Solution!! 5 notes in the time of 4

1998-02-11 05:00 am

This is long and involved and longwinded but I just want to be precise, with little chance of anyone misinterpreting the directions.

When you need to beam a group of 2, 4, 5, 6,7,8 or whatever in the time of another, say 2 in the time of 3 or 5 in the time of 4, although noteworthy doesn't let you do it directly, you can work around the problem. I had this difficulty along with several other situations where things wouldn't line up and I was bound and determined to find a solution.

For a group of beamed notes, just beam them together in the normal method. Position the cursor to the left of the group of notes as well as at the height above the beam that you want. Press " X " (without the quotes) to invoke the 'insert text' mode. Enter a couple of spaces and then the number of notes in the group so that the actual text field looks something like
" 5".
Make sure that "Preserve Width" is NOT turned on. For FONTS choose "Staff Italic" so that it will be the size and shape of other things, such as triplet markings, that display. When you click on OK the number sould now appear somewhere over the middle of your group of notes. Don't just trust this to be where it will actaully print in your final printout. HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART. When Noteworthy prints a line of print on a page, it positions the bar lines at the begining and ends of the line, so that everything on that line looks nice and pretty. However it also means that a group of 16th notes on one line is probably spaced differently than a group of sixteenths on another line. However, any text that you enter will always print at the same distance, no matter which line. Wait until your printout is ready to print. All of your notes must be entered, etc. Now click on FILE - PRINT PREVIEW. Noteworthy will display how the page will look when it does print. ZOOM ALL THE WAY IN, AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU CLICK ON THE LITTLE BUTTON TO MAXIMIZE THE DISPLAY, BECAUSE THERE IS A ZOOM FACTOR THAT OCCURS HERE AS WELL. You can't see very much of the page here but you can see EXACTLY what the spacing will be. Unless you zoom ALL THE WAY you won't see the exact spacing. Now scroll through the page untill you can see the part of the bar that has the little group of beamed notes. If your number now displays over the center of your group then you're laughing. If it doesn't line up, try to figure out how many more or less spaces would be needed to align things. Click on DONE to get out of Print Preview mode. Highlight the little diamond that is used as a handle for the text you inserted for the number over the notes. Once it is selected press CTRL-E and up pops the editor for the text already in the printout. Add or delete the number of spaces you figured out before, click OK, and go back into Print Preview mode to check the new spacing. DON"T FORGET TO ZOOM ALL THE WAY IN INCLUDING MAXIMIZING THE PREVIEW WINDOW. If everything lines up, great. If not, go back and add or delete any spaces. You can also adjust the height above the beamed group that it prints. Voila, you're done.

Except that the next bar line of the staff that you're working on has moved over because ther are too many notes in the bar. You will have to go to all other staffs and insert blank spaces with "Preserve Width" turned on, in order to make the bar lines line up again.

I know that this seems like a whole lot of trouble to go to. Once you have done it once or twice, however, you get the hang of it quickly. The results are well worth it. If you have a pentium you can scroll through Print Preview nice and quickly. But, if you're using a 386 it scolls DEATHLY slow.

Now you are faced with the problem of playback. I haven't tried this with more than 1 staff at a time, but I know that it works with one staff. You need to select the entire contents of the staff, copy it to the clipboard, Insert a new blank staff, and then paste the contents of the clipboard to the new staff. Don't forget to set up the staff properties for your instument choice. Mute the original staff which now looks correct. In the new staff goto the bar with the unusual time feature. Let's say that the tune is in 4/4 time and the tempo is quarter note = 100. How's you math? At that tempo, a sixteenth = 400. Except that now you have 5 in the space of 4. The sixteent note value must now be = 500. At quarter =120 a regular sixteenth = 500. So for the duration of your special feature you must change the tempo to quarter = 120. But only for 5 sixteenths. Any part of the bar before or after needs to be at the original tempo. You need to change the tempo just before the unusual beat and then change it back right after. Wow, listen to that cool lick.

This method for adjusting the display of notes works well for putting things such as accent markings ABOVE a stem pointing up. Just decide on your font size, and whether you want it bold or not.

Hope this helps anybody with this problem.

Warren Barnett
wbarnett@yesic.com

Re: Solution!! 5 notes in the time of 4

Reply #1 – 1998-02-13 05:00 am

You'll find that, as you may have expected, this won't
work with more than 1 staff. I haven't tried it either,
but I know what will happen.

Because tempo applies to all the staves, you'll end up
altering the tempo of the other staves that contain
"normal" note values.

The only way to get around this problem is to really do
the math and compute the actual note values. This could
involve getting down to the 64th note level. If it takes
more, you can change the base note value and change the
tempo to make it sound right.

For example, 5 against 4 eighth notes could be done by
5 occurrences of 4 32nd notes each against 4 occurrences of
5 32nd notes each (appropriately tied to one another),
with the tempo adjusted to make the total of 20 32nd notes
occupy the same time period as 16 of them normally would.

Or something like that.

- seb