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## How to enter music on the staff

Before going any farther, it will help to know that all staff symbols have an info window that offers various extra options for that symbol. You can see the info window for any staff symbol, including text, by right-clicking it or by selecting it and pressing command-i. If nothing is selected, command-i brings up an info window with various options for the score itself. Every staff also has its own info window, the chord symbols have one, and so does every lyric line and even the piano keyboard - those are all reached by clicking the info icon at the left side of each.

### Note and Rest tools

All of the tools for entering music symbols on the staff are found in transparent floating windows that you can drag around the screen as needed. The floating tool palettes can be closed by clicking the X box at upper left, or reopened by clicking the appropriate tool symbol in the bar along the top of the screen piano; There also are handy keyboard shortcuts for choosing note and rest tools.

When a symbol tool of any kind is chosen the cursor is cross-shaped for precise positioning; when no tool is selected the cursor is an arrow that can be used to drag or select items. You can return to the arrow tool at any time, either by unselecting the current tool or by pressing the shortcut key "\" (just above the Return key on most keyboards).

### Using the note tools

There are a number of ways to enter notes.

The simplest is to choose tools via the tools palette: click on the kind of note you want and then click in the staff where you want it to go.

Another way to enter notes is to choose the desired note value and then play the note you want, using either the screen piano, the letter keys "piano," or a MIDI keyboard. The note will enter on the currently active staff at the blinking insertion point.

When you pick a note or rest, the cursor changes to the cross-shaped cursor that makes it easy to precisely place a note - but if you miss the desired spot you can either keep the mouse down and drag to the right spot, or else unselect the note tool and drag notes using the arrow cursor. Symbols can be dragged in any direction. If you want to add a sharp or flat that is not already in the key signature, choose that from the palette of sharps/flats and then enter the note, or select a note with the arrow tool and choose a sharp or flat to alter it. Or, if you're entering notes by playing them on the screen piano you can just choose the specific note name on the 'enharmonic keyboard,' which is one of the options available in the keyboard's info window.

### Shortcuts for changing the pitch or time value of notes

Notes can be dragged up or down with the arrow tool to change their pitch. You can also move a selected group of notes by selecting them and then pressing the keyboard's up or down arrow keys to move the selected notes up or down step by step. To add an accidental (#, b, etc.) to an existing note just select it and choose the desired flat or sharp. To make that accidental display even if it's in the key signature hold down the option key as you choose the accidental (this is called a "precautionary accidental" - one that doesn't technically need to be notated). You can also specify a precautionary accidental in the info window for a selected note.

To change the time value of notes or rests already entered, select the items and choose the desired value from the note tools.

### Deleting notes or other symbols

If you've just entered a note or rest it can be deleted by pressing Backspace or Delete (this deletes the symbol just to the left of the blinking insertion point, where ever that happens to be.

Any symbol or group of symbols can be deleted by selecting it or them with the arrow tool and pressing the Delete or Backspace key, or by choosing Clear or Cut from the Edit window. Cut is often the best choice, as it also copies the deleted item in case you want to Paste it somewhere else.

Remember that if all you want is to enter a different pitch, it's easier just to drag the note up or down with the arrow tool (or select it and use the arrow keys to move it - that way you can move several notes at once. Or select it and choose a flat or sharp to change it).

The Undo button at screen right will undo any edit change, and Redo will put it back. There are several layers of Undo.

### A shortcut for changing note or rest values

At Ars Nova a popular way of entering notes is to use the left hand to pick note values via the number keys while the right hand plays the desired pitches on the screen piano or a MIDI keyboard. First pick any note or rest value, then the number keys change the cursor this way:

1 = whole note rest
2 = half note rest
3 = quarter note rest
4 = eighth note rest
5 = sixteenth note rest
6 = thirty-second note or rest
7 = sixty-fourth note or rest

shift + a number adds a dot to the number

option + a number changes from notes to rests or back

For more on keyboard shortcuts see Key Commands.

### Entering multiple voices on the same staff

In a song you typically have just a single melody on each staff, but it is possible to write additional voices on the staff should you require it.

The basic principle in multipart writing is that one of the voices defines the time of each measure - one voice's notes and rests must take up the entire value of the measure. We call that voice "track one." Additional tracks can then be freely added without any requirement that their time fill the whole measure (this is the typical case, though in strict polyphonic writing it's musically desirable to make each voice complete in itself).

To add additional tracks to an existing passage, choose the desired note values, as you did before, and click in the music where you want them to go. For this kind of entry it won't do to play the note on the keyboard to enter it; you need to tell the program just where you want it. Adding a note or rest this way will create a new track, and set the current track to the new one. You can view the tracks by choosing "show voice leading" in the score options window - you'll see a colored line drawn for each voice, a different color for each track. Score options can be seen by double-clicking in the score or pressing command-i with nothing selected.

If you play two notes very quickly the program will assume that you want them to sound simultaneously and will place them on the same stem as two simultaneous voices. If this happens by accident use the arrow tool to click on the undesired note to select it; then press Delete or Backspace to remove it. Or just Undo and enter again.

Songworks will automatically adjust the position of all items so that those meant to sound at the same time are vertically aligned. If you get into a situation writing multple voices on a staff in which two notes you want to sound together are not aligning vertically, check the voice leading with the show-voice-leading option mentioned above. You'll probably find that one of the notes is in the wrong voice - delete it, select the previous note in the desired voice to tell Songworks which voice you intend, and re-enter the note.

Songworks is very forgiving about meter: it will let you write 3 beats in a measure even if the stated meter is 4/4, but it will not like it if you write 3 1/2 beats in a measure and are trying to make that line up with a 4-beat measure - this would be impossible to read in any case.

### Double dots

While a dotted note has 1 1/2 times the time value of the same thing undotted, you'll sometimes see a double-dot following a note. That means it has 1 3/4 the time of the undotted value. For example, A dotted quarter note can be followed by an 8th note in 4/4 time, making an even two beats of time. A double-dotted quarternote could be followed by a 16th note to add up to the same 2 beats - but the rhythm would be more dramatic. Double-dotted rhythms are pretty rare in vocal music but come more naturally to instruments. To enter a double dotted note or rest, click the double-dot tool in the note-rest palette shown above, then choose a dotted note. When you use that tool it will enter a double-dotted symbol instead of a single-dotted one.

### The beat marker

What we call the "beat mark" is often seen in lead sheets - it works like a rest whose value is one beat in whatever is the current meter. But instead of indicating silence as rests do, it suggests that something is going on during this time, such an improvisation, or a melody that the sheet writer doesn't need to bother putting in... You can enter the beat mark exactly the same way you enter rests; just choose the symbol and click it in the staff.

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