Wizard for Preparing Part

In Composer , a part displays the notes for one or more tracks. A part can be formatted and paginated independently of other parts extracted from the conductor's (entire) score.

You can use the Select Part command in the Part menu to create a new part for one or more selected tracks. The newly created part will inherit the formatting of whatever part you were currently viewing before you used the Select Part command. Formatting characteristics of a part include: the page size and margins; font sizes; spacing ; showing or hiding of instrument names; and display of easy notes (pitch letters in noteheads).

Composer 's Part Preparation Wizard offers a quick and easy way to create three standard parts with certain formatting options. These parts are named: the Sing-Along Part, the Easy Notes Part, and the Fake Book Lead Sheet Part. The purpose of each of these three parts, and their formatting characteristics, are summarized in the following table:

	Sing-Along Part	Easy Notes Part	Fake Book Lead Sheet Part
Purpose of a part.	Easy sight-reading of a Karaoke part (with notes) or vocal part from the screen from a distance of about 2 yards or meters.	Easy sight-reading of an instrumental part, by beginner musicians.	"Short-hand" notation for the lead melody instrument of a small band, or for a keyboard instrument, where just the melody notes and chord names are displayed.
Are lyrics included in the part?	Yes.	No.	Yes.
Are just the melody notes displayed, and not the accompaniment notes?	Yes.	Yes.	Yes.
Are chord names included in the part?	No.	Yes. The chord style named "Easy Chords" is used.	Yes. The chord style named "Fake Book" is used.
Are the notes displayed in a large font size?	No.	Yes.	No.
Are the lyrics displayed in a large font size?	Yes.	No.	No.
Are "easy note" pitch letters displayed in the noteheads?	No.	Yes.	No.

The Part Preparation Wizard lets you override the default characteristics for any of these three types of parts. For example, you can include lyrics in an Easy Notes Part, or remove lyrics from a Fake Book Lead Sheet Part. The only exception is that easy notes are displayed only for the Easy Notes Part.

If you override a default setting for one of the part types, Composer will remember your override and use it as the default the next time you prepare a part of that type.

Composer defines a fourth part type named the "Customized Part". You can choose whatever options you want for this part. The next time you prepare another Customized Part, Composer will offer the previous options you chose as defaults.

To prepare one of the special parts, or a customized part:

1. Choose the Part Preparation Wizard command in the Part menu.

-- OR --

Type "qppart" for Quick Prepare Part.

Composer will display Step 1 of the 5-step Part Preparation Wizard.

After each step, click the Next button.

2. Select Type of Part (Step 1 of 5):

Choose which of the four types of parts you wish to create.

3. Lyrics Options (Step 2 of 5):

Optionally check the box for "Include lyrics in the newly prepared part".

If you have checkmarked lyrics, then select the track that has the lyrics. Composer will pre-select the track that has the most lyrics in it.

4. Melody Options (Step 3 of 5):

Select the track that you know has the melody notes. If you selected a lyrics track in Step 2, then Composer will pre-select a track that has notes most closely matching the timing of the lyrics. Composer's guess is not always correct. So, if you are certain about which track has the melody notes, then select that track.

If the melody track has both melody notes and accompaniment notes, Composer will remove the accompaniment notes by default . Two other options are also available. You can keep the melody track as it is, by not removing any melody notes. Or, you can split the melody track into two tracks, one track having just the single line of melody notes, and a second track withaccompaniment notes. This last option is equivalent to separately using the Split Melody and Accompaniment command in the Track menu.

5. Chord Names Options (Step 4 of 5):

Specify whether you want chord names in the part or not.

If you choose to include chord names, then specify how the chord names should be transcribed, and specify which tracks should be used for analyzing the chord harmonies. These options are the same as for the Transcribe Chord Names command in the Track menu and Chord Name Menu. For details about the chord name transcription options, see Transcribing Chord Names.

6. Font Options (Step 5 of 5):

Select the various font sizes for notes, lyrics, and chord names.

Click the Finish button to complete the preparation of the part.

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