Tutorial: Creating Parts

The Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song has two parts: the vocal melody and the piano accompaniment. The score that you have been working with might be called a "master score" or "conductor's score". Those terms may be too grand for this simple, 16-measure children's song. But imagine instead that you are working with a larger score with multiple parts for a small group of musicians, or choir members, or an ensemble as large as a school band or symphony orchestra. Or, you might be working on a score for a duet for two instruments. In all of these cases, it is likely that you will want to print separate parts to be read by each musician in the ensemble. That is, you will want to extract parts from the conductor's score for the individual members of the ensemble.

In many music notation programs, the task of extracting a part leads you across a one-way bridge. Once you have extracted the part, you have to maintain it as a separate, redundant music document. If for some instrument or voice you add a note in the conductor's score, then you also have to add that note a second time in the extracted part. In Composer this is not necessary. Extracted parts also always kept automatically synchronized with the conductor's scores. If you make a change to the music in the conductor's score, it will automatically be reflected in the extracted part. Conversely, if you make a change to the music in the extracted part, that change will automatically be reflected in the conductor's score.

We will see how this works, using the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song. We will extract the two parts for the vocal melody and piano. Then we will see how a change in an extracted part is automatically relfected in the conductor's score.

To extract one or more parts from the conductor's score:

1.      Choose the Extract Parts command in the Part menu.

-- OR --

Type "qexp" for Quick Extract Parts.

Composer will display the Extract Parts dialog box.

Initially, all of the tracks will be pre-selected in the Extract Parts dialog box. If you were to accept the default, then three separate parts would be prepared for the melody, the piano right hand, and the piano left hand. This would be inappropriate, because the Piano RH and Piano LH tracks should be combined into a single part.

2.      In the Extract Parts dialog box, select any tracks that have parts with only one staff.

In this example, choose only the Melody track. We will prepare the piano part in a separate procedure.

3.      Click the OK button.

Upon exiting the Extract Parts dialog box, you will see no changes in the Composer window. You will stll be viewing the conductor's score.

To view an extracted part:

1.      Choose the Select Part command in the Part menu.

-- OR --

Type "qpart" for Quick Select Part.

Composer will display the Select Part dialog box:

2.      In the dialog box, select the part you wish to view.

In this example, select the Melody part that you extracted in the previous procedure. Note that the part has the same name as the track. If desired, you can change the name of the part with the Edit Part Name command in the Part menu.

3.      Click the OK button.

Composer now displays the extracted melody part:

To learn how editing in an extracted part is automatically reflected in the conductor's score:

1.      In the Melody part that you just extracted in the above procedure, make some change, such as changing the period to an explanation point in the last lyric:

2.      Choose the Show All Tracks command in the Track menu to show the conductor's score again.

Composer will now display both the Melody and Piano parts together:

Notice how the change you made to the lyric in the Melody part is now reflected in the conductor's score. This also works for most other types of objects, such as notes and dynamic marks.

To extract a part with two or more tracks (staves):

1.      Choose the Select Part command in the Part menu.

-- OR --

Type "qpart" for Quick Select Part.

Composer will display the Select Part dialog box:

2.      Choose the option "Select one or more tracks to be displayed or printed together".

3.      Select the tracks that will be displayed together as one part.

In this example, select the Piano RH and Piano LH tracks, which will be prepared together as a single piano part.

4.      Click the OK button.

Composer will display the following simple dialog box:

5.      Enter the part name for the newly extracted part, and click the OK button.

Composer will immediately display the newly extracted part:

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