Tutorial 3: Articulations and Expressions

Now that you know the basics of entering music quickly and editing it efficiently, it’s time to learn how to add the markings that make music such a rich language—articulations, dynamics, slurs, and more. Open the document called “Tutorial 3” in the Tutorials folder: We’ll use this arrangement of “Oh, Susannah” to explore PrintMusic’s fluency in the language of music. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to create a score with all the necessary markings.

Basic Articulations and Expressions

We’ll start with an introduction to articulations (staccatos, accents, fermatas) and dynamic expressions (Moderato, , solo, etc.).

• Click the Articulation tool  . Using this tool, you can click on, above, or below a note—it doesn’t matter. PrintMusic’s articulations are smart; they jump into place, centered on the notehead, automatically.
• Click the dotted quarter note in the Trombone 2 staff in measure 3. The Articulation Selection dialog box appears.

You must be in the same layer as your notes to attach anything to them, such as lyrics, articulations, expressions, or chord symbols.

Incidentally, some symbols, such as , have been defined to flip upside-down automatically when a note’s stem direction changes (as a result of a transposition, for example). Articulations with an associated upside-down symbol appear side-by-side in their selection square.

• Double-click the accent mark (top row, third from left). Double-clicking an Articulation in this dialog box is the same as clicking once then clicking Select.

When you return to the score, you can see that PrintMusic not only centered the accent on the notehead, but it also knew which side of the note (top or bottom) to use. You can override PrintMusic’s placement decision, of course—to move the mark, drag its handle. (You can also delete a mark by clicking its handle and pressing Delete.)

So that you understand what’s happening behind the scenes, try this experiment:

• Click the Simple Entry tool  .-click squarely on the notehead of the dotted quarter note; press the down arrow three times until the stem direction changes. PrintMusic doesn’t simply flip the stem—it also relocates the accent mark to the other side of the note. Press the up arrow three times to move it back into place.

Now let’s add a couple dynamic markings.

• Click the Expression tool  . Expressions are attached either to the measure you double-click or to a specific note in that measure. For the moment, let’s put in a marking.

To add an expression while entering with the caret in Simple Entry, press the X key.

• Position the cursor below the first note of the top staff and double-click. The Expression Selection dialog box appears.

• Choose the Dynamics category to show all of the dynamic expressions.
• Double-click on . The marking is now in this staff If you want to adjust its position, drag its handle. (To delete any expression, click its handle and press Delete.)

Adding a Slur

As a quick exercise, let’s add some slurs to the score.

• Click the Smart Shape tool  . The Smart Shape palette appears as a toolbar on the top of the screen (or as a palette on the Macintosh), containing icons for slurs, crescendos, 8va markings, lines, and several kinds of brackets. This palette is just like the others you’ve encountered; you can hide it or move it around.

The curves and lines this palette offers are called Smart Shapes, because they behave intelligently; if the measure widens, so does the Smart Shape attached to it. If a Smart Shape begins at the end of one line of music and continues onto the next, it automatically breaks in two.

The Slur tool should already be selected; if not, select it now.

• Place your cursor on the first note in measure five (top staff).   
• Double-click the mouse, hold the button down after the second click, and drag the mouse to the right, until the third note in the measure is highlighted. As long as you hold the button down, you can move the endpoint of the slur.
• Release the mouse button. You’ve just created a note-attached slur. Take a look. Is the slur exactly where you wanted it? Does it arc too high or too low?

A Smart Shape is easy to edit. When a Smart Shape has multiple handles, it’s currently selected. Each slur will have six handles. Here is a description of how to use these handles to edit the slur:

Shortcuts for the Smart Shape tool: Hold down S for a slur, < for a crescendo or > for a decrescendo.

Hold down the key while editing the slur to “constrain” your cursor to perfect horizontal or vertical movements.

• Position the cursor at the top of the arc. Click and drag downward to decrease the arc of the slur. Now create another slur. Scroll to the beginning of measure 3.  
• Position the cursor on the first note in measure 3 (top staff). Double-click and drag to the last note in the measure. Release the mouse button. The new phrase marking displays its reshaping handles, letting you know that it’s selected. The first one you drew, meanwhile, is no longer selected. Instead, it displays a single handle. To select a Smart Shape that doesn’t display its reshaping handles, click its handle.

Feel free to experiment with these Smart Shapes. Click and drag each reshaping handle to see what it does. Try adding a crescendo or decrescendo.

When the Smart Shape tool is selected, every Smart Shape in the score displays a small square handle on the screen (unless it’s already been selected, in which case it has reshaping handles). To delete a Smart Shape, click the handle to select the shape—and press the key. For more information, see the User Manual under Smart Shape tool.

Before moving on, you can choose to hide the Smart Shape palette by deselecting it in the Window menu. Otherwise, feel free to leave it on the screen.

Selection tool

If you’re flying along in the editing process and don’t want to bother switching tools, the Selection tool can help speed you along. Click on the Selection tool and click on any marking. Now you can move it, delete it, or rightclick on it for a list of other editing commands. If you decide you need to do advanced editing, double-click on the marking to switch to the appropriate editing tool. You can return to the Selection tool at any time by clicking ++A.

The Selection tool works on Measures (Measure tool), Notes (Simple Entry), Smart Shapes, Expressions, Articulations, Repeats, Lyrics, Chords, Text Blocks, Tuplets, Time Signatures, Key Signatures, Clefs, Ossias, Graphics, and Staff and Group Names. For more details, see Selection tool.

Putting in Many Articulations

Let’s learn some more about articulations.

The system you learned earlier for putting in articulations is fine for the occasional accent or staccato marking. But what if you have a series of accented eighth notes? Do you have to go through the Articulation Selection dialog box for every single note? Fortunately, no. You can select a region of notes and tell PrintMusic to apply the same symbol to every one.

• With the Articulation tool selected, drag across the remaining note stems of measure 2. A bold black box will show you which notes you’ve drag-selected. When you release the mouse button, the Articulation Selection dialog box appears.
• Double-click the staccato mark. You return to the score; the remaining notes now have staccato marks.
• Drag a box over the first two articulation handles. You can now drag or nudge both of these articulations simultaneously.
• Hold down the key and click or drag over additional articulations.This way, you can pick and choose the articulations you want to position or edit.

The “Nudge” Keys (Arrow Keys)

• Click the Expression tool .
• Click the mark’s handle and press the left arrow key. The marking moves just a pixel (screen dot) to the left. You may have to look very closely to see it move at all. You can continue to reposition any marking whose handle is selected by pressing the up, down, left, and right arrows.

Markings that Play Back

Now that you’ve put a few staccatos and dynamics in your score, try this: While pressing the Space bar, click the first measure (the shortcut for a quick playback). You’ll notice that your staccatos and breathmarks actually affect the articulation of the notes in playback!

Mac users: when the Playback Controls are visible, simply pressing the spacebar will start playback.

You’ll soon discover that all of the dynamic markings (in the Expression tool) and some of the Articulations have been defined for playback; as soon as you place them into your score, they affect the playback in a musical way.

When You’re Ready to Continue

Choose Save from the File menu if you haven’t already done so. If you think you’ve done enough for one session, choose Exit from the File menu, and you’ll return to the desktop.

If you want to go on, close this document and turn to the next tutorial.

User Manual Home