Muting and Soloing Staves

Go to the previous page in the Table of Contents.  Go to the next page in the Table of Contents.

There are a variety of occasions in which you might want to listen only to certain staves of a song while other staves are muted (silenced). For example, if a song has a melody staff played by some instrument, but you want to sing the melody yourself, then you can mute the melody staff. Or, you might want to study the composition and arrangement of a song and focus on how a particular instrument part is written by "soloing" that instrument part, thus muting all of the other staves.

Composer enables you to play any combination of staves while muting other staves. You can even do this while the song is playing back. There are two places where you can see whether a staff is muted or not. If the staff controls are visible, you can tell that a staff is muted if the top-left button is not pressed down and has a dull light instead of the normal bright green light:

  StaffControlPlayActive staff playback is active

  StaffControlPlayInactive staff is muted

If the staff controls are not visible, then you can set the Mute check mark for the staff in the Staff Setup window, as described later in this topic.

If you save the song as a MIDI file, any muted staff will be restored as an audible staff when you reopen the MIDI file. If you wish the staff to remain muted, you should save the file as a Notation (.not) file. If you save a muted staff in a Notation file, you have the option to later open the Notation file and unmute the staff.

prcarrow To toggle the play/mute status of a staff using the staff control:

1.If the staff controls are not already visible, set the Show Staff Controls option in the View menu. Note that the Show Staves Controls option is not available in Page View.
2.In the group of four staff controls, toggle the play/mute button to active StaffControlPlayActive or muted StaffControlPlayInactive.

prcarrow To toggle the play/mute status of a staff using the Staff Setup window:

1.Select the Staff Setup command from the Staff menu. Composer will display the Staff Setup window.
2.In the Mute column of the Staff Setup window, set or unset the check mark for the staff.

   -- OR --

   Click the Mute column header to change the status of play/mute for all staves at once.

Another option allows you to mute all staves except one staff that you wish to "solo". The play/mute status of the other staves are only temporarily changed. Once you turn off the solo option for the staff, any staff that was previously playing will continue to play, and any staff that was previously muted will continue to be muted.

prcarrow To toggle the solo status of a staff:

B832Toggle the solo  button to a down StaffControlSoloActive or up StaffControlSoloInactive position.

You can temporarily solo any number of staves together by setting their respective solo buttons to the down position.


Go to the previous page in the Table of Contents.  Go to the next page in the Table of Contents.