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Topic: Combining Staves/Stems (Read 3922 times) previous topic - next topic

Combining Staves/Stems

I've tried searching and reading some posts, but they often don't address to my problems or I don't understand them. Please direct me to such a post if it's already been answered.

Basically my problem is I opened a .mid file, I ended up with 1 base line (which is okay) and 2 treble lines (which is not okay). I want to combine those two, and I did by merging the layers or something. But the stems stick in the wrong way, here and there, and aren't connected into a 2+ note chord. Is there a way to change this? I'm really new to this program, so any suggestions would be helpful. Thank you. :)

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #1 –
There are two ways to change stem direction.  First select the note (or group of notes).  A right click on the mouse will give you a number of attributes you can change OR shift and either up arrow or down arrow will change stem direction.
Since 1998

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #2 –
Thanks for your help, that helps just about halfway. The other half is I need the notes to -connect- into a chord visually. If two notes are having stems pointing up, but both are say 8th or 16th notes, it still wouldn't look very well visually. If there is a way to solve this, please, please help. :) Thanks again.

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #3 –
Unfortunately, I don't think there's really a way to do what I understand you want to do except by hand.

Best of luck,

Geoff

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #4 –
By hand, do you mean manually by editing it as a picture either by hand or some editing program on the computer? Or is there a manual way of doing it note by note on NWC?

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #5 –
If the original MIDI file only uses one track for the treble line, then the solution is simple. During the import, specify a maximum single track chord size of 127. This will prevent NWC from splitting a single track into multiple staves.

If the original MIDI material has multiple tracks that you want to combine into a single track, you can either:

- map the staves that you want to overlap to the same MIDI channel, save as a MIDI type 0 file, then re-import, or

- use MIDI sequencer software to merge the tracks that you want to be in the same staff before importing into NWC

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #6 –
There is a limitation of nwc when using layered staffs: Any note shorter than a quarter has a visible issue with the flags. If the stems are in the same direction, the flags do not superimpose on each other. (Two eighths may look like a sixteenth.) One work-around, for notes shorter than quarters, is to force the higher note to stem up, and the lower note to stem down. This is an issue for short notes, whether beamed or not.
Another problem with layered staffs is, if one note is on a line, and another is on the adjacent space, the noteheads  overlap.
These limitations are one reason to consider chords, on a single staff, rather than layered staffs.
Add to wish list: build the noteheads, stems and flags for layered staffs using the same algorithm as chords.

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #7 –
"Add to wish list: build the noteheads, stems and flags for layered staffs using the same algorithm as chords."

I would not support this.  Layering was introduced to overcome the limitation in the handling of chords.  If it is made to work the same way as chords, functionality will be lost.

If two simultaneous notes have stems in the same direction then they must have the same duration - otherwise different flags would need to be shown on the same stem.  If they have the same stem direction and duration they can be chorded.  If the durations are different then the stem directions ought to be different as well.  In some cases chording can handle this but in others it is necessary to use the different behaviour provided by layering to get the correct display.

Stephen

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #8 –
I was not talking about two simultaneous notes with different durations. I was talking about, say, a Soprano and Alto part, on two staffs, layered. One has an eighth note on the second space, the other has an eighth note on the third space. If the stems are in the same direction (as is typical in SA music) it appears as a sixteenth note, since the notes are printed exactly as they would be on separate staffs, with the the stems each the same length (but starting and ending in different places). I am suggesting lengthening the shorter stem (only while layered) so that it ends even with the longer one, so that the single flag on one will superimpose on the other. I also would like adjacent notes (i.e. C and D), when layered, to reverse one note head. (When un-layered, the reversal would be removed.)

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #9 –
I hope I haven't misunderstood what you are trying to achieve but surely, the exact behaviour you want can be done using chords.

1. Enter an eighth note in the second space.

2. Enter another eighth note in the third space while holding [CTRL].

and VIOLA! two note heads on a single eighth note stem with an appropriate single flag.

If you do the same to enter a D and a C, the C note head is reversed.

Chords and layering do similar but different jobs.  If you have a soprano part with stems up and an alto part with stems down, layering provides an easy way of combining the two on the same staff.  In some simple situations chords can be used to achieve the same thing but some notations can not be represented in this way.  For example, if the soprano part and alto part cross so that the alto is at a higher pitch than the soprano part, it is only by using layering that you can maintain the stem directions.  It is impossible to chord a stem up note with a higher pitched stem down note.

I suspect that "fixing" what you see to be a problem with layering behaviour would make the facility of having a lower pitched stem up note coinciding with a higher pitched stem down note impossible or at least more difficult notate.  There would have to be an option to to specify that when THESE two eighth notes coincide you really want them to have their own stems.

In essence, layering makes fewer automatic adjustments to note positions and stems than the chord facility and therefore gives the user more control over these parameters.

Stephen

Re: Combining Staves/Stems

Reply #10 –
Whee!  I love being proved wrong.  NWC's suggestion sounds to me like what you really want to do.

What I meant by "by hand" is what Stephan said in his lastest post (reply 9).

So I think now I'll lurk again for a while.

Geoff