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Topic: Creating piano rehearsal music from chorus parts? (Read 2906 times) previous topic - next topic

Creating piano rehearsal music from chorus parts?

I wrote a SATB piece, the choir director wants it in piano format for rehearsals because reading four staffs at once is hard. Layering doesn't do it well at all:  If I have two eight-notes a third apart, one in Soprano and one in Alto, layering creates what looks like a chord but with both flags, so it looks like a 16th note chord.

Am I right that there is no way to combine staffs and have the notes that appear at the same moment become chords? I guess that would take some highly sophisticated software!  Hey, one can wish.

Re: Creating piano rehearsal music from chorus parts?

Reply #1
G'day Tella,
there is a user tool that might be able to help.  It has never been upgraded from a beta release but is available from the Scripto:
http://nwc-scriptorium.org/nwc2scripts_scratch.html
If you haven't used user tools then this one could be a bit daunting, but worth the effort in the long term.  User tools in general can save enormous amounts of work.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Creating piano rehearsal music from chorus parts?

Reply #2
layering creates what looks like a chord but with both flags, so it looks like a 16th note chord.
On the Soprano and Tenor parts, set all of the stems up.
On the Alto and Bass parts, set all of the stems down.
If any of the layered parts form a second interval with, or cross the unlayered part, use Extra Note Spacing.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Creating piano rehearsal music from chorus parts?

Reply #3
If I have two eight-notes a third apart, one in Soprano and one in Alto, layering creates what looks like a chord but with both flags, so it looks like a 16th note chord.

In addition to Rick's reply, a different way to solve the issue you mention (above), you can adjust the length of the note tail where this problem occurs so that the tails on both 8th notes finish at the same position, thereby achieving an 8th note chord rather than one of a 16th.

Go to the note properties of one of the notes and select "Override stem length" and change the length to match that of the other note.
This is a bit tedious if there are many occurances.

Rich.