Can you move 1 or more notes around until the melody is pleasing to you?

• Mar 13, 2019 - 00:00

The cut and paste videos I've seen have included groups of notes to be cut and pasted. but suppose you were in the middle of composing something trying to get it just right... would you be able to move single (or more,) notes around until you were content with your piece?

Thanks

Ticklin' Ivories


Comments

Cut and paste works the same with selections containing a single note as with any other selection. But there is no other general "scratch pad" for working out ideas - that's normally something you would do on your own.

In reply to by Ticklin' Ivories

Yes, a couple of different ways. The normal way would be to select it in the same way you would a range of notes - in other words, a range of one note. If you see a blue box around it, it's a range selection. So for instance, press Esc to make sure nothing else is selected, then Shift+click the note. Then cut & paste works the same as for multiple notes. But you can also cut and paste literally just a single note, including a single note from within a chord. This works works a bit differently, though; you're really just copying the pitch, not anything else about the note.

This applies to version 3 in all cases. All but the last paragraph works in version 2.

There is limited moving around of notes possible. First, arrows and ctrl+alt+arrows move the notes up and down chromatically and diatonically (according to the key sig). While in note input mode you can also use shift+left or right arrow to move notes left or right, but never to replace a rest. You also have a limited ability to adjust rhythms while not in note input mode by selecting a note and pressing the number for a new duration. One major limitation of this is that if you shorten the note, rests are entered to fill the emptiness left by the shorter note.

You've seen suggestions of cut and past, which is a good option as well. One thing that you may find useful is re-pitch mode. This enables you to change notes by pressing their letters without changing any rhythm.

One last option to consider is insert mode. You need to be careful with this because it affects all instruments in that measure. When you insert notes, the measure will grow. You can also select a note or rest and press ctrl+del and the item will be un-inserted, that is rather than being replaced by a rest, it will be removed and the measure duration will be shorter by that amount.

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