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Messages - David Palmquist

1851
General Discussion / Re: staves
NWC 1.75a has an alternative way to enable layering rather than use the Page Setup menu.  Use the dropdown View menu instead, and click Allow Layering.

You must still set the staff properties using the F2 feature.
1852
General Discussion / Re: chord with triplets
Ori, I am offended by your remark in Reply 13.

I can't speak for Mr. Soulquist, but I took the time to read your question and experiment with NWC to see if I could find a solution for you.  I have been a contributor to this forum for several years, and when I think I can help someone, I post a message.  I also participate in any discussions that catch my attention.

I could not find a solution to your problem, but I read subsequent messages on the topic to see what I could learn and how I could possibly help.

This brought me to your Reply 6 and Ewan's Reply 7.  You triggered the "dialect" discussion started by Ewan.

I participated in that discussion; I did not start it.  I don't know who Mr. Soulquist is, but his comments and mine have so far been within the context of Ewan's reply.

You made a spelling mistake in your Reply 13.  Take a look at Theodore's Reply 14.  His comment is an excellent example of a "pun," in other words, using English words in a humourous way.

You wrote that you are not a native English speaker.  Assuming you wish to communicate occasionally in English, instead of being irritaded by trivial matters that are peripheral to your topic, why not learn something about the language as it is used in various parts of the world?
1853
General Discussion / Re: chord with triplets
Metric dating is not yet in vogue in my neck of the woods, Gary, but some people use it and it certainly makes sense.  The nice things are that it absolutely removes ambiguity and it can be extended to include the 24hr clock, showing hour, minute, second if desired.
1854
General Discussion / Re: chord with triplets
Weighing in from Canada here.  We try to very hard to maintain our cultural identity by retaining British spellings and date forms (it is now 5/12/03 here, but 12/5/03 in the US). It is difficult to do so when we are inundated with American reading materials, and the great, all powerful Microsoft doesn't encourage language preferences.

Unfortunately, we were never taught minims, crotchets, etc. when I took music lessons 40 years ago.  I did hear about them, but they were just touched on in my older sister's music, and all she told me about was a neat word:

"hemidemisemiquaver"

That was scary enough without having to know a crotchet - which sounds to me like the casual name of an irritable old man.

Ewan, I as a Canadian reader truly appreciated you writing:
"crotchet triplet (quarter note...)" and "minim (half note)."  The English (as in England) expressions simply are not in common use in Canada, and your explanation is very helpful.

I wish I could recripocate but I don't have the language to do so when I'm talking about many note values.  Maybe one day...
1855
General Discussion / Re: NWC 2004?
Assuming you want the rest bars to show, it's not that painful.  You just enter the whole rest and the next bar line, highlight it and copy it to your clipboard (Ctrl-C).  Next hit "end" to move to the end of the line, and paste it as much as you want using Ctrl-V.  If you hold Ctrl-V down, you'll get dozens/scores/hundreds? of bars of rests in a couple of seconds.

Assuming you don't want them to show, once you've placed the first, make it hidden, then do the same copy/paste routine.

Then go to the Scriptorium and download user font Boxmark2 or Boxmarks.  Install it as a font in Windows, and then in NWC's File-Page Setup, Fonts, modify one of the user fonts to be the Boxmark2 or Boxmark font.  The opening and closing square parentheses on your qwerty keyboard will give you the beginning and end of multibar rest sign as text.  Pad it with blank space, toggle width preserved, and enter it at the end of bar 1 in a 2 bar rest, or at the beginning of bar 3 in a longer rest.

This works decently for printing out single parts.  If you need to print out more than one staff though, you will want to have the single measure rests visible on the one staff in any bar where the companion staff has notes.
1856
General Discussion / Re: Can we show drum beats as x! format rather than o! format?
I think they're slash notes are more commonly known as comping notes.  They are a forward slash mark ( / ), and can be by themselves, or have a stem or a stem with a flag.  Doesn't really matter. I've encountered them so far in guitar charts, also in piano charts that I've been copying out.  It would be nice to see them in NWC.
1857
General Discussion / Re: What is a Tenor Clef?
Hi John,
Interesting discussion in your reply 26.

Also, in reply 27, I too am Canadian.  While it may be a common British term, it is only in the last few years that I've seen "whinge."

I have never encountered "hingeing" or "singeing" so I can't pick up on the pronunciation of "whingeing" by reference to those terms.  Are you saying, in effect, that "whinge" rhymes with "hinge" and "singe?"

One on-line dictionary seems to indicate the expression is derived from "whine."  Another defines it as the v.i. of "to whine."  Roget's online thesaurus shows it as a synonym for "whine."

"Hyperdictionary" shows the pronunciation to be "winj," that being the case, it is not a homonym of "whine," although the expressions seem to be somewhat synonymous.

"Hyperdictionary" shows "whinge" as being an entry in Webster's 1913 dictionary, so it's obviously been around for a while.  When do you first recall noticing it in the Canadian print media?  I suspect its use is a recent affectation in our newspapers attributable to the availability of electronic dictionaries and style books.
1858
General Discussion / Re: Trills and Broken Chords?
Glad you like my signature, Gary.

You're right about the 128th.  I miscounted the flags.

Some user fonts have text based sharp and flat signs, those could be used to get around the accidental problem in the grace notes versus the chord.

I agree, however, that the hidden staff works better with accidentals.  In fact, it works better without accidentals too.

I would show just the chord, muted, on the main staff, and use the grace notes with the chord on the hidden staff for playback.  That way the grace notes will rob time from the chord.
1859
General Discussion / Re: Trills and Broken Chords?
Several of the user fonts ( Boxmark2, Boxmarks and NWCOrn) that you can get from the Scriptorium

http://nwc-scriptorium.org/

have a symbol that can be inserted as text ahead of the note.

For playing the sound back, use hidden grace notes for each element of the chord, in front of the chord itself, with each note tied to the chord, and the entire group slurred.  The grace notes can be set to 32nd, 64th or even 128th notes (for this you have to use the mouse, or make a 64th, highlight it and press the minus sign).
1860
General Discussion / Re: Problems after diminuendos
Forget the mpc, Greg.  Just use ordinary dynamics.

The first occurence of the passage, you have mf, dim and pp.  Most "correct" instrumentalists playing the printed part will stay at pp until they see another dynamic instruction.  The second decrescendo is probably incorrect in theory, unless the intent is to go from pp to ppp in this diminuendo.

If you want the dim. to start from mf instead of from pp, you need to show it to the musician reading the part.

NWC's logic is the same.  It will start the second decrescendo from the volume of the dynamic preceding it.  You need to insert the mf dynamic before the diminuendo to give NWC a starting volume for the dynamic change.

While I don't think you should do so (and I'm probably wrong anyway about the theory) you could enter the mf symbol, and set its visibility to "never" (highlight the dynamic symbol, use Ctrl-E and the Visibility tab).

Doesn't answer your concern about the MPC, but MPC is fairly complicated and why go that route if you can accomplish the same effect another, easier way?
1861
General Discussion / Re: Triplets
I think it's rather unusual to have a triplet crossing from one bar to another; not sure I've ever seen it.

On another note, your English is fine.
1862
General Discussion / Re: NWCjazz font vs. NWC (regular) font
"jazz font flags be greater "  was not a typo with the fingers, just a mental typo.  Sorry, Damon.

I dont' imagine you need workarounds, since you're obviously very familiar with the program, but for those who aren't quite so used to it, another option that some might like to use is to have separate staffs for each 4 bar example (use Ctrl-A to add a staff).

The advantages are that each staff could be labelled with the particular point you're trying to make, such as key name, and the label could be printed, and if the exercise is the same sequence of notes repeated in different keys, it's easier to just copy, paste and transpose than to copy these notes on the original staff, mark a system break, add a key signature and transpose each four bars manually.
1863
General Discussion / Re: so simple I can't find out how to make new staff
Or just press Ctrl-A.  The new staff will be added to the bottom of your score.  To move any staff up or down, move to it using Page Up or Page Down, then use Control-Page Up or Control-Page Down to move it to where you want it.

There are a few options for bar lines - upper and lower grand staffs, where bar lines connect the two staffs; standard, where they don't.  These must be set for each staff separately - move to the particular staff, and press F2 for staff property settings.
1864
General Discussion / Re: NWCjazz font vs. NWC (regular) font
I haven't looked at the jazz font, but I noticed in the ordinary font, space required differs with flagged notes when switching from stems up to stems down.  Could the horizontal space req'd for the jazz font flags be greater than the other font?
1865
General Discussion / Re: .bak files
To actually complete the rename action, in Explorer, highlight the file name in the right hand window, then either press F2 or Alt-File, Rename.

You can also rename the same way from My Computer, if it exists in XP .
1866
General Discussion / Re: What is a Tenor Clef?
In defence of whining (it is only in recent years I've seen whine spelt whinge), the advantage of having transposing (treble clef) instruments is that when you move from one member of an instrument family to another, you keep the same fingering for the note you see on the page.

Reading everything in concert pitch would require clarinetists who play Bb, Eb and A clarinets to know at least three different sets of fingerings for a particular pitch, and to remember which one to use for the particular instrument. I say "sets" of fingerings because several individual notes have two or more alternate fingerings already.  A concert pitch middle C# has 3 legitate fingerings on a Bb soprano clarinet.  The same pitch would have to be fingered differently on an A clarinet,** and a third fingering yet again on an alto clarinet, and yet another fingering on bass clarinet, two if the instrument has the extra G#/D# key for the left pinkie.

** I am not sure about my transposition, but I think a C# concert is an F# written for A clarinet?  If so, this note has two legit fingerings.
1868
General Discussion / Re: No Sound Card response
Did you go through the troublemaker dialogue (oops, troubleshooter)?

(The skippy/choppy playback thing - I wonder if it could be that your hard disk needs to be defragmented?)

There is another thing that worked for me once when I was using Windows Media Player 7.  Go to Tools, Options, CDAudio and see if turning off Digital playback does any good.

See if you can download freeware called EndItAll - you might have to search Google.com for it, or it might be in the PCMagazie site.  It allows you to see several of the background programs that are running that don't show up in the Close Program window that pops up when you hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

You can then look up the names of ones you don't recognize in the Task List at http://www.answersthatwork.com/  (You might find a useful driver there too.)

Check this out:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article01-420

and then go here too:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/category07

While the following site is intended for debugging problems that arise with one product, some of the FAQs might be helpful generally:  http://www.comprousa.com/support/faq/sound.htm

I think I found this site to be pretty handy once, too:
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_content.php

I just found this, and it looks to be a useful page:
http://www.midiworld.com/forum/forum.html

There are many more resources, I'm sure, but I'm going to stop with one last one for now - Microsoft's own support page for win98:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;w98

Good luck.
1869
General Discussion / Re: No Sound Card response
Check your sound settings - if you're in Windows, you can right-click on the little speaker icon in the system tray, and that will bring up Volume Controls.  If you're in Win98, you get Play Control, and in there, if you click Options, you should also get recording controls.

You also need to check Audio Properties to see that you have installed the preferred playback and recording devices.

One of the first places to check for help is simply, go to your desktop, press F1 for help, select the troubleshooting dialogue and work through it.
1870
General Discussion / Re: To trumpets, clarinets and saxophones
I think you're reaching a bit, Steve, but you could be right about what Barbra is trying to say (grin).

The A key (concert G): - I've been playing clarinet for just about 40 years, and have seldom had a problem with it.  Where there is a problem, it's usually either a worn out pad or the adjustment screw for the G# key that crosses it needs to be turned a little.

The low F key is pretty solidly made too.  I guess it could go out of whack, but the horn would have to be abused big-time.  I can see the bridge key getting knocked out of whack if you forget to raise it when putting the upper and lower joints together, but most other keys on the standard soprano clarinets are pretty bulletproof.

That's not the same for a bass clarinet, because the keys and rods are longer, more susceptible to being bent and the linkages, designed by Rube Goldberg, are also easy to wreck.

By the way, what does Barbra mean by a "brack band?"
1871
General Discussion / Re: To trumpets, clarinets and saxophones
Didn't know clarinets have a G key as such.  Are you talking about the ring key used by the third finger of the right hand?

I assume by the Eb key you mean the 4th space Eb?  Or the first line Eb?  If the latter, there are 3 fingerings, one involving a ring key in the right hand, one involving the lowest sidekey, and the third being the little key that sits between the second and third finger holes.

Whatever, the keys may not be broken; they could be bent; you might not have correctly aligned the bridge; or the pads could be leaking.

When assembling the clarinet, always hold the keys of the upper joint down before placing it on the lower joint.  Then the key will clear the other half of the bridge.  If you don't do this, you risk damaging the instrument.
1872
General Discussion / Re: MIDI mapper
I think I read somewhere quite a while ago that MidiMapper hasn't been part of Windows since Windows 95.

As long as each staff is set to a separate channel I think you can just save the Noteworthy file as a midi type 1 file.

You can set the properties for the active staff by pressing F2.
1874
General Discussion / Re: concert band templates
There will always be a particular "colour" instrument that someone, somewhere, plays and for which some composer wants to write a part.

Bass saxes are not extremely common in concert bands.  Are they used frequently in marching bands today?  How are they carried (they're kinda large...)?

For those who don't know how big they are, here's a picture of Otto ("Toby") Hardwick playing one in the Duke Ellington Orhestra in London in 1933.
http://www.hapa2.com/Duke/images/palladium%20&%20duke%20ellington.jpg

(You may have to cut and paste if the hyperlink isn't complete)
1876
General Discussion / Re: concert band templates
Start by deciding if you want a short score or a full score.  Then decide if you want the score to be in concert pitch or transposed.

Make a staff for each instrument - higher instruments are at the top.  Insert a blank staff between each grouping of instruments, make all the other staffs have staff properties that include orchestral bar lines.

You'll need to confirm the score order, but I think it's:
Piccolo
Flutes (1,2)
Oboe (1 or 1,2)
Eb clarinet
Bb clarinets (1,2,3)
Eb Alto clarinet
Bb Bass clarinet (possible 1,2 but more often, just one)

Bassoons (1,2)

Saxes -
soprano,
alto 1,
alto 2,
tenor (sometimes tenor 1 and 2, but not often)
baritone

Trumpets and cornets (1,2,3, sometimes 1,2,3,4)
French horns (usually 1,2,3,4)
Baritone t.c. and b.c.
Trombones (1,2,3,4?)
Tubas

Percussion (as many lines as you need)including tymps.

Please check all of this against a real score- I wrote this from memory, and I've never conducted.
1877
General Discussion / Re: Doubel Flats And Double Sharps
I think we're all on the same page.  I particularly appreciated Ewan's explanation related to chords.  I'm a reed player so don't read notated chords often, but Ewan makes sense.

To sum up for Chris, the composer's challenge is to make it as easy as possible for the musician to read the music.  Some musicians will be sightreading it, perhaps even sightreading in performance, and the notes go by awful fast - legit piano music, orchestral, jazz, pit orchestra, etc.

The double sharps and flats are just conventions that will assist you in communicating the substance of your music to those who will try to perform it.  Most musicians who read western music know most of the written musical language, and those who don't understand x or bb will soon learn when they encounter it.

(Ertugrul reads western music too - grin)
1878
General Discussion / Re: Doubel Flats And Double Sharps
Forget all this theory stuff.  In jazz notation, let's say you've got a bunch of 8th notes in B major (there are 5 sharps in that key - F#, C#, G#, D#, A#.

It may be that you want to play an accidental natural (an accidental is a note that isn't in the scale you're using).

A rule is that you don't have to write sharp or flat signs if the sharp or flat note is part of the scale you're using.  If you use an accidental, all other notes in the same bar at the same vertical posiiton on the staff will be changed until you use another accidental sign, but you don't have to write the sharp or flat again.

So let's say you want to write a bunch of 8th notes that alternate between G sharp and G natural.  You're in B major, so by default, all the G notes in the bar will be sharp unless an accidental is used.

You might write G (which is sharp), G natural, G#,G natural, G#,G natural, G#,G natural.

That's a hassle, takes up lots of space, and is hard for the eye to follow when you're reading music.

It may be easier and take less space to write just

G, XF, G, F, G, F, G, F

The G is sharp due to the key signature, the x means double sharp.  It only needs to be written once because the following F's will also be doublesharp until an accidental or a bar line intervenes.  So instead of adding 7 natural and sharp signs to the bar, you just use the note below and use the double sharp sign one time.  You've saved space and made a neater product.

Same principle applies for double flats, denoted by 2 flat signs (bb).
1879
General Discussion / Re: Doubel Flats And Double Sharps
Am I the first coastal Canadian to see this thread?  (Fred lives in the interior - they deserve winter there).  White stuff doesn't hit us often on the west coast.  Trees are still green, leaves just starting to turn and fall.  Back east ('central Canada'), the hills are likely still ablaze with autumn colours.

Hate to boast, but our gallon was 5/4 the size of the US gallon.  When we wanted a jug of liquor, we got a jug!

We went metric in 1974.  Get used to it.

It's not all bad.  When we drive at 100 km/h you guys are only doing 62 mph.  We may not be going faster, but our speedometers look more impressive showing 3 digits.

And it's quite mild here when the temperature is below zero.
1880
General Discussion / Re: barring with a rest
I wonder if Bill 1 means he loses the beam when he tinkers with a dotted 8th/16th beamed group.  If so, the answer is likely as simple as beaming after tinkering.  Just highlight the new note group, and press Ctrl-B.
1882
General Discussion / Re: Creating Staves/Texts between Staves/Text Fonts /Guitar Chords
1.  Whenever you have two or more staves, NWC will connect them on the left in both the edit and print preview windows.  This is correct behaviour and there's no way around it.  If what you're looking for is a few grouped staves, a blank space, and more grouped staves, then you probably should create two song files, and adjust the margins to make your idea work.  Something else you can try is to use the copy feature in the print preview window to create a metafile that can be pasted into the appropriate places in a word processing file.  Do this with each song.  I haven't had much luck, but my word processor software was designed for Win95 and I run Win98.  You may have better luck with newer, more compatible software.

2.  I think your solution is to use a word processor and paste images in as described in 1. above.

3.  All text entries can be set to any of 12 fonts.  Go to Edit/Page Setup and choose the Fonts tab. If you wish to change the font for a particular font setting, just select it and then click modify on that tab.

4.  Guitar chord symbols are not supported by NWC, but you can workaround entering chord names by using a hidden layered staff and the lyric feature.  Go to the staff that you want to place chord symbols on, and use F2 to set it for "layer with next staff."

Then create a new staff (Ctrl A), move it to just below the original staff.  On this new staff, press {Ctrl L} to open the lyric editor.  Set the Line Count to to 1, Alignment to Top, then click on the first lyric tab.  Type your chord names in - leave a space between them. I recommend starting a new line whenever you are at a rehearsal letter - it's easier to find mistakes that way. Close the lyric editor ("okay").

You now have a blank staff without chord symbols showing yet.  Fill the first measure with quarter rests.  Hide them (highlight them, then Ctrl E, Visibility Never).Copy the entire staff ad nauseum, by highlighting it, Ctrl C, then Ctrl V until you have enough bars for your song.

Next, go to where you want the first (or next) chord symbol to appear, and replace the hidden rest with a hidden, muted quarter note (create the note, then use Ctrl E to set the note properties.  Just paste this first note over top of the rests you want it to appear on.

Finally, go to File, Page Setup and toggle "allow layering."  Your chord staff will be superimposed on the target staff, but since it's hidden, all that will show are the chord symbols above the staff.
1883
General Discussion / Re: Bad format when using Pick Up Notes
I see Jaicket wrote his question some years ago.  Hope he found his answer.

Today, it is simply this.

If your song starts with a pickup note, pad the beginning of that measure with rests to make it a full measure.  Then highlight the rests, use the properties command and hide them.  On page setup, make the bar count start at 0.

To set your line breaks, highlight the bar line that you want to be at the end of a line, press Control E, and set the force system break option.

I think this answers all the questions raised by Jaicket. I can't remember if these features were part of NWC back in 1999...but the magic of Noteworthy is that Eric and his crew are continually improving it.
1884
General Discussion / Re: WISH LIST
If you use the lyric editor, the job is easier.  Create a new staff immediately below the one you want to have chord symbols on.

Open the lyric editor for it (Ctrl-L), choose line count 1, Alignment Top, and then select the Lyric 1 tab.

There, enter all your chord names in upper case except for lower case b for a flat sign.  If there's a natural breaking point on the staff,  press enter when you've finished writing the chords to that point, so the chord after the rehearsal letter will start on a new line in this window.  This makes it easier to find and fix mistakes later.

Close the lyric editor, and fill it with quarter rests and bar lines, sufficient to match the length of the song.  Then wherever you want a chord symbol, replace the rest with a quarter note (any pitch will do).  Every time you enter a note, the next chord symbol will appear in that spot.

Once you've got them all done, mute the staff and make all its elements invisible, go to the staff you want the lyrics to match.  Press F2,and set staff properties to Layer With Next Staff. Back in Page Setup select Allow Layering.

Your chords will appear where you want them.

Now to transpose them, here's a workaround.  Open the lyric editor, copy all the chord names, open a word processing document and do a search/replace routine.  Make sure you select "match case."

Assuming you want to transpose up one tone, start with replacing all G's with H, then F with G, then E with F, etc., and finally all H with A.  If you don't use H and don't follow this order strictly, you will scew it up.

Good luck, it takes more time to describe the procedure than to do it.
1888
General Discussion / Re: Opening files
Re reply 2 Orson's problem - losing sound when running more than one session of NWC:

I run Win98 - my experience has always been that you can open and run NWC several times (don't know why you'd want to, but it happens) - the sound works fine on the first session to have been opened, but it takes control over the sound gizmos, and the second, third, fourth sessions can't run the thingamebobs and doohickeys needed for sound.

Sorry for the technical language.

I used to have Windows ME but upgraded bigtime by reverting to Win98 which I had before - I find it much more stable - I'm annoyed that I spent the money to upgrade to ME in the first place.
1890
General Discussion / Re: I'm not hearing any sound!
I borrowed a magazine from the barber a couple of weeks ago that was very helpful.  It has several articles (total 14 pages) on Sound & Multimedia, discussing various things that can be wrong and how to fix them.

The magazine is TROUBLESHOOTING WINDOWS part of SMART COMPUTING LEARNING SERIES published by SANDHILLS PUBLISHING.  The magazine is undated but is marked as copyrighted 2002.

If you can buy it, great, or perhaps your library will have a copy or can get one on interlibrary loan.

The magazine has a website !www.smartcomputing.com which looks fairly comprehensive, and there are links at this page that may help you:

http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/category.asp?otid=0&searchqa=1&catid=6&wordlist=&searchtype=0&sort=0&ETID=2&ETID=3&ETID=5&ETID=4&ETID=6&ETID=9&articleYear=current&DF=&DT=&ETID=7&ETID=8&guid=np6eimye
1893
General Discussion / Re: I get no sound now
One other thing to try - if you're using Windows MediaPlayer, some versions have a button to turn on and off digital playback.  Check Tools, Options.
1895
General Discussion / Re: note values
Further to William's reply, if you use the quarter note and the whole note in the same chord, I think you have to enter the quarter note first.
1896
General Discussion / Re: arranging strings
Notes are entered by selecting a duration with the numeric keys 1 to 6 and pressing Enter.  Rests are done the same way, but press Space instead.  Articulations, dynamics, bar lines, etc. are selected with various key combinations, most of which show in the drop down Insert and Notes menus.

Hope this helps.  It's hard to know from your question whether you're someone with little musical background, or if you're just new to the NWC program. If you don't know your music theory, you might use Google.com to search for online tutorials or find a teacher - private lessons, or perhaps night school courses?  NWC isn't the place to learn it.  You can experiment with finding note combinations that sound right to you, but music on a computer isn't going to sound the same as live instruments unless you've got a really good sound system and good sound fonts installed.

Your last question is, which instrument goes where?  Violin 1 goes on the top staff of the template, violin 2 on the second line, viola on the third, and cello on the fourth.  You can add a new staff for a string bass, and delete the cello, if that's the makeup of your quartet.  The program is very user-friendly in this regard.  Control A adds a staff, Control D removes it, F2 allows for you to change the staff properties.
1897
General Discussion / Re: Recording MIDI
I'd answer, but my midi keyboard has never worked, so I really don't know what you need to do.  I suggest you press the Search button above these messages and search for Recording Midi.  You'll find the issues been discussed a few times.  Hope this is helpful.
1898
General Discussion / Re: I get no sound now
Start with the obvious.  Absolutely silly thing to worry about, but wires to get tripped on, buttons get pressed.  So make sure your speakers are turned on and not unplugged from the computer.  If everythings connected, go back into NWC and play the music again (F5).  If you can't hear anything, the next thing is look at your NWC midi settings.

Choose Tools / Options.  Check the midi tab.  It may be hidden off to the right - if so, just press control and tab until it shows up. Make sure there is a device shown in the Devices used by playback window.  If there isn't, there should be some in the left window you can select and move.

Once you've done that, go back to your score, press F5 and see if you can hear anything.  If not, check to see what might be muted - just press m.  If nothing is marked, then go to a few single notes in each staff, and check note properties (Control-E, notes tab, is the mute box empty?)

Next, check your settings for Windows.  Perhaps the best thing to do is use Windows Help Trouble-shooting for that.  Go to your desktop, press F1, find Trouble-shooting, and just follow the interactive dialogue.

Good luck.
1899
General Discussion / Re: last two things
Rather than have a few orphaned bars at the top of a new page, you might fit the score onto fewer pages by fiddling with the size of the notes (File / Page Set Up / Options / Staff size) and choose smaller notes.  A setting of 26, which seems to be the default in the piano template, is probably needed by the visually impaired, but I think you'll find a setting of 16 is very satisfactory, or even 14 or 12.

You might also try adjusting the number of staffs that will fit on a page by adjusting the staff height settings.  I assume you're using the template for piano scores.

Go to the top staff, press F2, choose the Visual tab, and reduce the Vertical Size Upper from 18 (default) to 16 (you could try smaller numbers as well, keep fiddling until you get the size you want).

With less space between staffs, you'll get more on a page, and your pianist will appreciate one less page to turn.

Both ideas, together or separately, should help with your orphaned staffs problem.  Good luck.

You also wrote "I promise I won't disturb you any
more after this"  Forget it.  This is what the forum is for.  Your questions are needed, because you can bet your bottom dollar there's someone else somewhere out here in Noteworthyland who is struggling with the same problem.  We all learn from the questions and the answers, and soon you'll find yourself helping other users.
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General Discussion / Re: prodikeys keyboard
It looks like an idea whose time has come.  The systems requirements page seems to confirm a soundblaster card comes with the keyboard.

Inputting might be a little disappointing for those who haven't tried using a music keyboard for inputs before - my own experience, not being a pianist, was that I could never get the duration of the notes right, so I'd end up with a midi file in NWC that had all sorts of unwanted 16th and 32nd notes, and I'd have to do a lot of editing.  If you're good with a keyboard though, the gadget seems to be a brilliant idea.

My suggestion would be to buy it from a music store rather than online, and see if they'll let you try out the demo unit in store before you buy.

And don't go to try it out, then save a couple of bucks ordering it online - that's cheating the retailer.