Testing Flow directions and Lyrics on repeats.

2006-03-12 03:12 pm

This is a bit fiddely but once you get the hang of what you are doing and why, it can be a boon when testing repeated lyrics and flow directions.

Sometimes you have a need to force NoteWorthy to go to a certain point in order to test lyrics in repeats, flow directions after a DC or DS function. This is not easy since each time you test, you have to wait for a number of iterations on the repeat or you need to start from the DC or DS instruction.

One way round this is to increase the tempo to epic proportions and then change it before the place in the file that you are monitoring. This still takes time to get to the point you want to test and is a bit tedious.

Perhaps a better way is to create a special temporary staff. This staff contains a whole note rest and then a local repeat close. When you put in the local repeat close, you can make a guesstimate as to how may bars elapse before the point you want to test. (If it's more than 250 then you will meed an additional local repeat bar since 250 is the maximum).

After the local repeat bar, put two or three normal bars with just a rest in. So your additional staff is all contained within one width of the page.

Now here's two working examples. (Shown in the attachment)

The attachment has 11 measures but the pattern is as follows :
6 measures, a master repeat bar (4 repeats and a default), a measure with a To Coda instruction, a measure with a DC al Coda instruction and a Coda mark, and then the remaining measures.

So the full flow would be :
6 measures, 5 repeated measures, the To Coda measure but haven't passed a DC instruction so carry on, - Reached the DC al Coda instruction, back to the beginning. 6 measures, ONE default repeated measure, Reached the To Coda Instuction and we have passed the DC instruction so jump to CODA mark, play to end.

1st Example
If you wanted to check the lyrics of the 4th and 5th passes in the repeat measure, you could place the cursor before the final note in the repeated measure and then wait for a further 2 repeats before getting to the bit you want to look at.
In the example, this is only one measure- but it could be any number.

Solution
See the top staff in the attachment. It has a local repeat configured for 9 measures. Place the cursor immediately after the local repeat and before the rest. Press F5 to start playing and immediately after that, press PAGE DOWN to go to the real staff.
You will see that the music has started playing at the 4th lyric line

2nd Example
If you wanted to check that the flow direction is correct after the DC al Coda marking, you would normally have to position the cursor immediately before the marking and then wait for the music to go back to the beginning and follow through to the To Coda mark. This could take ages depending on your music. If you start the music at the To Coda rather than the DC al Coda, NoteWorthy will not think that it has passed the DC instruction and so you cannot test that all is correct by doing just that.

Solution
See the bottom staff in the attachment. It has a local repeat configured for 17 measures. Place the cursor immediately after the local repeat and before the rest. Press F5 to start playing and immediately after that, press page UP to go to the real staff.
You will see that the music has started playing shortly before the To Coda mark but you have fooled NoteWorthy into thinking that it has been passed the DC al Coda marking and so it obeys the To Coda instruction.

Remember that with flow directions, all instructions need to be on each staff for them to execute properly (This includes hidden staves etc). This is usually what you are testing - to make sure that each staff obeys the same flow directions at the same time.

In this paricular instance, you should NOT try and put any flow instructions in the temporary measures you have created for testing purposes.

Re: Testing Flow directions and Lyrics on repeats.

Reply #1 – 2006-03-12 11:11 pm

Excellent idea! I saw the words 'create temporary staff' and immediately caught the drift. Neat-o!
So that's what I am going to do, next time I have some repeat-testing to do. I won't bother counting too much. A few educated guesses will work as well as exact math, or even better, i.e. faster. Thanks!