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SongworkstmARS NOVA SOFTWARE |
version 4
Songworks can be used for composing or transcribing either simple songs or complex quartets or larger pieces. Unusual features like the ability to sound chord symbols according to various accompaniment patterns make it particularly fun for practicing - you can pick a part and play along. Songworks also has easy lyric entry, automatically lining up works or syllables with notes - no need to break up the text yourself. Version 4 includes the ability to edit in either page view or panorama view, Bezier curves for slurs, tuning at either A440 or A415, complete control over the position and spacing of staves, interrupted staves, and lots more. Songworks has its own file format and can also import or export MIDI files and MusicXML files. It can also import ABC Music files. On Apple computers Songworks supports microtonal adjustments to pitch and can perform music using various historical temperaments if desired.
To save a lot of time reading instructions, try just clicking icons and buttons to see what they do. In most cases the function should explain itself - you might choose a symbol to enter in the staff by clicking on the tool and then clicking in the music, or you might choose a tool to change selected items already there. Items are selected using the arrow tool - the arrow cursor is the active tool if nothing else is chosen. Sometimes an icon will bring up a window with more options. Look at the File and Edit menus too. That's the quickest way to get familiar with the program. Then you can use the following when you have specific questions. Many items on the screen will also display a "tool tip" if you let the mouse hover there for a few seconds.
The first time you open Songworks you'll see the startup screen and you'll be asked for your user name and if you're launching as an upgrade from version 3 you'll also need your old serial number. Once you finish that the opening screen will roll back to show the editing window and keyboard display. If your computer has a high-resolution display the opening screeen will also show you some sample pages created with Songworks 4. You can return to that opening screen any time by pressing the left-right arrow button at the upper right of the editing window.
| The tool icons | Entering and editing notes | Shortcuts |
| Staff controls | Interrupted staves | Keyboard controls |
Along the right side of the screen (left if the startup panel is open and showing) you'll see several tool icons as at right.
• Right panel open/close - Click the left-right arrow to open or close the right panel you saw at startup.
• Panorama view - When in panorama view music is displayed left to right as on a piano roll, but of course using standard notation. Scroll controls at the top can be used in addition to scrolling with trackpad/touch gestures.
• Page view - In page view you see the music arranged as on the printed page. It can be edited in page view just as in panorama view, but here you also have controls at the left of the screen that increase or decrease the space between each staff system.
• Undo - This is a complete undo that will undo any previous edit. It stores undos for the 4 most recent actions. If an undo is available the arrow is green.
• Redo - Reverses the effect of pressing Undo. If an redo is available the arrow is green.
• Metronome - Change the tempo, turn the metronome tick sound on or off and make other metronome-related choices.
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The keyboard expands with the program window - if you have a large screen you will get more keys, and if you drag the window's lower right corner to shrink it you'll see fewer keys. This keyboard info button gives you access to various keyboard-related options, which include
Clicking one of the tool buttons above the keyboard/fretboard will in most cases open a tool pallette with numerous symbols or action buttons. For entering symbols you click on the one you want. When a symbol too is chosen the cursor changes to a crosshairs that lets you precisely position the symbol. Click in the music and the chosen symbol will be entered. Notes and rests and bar lines will position themselves as appropriate; other symbols will go where you click. Once entered, all symbols can be dragged with the arrow cursor (the arrow cursor is what is displayed when no other tool is selected).
The text tool. Click on the text tool, then click in the music where you want to place some text. You'll see an editing window appear in which you can compose the text, set its font, etc. Text items can be dragged after they are entered.
The chord tool brings up a palette of choices for entering chord symbols. These are audible as well as visual, and can be extensively customized. The palette will display typical chords from the current key, or you can customize any chord that was already entered or is still in the palette. You can change the type, root, notes, and accompaniment pattern. Click in the music where you want the chord to go, and it will appear on the chord line. Chords can be dragged after entry. Playback volume of the chords, and their chosen instrument sound, can be set with the chord info button at the left of the chord line.
The meter tool. Pick a meter and enter it by clicking in the music, or select a meter in the music and change it by choosing a new one. You can change meter anywhere in a composition. Songworks does not actually require you to mark meter changes, so long as each measure is a complete number of beats, so you could have some measures with 3, some with 4, some with 5 beats and they would still play correctly. But generally you want to mark meter changes, and you must mark them if the time of the beat is changing (like going from 3/4 to 6/8).
The key tool. Pick a key signature and enter it, or select a key signature in the music and choose a new one to change it. Click in the music to enter the signature; you can change keys anywhere in the composition. Note that you can also choose a "custom" key signature, which can be useful in certain kinds of music.
The clef tool. Choose a clef, then click in the music to enter it. Or select a clef in the music and choose a new one to change the old. Music to the right of the clef will immediately move to appear as it should in the new clef. Note this this does not transpose the music - it changes its position on the staff as appropriate for the new clef. For transposition you'll find commands in each staff info window or the score info window.
The note/rest tool brings up the palette of possible note and rest symbols. The basic idea is that you pick a note value in the palette and then click in the music where you want it to go. But there's a lot more. Here's a handy shortcut for staff entry of notes: If you hold down the mouse (or finger on a touch screen) when entering a note you can drag left or right to reduce or expand its time value - which also changes the selected tool. For example if the selected tool is a half note and you drag left after clicking it into the staff, if can become a dotted quarter note, a quarter note, a dotted eighth, etc. And if you missed the line or space you intended, keep dragging up or down to reach the right place. You'll hear the note sound as you do. Once a note has been entered you can also change its pitch by dragging it up or down with the arrow tool, and you can change its time value by selecting it and choosing the desired note value in the tools palette. Or add an accidental by selecting the note and choosing the desired flat or sharp tool. Or select several notes and use the tie tool, the slur tool, the beam tool, etc.
Another method of note entry is to choose note values either by clicking on the tools or by using key equivalents (cmd-1 for whole, cmd-2 for half, etc.) and playing the desired pitch on the keyboard or fretboard. The desired note will be entered at the current blinking insertion point.
Another way to enter notes is to record a passage: choose "record" and you'll hear a metronome begin ticking. When ready, start playing either on the screen piano or on an external MIDI instrument. When you press the spacebar or the Stop button the notes you played will appear. You can add more too, by pressing Record again. Notice that when you're starting with an empty staff the metronome will start ticking at what would be beat one: if you come in on beat 4 that will be recognized as a "pickup" note to the first full bar.
When you've entered a symbol of any kind into the music you can modify it in various ways. Every symbol has an options window that will appear if you either double-click it with the arrow, or select it with the arrow and press command-i. Some things about notes can be changed by dragging with the arrow tool: you can change the length of a stem by dragging it up or down (also works for the first and last notes of a beamed group); you can drag a note or rest right or left to adjust its position, and you can drag both notes and rests up or down on the staff.
We suggest that you just start in entering music, and when you have a question use the index of this manual for help. We've tried to make it all work in a logical and natural way so that little instruction would be needed. Try out buttons or controls if you're not sure what they do. If you make a mistake the Undo button at the right of the screen will fix it.
The bar line tool. Select the desired bar line type and click it in the music, or select a barline in the music and click one of these to change it. The bar lines tool palette also includes an "auto" option that automatically enters barlines for all the music, as appropriate. What if you want to have an incomplete first measure with a "pickup" and also use the automatic barline tool? Just enter that first bar line so that the program knows you intend the first bar to be incomplete. It will continue on from there. Bar lines in the music can be dragged left or right to compress or expand the contents of a measure. Barlines will automatically align with corresponding bar lines in other staves, and a drag of one will affect the others. The staff info window lets you choose whether bar lines will connect between staves, and the info window for a barline also gives you the unusual option of stopping or starting a staff at the selected bar line. You can, for example, enter just rests in a staff whose music begins later than the others, then choose "start a staff segment here" in the info window for the barline that begins the sounding part - the previous portion will then be hidden.
The accidentals tool. Accidentals mark sharps or flats that are not part of the key signature. Select a note or notes before choosing an accidental and the accidental will be applied to the selected item(s). If that sharp or flat is in the key signature and hasn't been cancelled it will not appear, of course - but you can make it appear regardless if you open the info window for the note (double click the note with the arrow tool, or select it and press command-i); there is an option to show a "precautionary accidental." A precautionary accidental is one that doesn't really need to be there, but is provided as a reminder to the reader. That's useful in cases where the note was recently modified and is now back to normal.
The miscellaneous symbols tool. Some of these symbols are resizable after being entered (like the first/second ending and crescendo) and some can affect playback. The fermata, for example can be set to slow down the beat it marks. As with all staff symbols you can double-click the symbol when entered in the music, or select it with the arrow tool and choose command-i to see its options window.
The action tools. These are used to change something about notes or rests already entered in the music. You can select notes and beam them together for example (if they are beamable notes, that is, 8th notes or smaller), tie them, slur them, group them into a triplet, etc. The stem direction button also shows you the currently chosen default stem direction. The stem direction and beam buttons have an "auto" option that will automatically set stem directions and beam all beamable notes into groups organized by beat. The arrow tools at the right can be used to move selected notes or whole groups of notes up or down a step at a time (the same can be done using the up or down arrow keys on the computer keyboard). This is equivalent to a tonal transposition - the notes move to the next note of the key, up or down. If you select a slur in the music it will display three control handles that let you change the curve and the beginning and ending points. Remember that to select and adjust a slur you need to be holding down the Shift key. This is to make it possible to adjust the slur without disturbing other items it might overlap. Ties can be dragged up or down; when on the lower side of a note the tie curves down; if you drag it above the note head it will flip and curve upward. Triplets/Tuplets select when you select the first note of the group, and they also display control handles that let you change the angle of a bracket, etc. A button in the info window for the selected note also lets you decide whether to mark the triplet or not, etc. There is additional information below regarding the action tools.
The articulation tools. First select a note or notes, then choose one of these to add signs such as staccato, tenuto, wedge, or accent. The plain button can be used to remove an articulation sign. Note that the staccato and tenuto signs can be combined.
The zoom slider. Zooms in or out on the music. Note that this does not change the size of the printed music - for that you would use the print scaling control in the score options window (the score options are reached by double-clicking anywhere in the music page, or by pressing command-i with no symbols selected).
Music symbols appear in transparent blue tool palettes that you can drag around as needed. Touch one of the icons above the piano (clefs, keys, notes/rests, beams, etc.) to display the tool palette for that particular group of items. To hide a palette, touch the close box at its upper left corner.
Click to select a symbol from the palette and it will highlight to show it's the chosen tool, as shown at left. To enter that symbol in the music, click in the music where you want it to go. You can drag the note up, down, left, or right before releasing the mouse. Up or down movement will change the pitch; left or right movement will change the note value and also change the selected note tool. That makes it easier to enter music directly on the staff without having to go back to the tool palette all the time (once a note has been entered and no note tool is chosen, dragging it left or right will just adjust its position if adjustment is wanted).
You can also enter a note symbol by playing a piano key, and it will enter in the active staff at the blinking insertion point (see Multiple Staves below). First select a note symbol and then play the desired pitches on the screen piano or an external MIDI device. As a convenience, certain tools like notes and rests stay selected so that you can make multiple entries in the score; others that you'd probably use just one at a time will unselect after being entered. The currently selected tool, if any, is also displayed near the upper left corner of the editing area. To deselect a tool simply click it again, or choose a different tool. Tools will also deselect if you click on a spot (like well outside the staff) that seems to be unintentional. When using a note tool you have to remember to deselect it before touching an item in your score. Otherwise, you'll enter a note without meaning to. If this happens just click Undo (or command-z).
To delete any staff symbol select it with the arrow tool, or drag a selection rectangle around a group, and then press Delete. You can also use the Undo button to remove the last item entered. The Undo button is the left-turning arrow on the toolbar at the right side of the screen; underneath it is the Redo button. The usual Copy and Paste commands are also available in the edit menu and as key commands (command-c and command-v).
The action tools palette is located above the keyboard on the right side (see key below). Unless you are using the "auto" command for stem direction or beaming, all of the tools here perform actions on a selected note or notes. Select the note or notes first, then apply the action.
You can write for any reasonable number of simultaneous staves, adding or removing staves with the staff info commands reached by the info button at the left of every staff. The main thing to know about working with multiple staves is that one staff is always the active staff. Any notes entered via the keyboard will be entered at the current insertion point in the active staff. If you enter text with the text tool it will be attached to the staff that was active when you created the text; text that is attached to a staff will move if you move that staff and if it's on a "lyric line" it will follow the notes of that staff. Click in the staff you want to be active and its staff handle will turn blue, indicating that it is now "active." In the illustration, the staff is active. The yellow diamond above it is the chord line control, and the green diamond is the lyric line control (if you enter lyric text it rides on the lyric line or lines). To the left of each are the info buttons that display more options for chord symbols, staff music, and lyric or other text associated with this staff. The soundwave-like lines on the left of the chord and staff info buttons indicate that the chord symbol sound is 'on' and so is the sound of this staff.
When in page editing view, you will see staff system controls at the left of the music. Drag the large diamond-shaped controls up or down to move staff systems nearer or closer to each other. This allows you to make a space between two systems for some extra text if desired. The music displayed here uses "shape note" notation, which is one of the options available for each staff, along with x-head notation, stick notation, stemless notation, and standard notation. If you have chosen shape note notation, whether 4-shape style or 7-shape, the appropriate shape for each pitch will appear automatically as appropriate for the key.
In certain scores you might want to have a staff end before others do, or begin after others do. This is accomplished with an option in the info window for a selected bar line. To make a staff end at a given bar, choose "End staff segment here" in the selected bar line's info window. To make a staff start late, first fill it with rests up to the place you want it to begin, then choose "Begin staff segment here" in the barline's info. That will hide the staff up to that point. In the page view window you can also drag the staff system controls to adjust space between staff systems of different size.
• Options for any staff item or text item: Right-click the item, or select it and press control-i.
• Options for a particular staff: click the info button at the left of the staff.
• Options for lyric text of a particular staff: click the textline info button at the left of the staff.
• Options for chord symbols: click the info button at the left of the chord symbols line.
• Options for the score: right-click in the white space of score, or press control-i with nothing selected.
• Shrink or enlarge specific measures: drag the following bar line.
• Zoom in or out on the music window: use the zoom control above the keyboard, or a two-finger pinch/spread gesture if available on your computer.
• Enlarge or reduce note size on printed page: right-click in score and change print scaling.
• Change space between staves: drag either staff by the handle at its left.
• Change space between staff systems: in page view, drag the diamond handles at far left.
• Change selected note tool without using mouse: number keys will change the selected tool value if it is a note or rest: 1 = whole, 2 = half, 3 = quarter; 4 = eighth, 5 = 16th, 6 = 32nd; 7 = 64th. Add Option key to toggle between notes and rests; add Shift key to add a dot (e.g. Shift-2 would change the selected tool from quarter note to dotted half note).
• Change the pitch of an entered note: drag it up or down with the mouse (or touch if available).
• Adjust the position of any entered symbol: drag it with the mouse (or touch if available).
• Play a live chord: If no tool is selected, number keys 1-7 begin play of any of the current chordbox chords.
• Keyboard shortcuts: see the edit menu for available keyboard shortcuts.