User manual

758
Entering and editing notes
Adding and editing notes
Adding more notes
1. If you want the next note to have a different length value, select the corresponding
note symbol.
2. If you need finer positioning, or if the current value is too fine, change the Quantize
value.
3. Move the mouse to the desired position, and click.
Notes input at the same position are automatically interpreted as chords, see
below.
About the interpretation
The notes may not always appear in the score as you initially expect them to. This is
because there are a number of situations that require special techniques and settings.
Below you can find a list of some of these and where to find more information about
handling them:
- Notes at the same position are considered parts of a chord. To get independent
voicing (for example notes with different stem directions), such as for vocal
material, you need to use polyphonic voicing – see
“Polyphonic voicing” on page
779.
Without and with polyphonic voicing
- If two notes beginning at the same position have different lengths, the longer is
displayed as a number of tied notes. To avoid this, you can either use the “No
Overlap” feature (see
“No Overlap” on page 776) or polyphonic voicing (see
“Polyphonic voicing” on page 779).
- One note is often displayed as two notes with a tie. This is only how the program
displays the note, there is still only a single note “stored”.
This single note in the Key Editor is displayed as two tied notes in the Score Editor.
- Generally the program adds ties where necessary (if a note stretches over a beat),
but not always. For more “modern” notation of syncopated notes (less ties), you
need to use the syncopation feature, see
“Syncopation” on page 775.
The same note, without and with Syncopation
- If you want a long note to be displayed as two (or more) tied notes, you can use the
Cut Notes tool for this.
- If a note has the wrong accidental, this can be changed. See “Accidentals and
enharmonic shift” on page 793 for details.
- If two notes on the same position are too close to each other or if you want their
“graphical order” in the score reversed, you can do this without affecting playback,
see
“Graphic moving of notes” on page 805.
- Stem direction and length is normally automatic, but you can set it yourself, see
“Background: Note stems” on page 790.
- If you are scoring for piano and therefore (or for other reasons) need a split staff,
there are special techniques for this, see
“Split (piano) staves” on page 766 and
“Polyphonic voicing” on page 779.