staff of the transferred bars to allow space to include a large, bold song title.
3. Some way to help the user remember to ensure the transferred staffs have the same instruments in the same sequence (that probably has been dealt with manually by the user before using the tool), and with transposition settings consistent with the destination file's existing staffs.
4. If you use simple text markers, perhaps there should be two: one at the beginning and one at the end of each copied section. This might help if two or more groups of staffs are added to the target file.
...I was working on a file accessed from a memory stick. This was loosely plugged in and any vibration of the desk caused the stick to rattle and repeatedly reconnect and superimpose multiple search screens on top of the music program's active screen...
And of course pounding the desk in frustration didn't help, I bet!
In the two entries I tried, it seems to be almost perfect, Mike. Thanks for creating this.
Usually the equation should be bracketed, so I think there should be an opening parenthesis, a little white space, the equation, a little more white space, and then the closing parenthesis.
I've had some success in the past with PgTxt.nw, but I'm now an infrequent user (3 or 4 times a year), I don't remember what worked and what didn't, the last times I used the object. I remember being very happy with it last fall. But now I'm struggling.
I think there are too many unexplained variables in the PgTxtMaestro and PgTxt.nw dialogue boxes to use them efficiently.
Are the object variables documented somewhere so the user can see what each means without killing an hour or more to figure out how to do something that can be done in minutes with ordinary text entries?
If there is documentation, does it actually explain awkwardities such as Laurie points out?
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You can't have two PgTxt objects if the same kind on the staff - the latter will always override the earlier one
I just learned how to do something new because of this thread: end with something other than the normal double bar line!
I have been writing and notating rounds lately for my choir. Here is a favourite that I was able to change the ending on. It looks great on my screen. However, when I go to print...trouble! It's probably best to keep it as a single line piece but I do like hearing the sound of the round.
I think you can keep multiple staffs, but they should be the same length. Add bars of rests at the end of the shorter staffs.
For printing, insert a Master Repeat Close with a page break just before the end of each staff. Whatever you use for the staff ending in Staff Properties won't show on the page when you print it.
I don't think the repeats work properly when they're aren't aligned staff to staff.
Closing Opera did the trick. When I reopened Opera the problem arose again, but I was able to disable the extension in the new Opera session and now the NWC shortcut works again.
Hopefully it will continue working without having to apply the fix again.
Thank you very much to everyone who replied, and to Bart for finding the solution.
Do you use page up/down from the numeric keyboard and if so, have you switched num lock on?
I always use my extended keyboard's stand-alone Insert, Home, Page Up, Delete, End and Page Down and arrow keys. PgUp and PdDn are on the numeric keypad as Shift-9 and Shift-3, but unlike my laptop, there's no Fn key. Ctrl-Shift-9 and Ctrl-Shift-3 behave the same as Shift-9 and Shift-3, and won't move a staff. Bart wrote
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...My NWC version is : 2.8 Beta 1...I think we must blame MicroSoft that now blocks the CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE XXX key combination....
Yes, I use Opera. It's open with multiple tabs almost all the time because I have project on the go that uses a webpage that takes a long time to open. I've disabled the extension, but it hasn't done any good. I'll try closing Opera after I finish this message and see what happens... Thanks for digging into this.
There's a clickable toggle in the Toolbars. It looks like a single horizontal line meeting a vertical line which has two horizontal lines running from it.
If you don't see it, right click on a blank space in your File toolbar to call up the menu, select Toolbars, then select File and Customize. Move "Layering in Edit Mode" from the Available tools window to the Active tools window.
has anyone else come up with any more good organizational tips for their composition/engraving work?
You could include the version number and the date printed in the first empty Copyright Notice field or print to PDF and use your PDF program to include this info so the musicians have a visual check during your rehearsals.
One wrinkle, I tried entering the info in Copyright Notice 2 but it would't display in Print Preview until I wrote something in Copyright Notice 1 too.
I'm unable to use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl +Shift +PgUp and Ctrl +Shift +PgDown today to move staffs up or down.
The dropdown menu choices Staff - Move staff... ,Staff - Move Staff Up and Staff - Move Staff Down methods work but the shortcut keys don't.
I thought it might be corrected by closing and reopening the program, but not so. I haven't yet rebooted - I have a LOT of programs on the go, so I'd prefer to hold off on that for now.
Is anyone else experiencing problems with these hotkey combinations at the moment?
One or more layered "conductor" staffs are handy, but you have to be careful what you write in them doesn't collide with the notes in the staffs they're printed with. Flute and piccolo parts are an example of leger line notes that will create mischief when you add text above the conductor staff for something like "Allegro ma non troppo," or you include the title of the upcoming section of a medley.
Similarly, if you add markings below the layered staff, those will collide with leger lines for instruments like bass clarinet, which often go down to written C below middle C.
Multibar rests can be tricky too, since the conductor staff MBRs will have to match the MBRs used in the part you're going to print. A kludge for that would be to have several conductor staffs, each configured to match certain the instrumental parts. It only takes a couple of seconds to make copies of the primary conductor staff, then you can change the copies as needed.
One might say "why bother?" but it's still going to make life easier to have a few customized conductor staffs than entering a whole bunch of otherwise identical marking on every staff in your score.
This type of intro is often found in concert band Christmas and religious music. Often the intro is the last few bars of the piece. These are often marked with the same sort of brackets as a special ending, without the repeat signs or ending numbers. Both the beginning bracket (lower case v) and the end bracket (lower case w) can be created with the Boxmark2 user font but if you use a closed ending in your final bar, you don't need the w,
Steps:
Make a text entry, Boxmark2, v above the staff. You will need to adjust its height to match the special ending line that follows it.
Make another text entry, your usual font but italics: "Intro."
Add a special ending at the same place as the opening bracket, before the word Intro, and uncheck the 1st, 2nd, etc., ending choices. This will give you a horizontal line running the full width of the bar. You can adjust its height with the Vertical Offset box.
In each succeeding bar of the introduction except the last, add a special ending with only "Continue prior ending" checked, and use the same vertical offset as the preceding bar.
In the final bar of the intro, add another special ending with "Continue prior ending" and "Closed ending" selected.
It's not perfect, but this is what you get: !NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single) |Bar|Style:Double |Clef|Type:Treble |Text|Text:"v"|Font:User1|Pos:13.5 |Ending|VertOffset:-4 |Text|Text:"Intro."|Font:StaffItalic|Pos:12.5 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-9 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-10 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-11 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-12 |Bar |Ending|VertOffset:-4 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-9 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-10 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-11 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-12 |Bar |Ending|VertOffset:-4 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-9 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-10 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-11 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-12 |Bar |Ending|ClosedBracket:Y|VertOffset:-4 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-9 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-10 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-11 |Note|Dur:4th|Pos:-12 |Bar|Style:Double !NoteWorthyComposerClip-End
I agree with Rick about right-justifying the text string at a bar line.
One caveat - if the text string is too long and now appears at the end of the first measure of the new staff, if may then spill over the left margin. The solution is to break the text into a couple of shorter text entries: Allegro ma non troppo becomes Allegro [break] ma non troppo.
... The pieces I’m notating are for Clarinet and Piano. The Wind instrument sometimes has long measures of rest. I’m not sure how much to put in for showing the piano part. ...
If I recall correctly, in a clarinet/piano duet, the clarinetist reads a single-instrument chart - just the clarinet system, with appropriate rests during the tacet bars. The piano part has three staffs, with the clarinet line above two piano staffs.
Assuming the piece is a clarinet solo with piano accompaniment, the pianist should play in such a manner that the clarinetist doesn't have a problem counting rests; hence there's no need to put the piano staves on the part printed for the clarinet. Since such arrangements are usually for performance, you can assume both musicians will be well rehearsed and the soloist will not need cue notes nor the equivalent of a full score.
If piano cues are needed for the clarinet, I would suggest the clarinet part employ collapsible staffs so only the last couple of bars of piano solo is printed on the clarinet part. The clarinetist shouldn't need more than a bar or two each time.
I don't have any comments regarding a duet between clarinet and piano where the piano part is more than accompaniment. I don't have any serious thoughts about adding a choral part to the mess, except to comment that too much paper makes for too many page turns, not a problem for a chorister, perhaps, but certainly an issue for the instrumentalists.
I'm preaching to the choir, I know, but I'm mainly replying so users who aren't proficient with NWC yet see my solution to the problem of a system having a few bars running onto a new page.
I sometimes just decrease the size of the staff metrics, say from 16 to 14 (see Page Setup) or decrease the height of each system (F2 for staff properties) so more fit on the pages I want to use.
This sounds awfully complicated for a task that should only take 10 or 15 seconds to do manually.
Insert a forced system break bar line ("section close") at the end of each staff. It will work for the top visible staff only, but that's all you need.
Use print preview, and insert a few more forced system breaks on the last few systems until the part or score looks good.
Usually I put them around 5 or 6 bars from the end, and then 5 or 6 bars before that, and if necessary 5 or 6 bars before that.
Generally that takes care of all the spacing issues.
Without the complexity of trying to tweak spacing everywhere throughout the score.
Thanks, Mike. I'm not worried about it, since I've printed the score already and will be giving it to my conductor on Monday, but if it reveals a glitch in the user object, it might be nice to fix it for subsequent users.
The attached image shows the numbers are on all top system bars until the file is printed.
While the work is POP, copyright still subsists since the arranger died less than 50 years ago, so I will send you the NWC file by personal message.
It would be nice if the custom bar counter object gave a choice for fonts, circles and squares as discussed by hmmeuler and Mike below two years ago.
I really like this object, but minor tweaks would be nice.
Also the "help" could be enhanced - for instance, you can choose "all eligible bars" - what does that mean? On my current score, the bar count prints only at bar 5 of the first page, the first bar of the first system on pages 2 to 5, but then it normalizes on pages 6 to 50. showing on each bar. I thought it had something to do with notes on the first system being in leger-line land, but high notes are on that staff throughout the score.
Let me withdraw the wish. I didn't pick up that just holding the right arrow while in the active (short) staff would scroll everything, as described by Opagust, but it does tonight.
Thanks, Rick. The wheel on my mouse doesn't do that for me (running on Windows 10) - perhaps the mouse is outdated (it's wireless and I've had it for a good 10 or 20 years) but I can scroll by moving the whatchamacallit in the horizontal scroll bar, or simply clicking in the blank space to the right of the whatchamacallit.
It isn't quite what I'm requesting, though. I'm looking to see at a glance what's coming up in the next few bars in the systems above the active staff, without having to change staffs or use a mouse.
Our band received some donated music which is missing a score. It's 353 bars long with parts for the full gamut of concert band instrumentation. It's long out of print, so our conductor asked me if I'd write a score from the parts. Foolishly, I said yes.
Where an instrument has more than one part (i.e., first, second, third, etc.) they often are parallel or at least have the same phrasing, note values, articulations and rhythms. It is convenient to copy from one part to the other and do a little tweaking.
Having copied out the first 10 parts (Sharpeye didn't do very well this time) I'm at about bar 280 in the 11th. The active bar in this 11th part is near the right edge of the edit window so I cannot see what is coming up in the preceding systems that I might copy into the active staff to save time re-notating tricky rhythms and articulations.
I can see potential copyable bars in a preceding part if I move up a system, scroll right, copy what I need, and move back down to the active staff.
It would be really nice if the edit window could be set to scroll right and stop where the active bar is near the left side of the window. That way the following bars in the preceding parts would be visible.
Since not all users would want this, it should be something to toggle on or off.
One for the wish list, I think. Not essential, but nice to have one day.
). Masking tape dries, becomes brittle and breaks.