Reference Guide

1833
Staff view
View reference
Staff view
Open the Staff view by any of these methods:
•Use the Views > Staff View command.
•Select Staff from the Clips pane right-click pop-up menu.
• Press ALT+6.
The Staff view displays MIDI note events as musical notation. For some musicians, this may be the
most familiar and comfortable view in which to work. The Staff view provides many features that
make it possible for you to compose, edit, and print music.
The Staff view menu and toolbar buttons contain all the commands and options you need to enter
and edit notes, and control the display of your notation.
The Staff view is composed of a Staff pane and a Fretboard. When you first open the Staff view, you
may see only the Staff pane and not the Fretboard. Resize the Staff view by dragging its edges until
you can see everything easily. When you save your file, whatever size the Staff view is will be the
way it appears the next time you open the file.
The Staff pane displays MIDI note events as musical notation. For some musicians, this may be the
most familiar and comfortable view in which to work. The Staff pane provides many features that
make it easy for you to compose, edit, and print music. You can choose from a wide variety of clefs
to display your music (see “To change the Staff pane layout” on page 1074).
For guitar players who are new to musical notation, the Fretboard represents the notes in the Staff
pane as they would appear on a guitar or bass fretboard. All notes that appear in the Staff pane at
the Now Time are shown in the Fretboard. Page through your track by pressing CTRL+RIGHT
ARROW and watch the note names in the Fretboard appear. If you enter notes in the staff at the
Now Time, they appear on the fretboard. Likewise, you can enter notes into the staff at the Now
Time by clicking the guitar strings on the fretboard. Notes and chords shown in the fretboard can be
easily edited by dragging them up and down the guitar strings.
Staff view menu
Print menu
• Print. Open the “Print dialog” on page 1737 box, which let’s you print notation.
• Print Preview. Open the SONAR Print window, where you can view your document before you
print it.
• Export to ASCII Tab. Open the “Save As dialog” on page 1749, where you can set the name
and location for an ASCII text file of a track’s tablature.
• Export to MusicXML. Open the “Save As dialog” on page 1749, where you can export the
displayed notation as MusicXML. For details, see “Export to MusicXML (Producer only)” on page
1107.