Skip to main content

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all Show Posts made by this member. Note that you can only see Show Posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - J.H. Sportel

1
General Discussion / Re: Need Alphabetic/Musical font
I am very happy with the Tekton Pro font (commercial), or alternatively Technical font (free). The letter "b" is adequate for representing the flat-sign.

In one of the discussions I found the tric to enter chord-symbols as text in a seperate Staff, staff placement top. It is the fastest way to do the job, in my experience.
2
General Discussion / Re: Different number of staffs to be printed in one song
Hello, it's been long since I spent some time on the forum.

I am no great IT-specialist who is able to tackle the mentioned problem. I do, however, like the possibility that staffs are not printed when empty. I myself, for instance, write the music, which my wife composes, for SATB quartet. Sometimes there is a solo, or an instrumental introduction. Then it is silly to print the rests of all the other voices.

In my quest for a solution I stumbled on a notationsoftware called "Bladmuziek 2.4" by barkusoff (www.barkusoff.nl). This programme gives the opportunity of not printing the staffs when empty. In my opinion that is the only advantage in comparison to NWC. I tried it for 1 day but NWC is still the best. Especially after the latest upgrade. Entering notes and texts is superior to that of any other programme I know, e.g. Finale, Notations, Bladmuziek.

Perhaps one of the smart guys is able to discover the tric and to implement it in NWC?

3
Tips & Tricks / Re: Another way to add lyrics to a song.
I agree, this is also a way to produce lyrics to a song. There is one major drawback: you have to create for each seperate line an individual textexpression. My method makes is possible to produce an entire textblock, collum wise.

I puzzles me that in Adobe the print is not readable. Perhaps it is because your Adobe version is not up to date?

4
Tips & Tricks / Re: Another way to add lyrics to a song.
In addition to my earlier remarks. Since I now am able to post also attached documents I put some.

there are two examples, both are versions of the Dutch National Anthem. Yes, I'm Dutch, and they say: If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much.

Oké. You find atached an NWC file with four verses underneath the notes. This is to little, since the Dutch Anthem has 15 verses (in dutch). So that is were the second file is about. This is made by
- "printing" via PDF-creator
- editing in PDF Xchange viewer

7
Tips & Tricks / Another way to add lyrics to a song.
Today I "invented" another way to add lyrics to a song.

In NWC we can add lyrics by "telling" how many lyric lines we want the song to have. In each tab you can enter text. There is, however, a drawback, since each syllable needs to be separated by a hyphen. Ty-ping such text is dif-fi-cult to do and prone for mis-takes.

In songbooks you allways find the lyric of the first verse underneath the notes, the verses 2 and further are printed below the song. This can be achieved in your own computer too.

First you need a programme which alows you to print to a PDF-file. I suggest PDF-creator, downloadable from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator

Second you need a programme called: PDF Xchange viewer. This can be downloaded for free from http://www.docu-track.com/ (O, do I like this free software). Save it on your computer, install it and even you can choose it as your preferred PDF-viewer instead of Adobe Reader.

Now comes the trick.


Create your song, with one verse. Save it as a NWC-file. Print it to PDF-creator. Open it with PDF-XChange Viewer. In PDF-XChange Viewer is an possibility to add text with a typewriter. With this typewriter you can add the rest of the verses. You can change the font according to your own wihishes, as well as the size. I find this programme monkey proof and it has a simple help file.

Then save this file.

I hope you're happy with this.
8
General Discussion / Re: Chord Names
I wrote an answer on this topic. You can find it listed under Topic: Entering Sharps and Flats for Chord Symbols with the NWC Font

In short: you can get alternative fonts - suitable for printing chord names like F#min en Bflat.

Need I to add that you need to manage the expression placement/staff position to 9 or 10 or so.

9
General Discussion / Tied notes into and across special endings
I wonder how I can improve the looks of sustained, slurred of tied notes when there is a first ending with a master repeat followed by a second ending. The first notes of first measure of the second ending consist of those tied notes.

I invented a trick myself, but I hope some of you guys of girls have better looking plans.

My trick: I invent a note of the same pitch, put its visibility to "never", and its sound to "mute". I give it a slur/tie as well. Then I put the notes that need to be seen and heard. In printing it looks a bit like I want it to be. However, the slur/tie looks a bit too "short".


10
General Discussion / Re: NWC to PDF again
You're welcome.

Did I mention already that it is possible to create your own booklets/programme/prospectus. In short.

- create a frontpage in any word processing programme
- create your musicfile.

  • Print one document to PDF-creator and click << wait >>, somewhere in the left bottom corner;
    then print the next document to PDF-creator;
    then select all files in the list;
    then select << document >> - there is a pull down menu, and select << combine >>
    if necessary you can change the order before that.
After combining you print one document, consisting of all seperate files, to your hard disk. It works fine with me.


The trick is nice when you want to impress others with your composing skills.

11
General Discussion / Re: NWC to PDF again
Printing to a PDF-file is easy since I discovered a free PDF-creator programme on the internet. It works as follows.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

use the above link to download the installation software. Save this on your computer. Once saved you can double click it to start installation.

this software works as an extra printer on your computer. Instead of printing to a printer you now print to pdf-creator. It creates a pdf-file which can be saved on your hard disk.

This programme has also the possibility of combining several files to one pdf-file.

Advantage is that you can use these pdf-files for sending your music to friends and others who don't have any NWC software.
12
Tips & Tricks / Chord Symbols
I don't bother with chord symbols at all. I use a font which come with the demo version of "Sibelius"-software. This can be downloaded from: http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/download/get.pl?com=sh&prod=sibdemo.

After installing this demo some fonts are automatically incorporated in your Windows Fonts eg Opus Chord, Opus Chord Sans etc. These fonts are very useful in putting chord symbols in your compositions.

In page setup you can change one of the fonts in one of the above.