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-   -   Playing other instruments while viewing a solo (http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/showthread.php?t=1615)

George Mills (mswlogo) 04-23-2009 05:19 AM

The song I'm currently lea
 
The song I'm currently learning has 5 instruments in the midi.

But I want to only view one (the Violin) while playing along.

But when I choose to only view the Violin is seems to assume Solo.

To simulate my playing "with the band" I want it the opposite of how it behaves now. I want all other instruments on and the Violin off as I will be playing the Violin part. But I only want to "read" my Violin music.

Ideally I want that same control as composer to turn any instrument on off and what I decide view should not change what's being played.

Perhaps there already is a trick to doing this but I can't seem to find it. Having conductor view up is very distracting for the young student and forces lots of scrolling which is not needed for his one instrument.

George Mills (mswlogo) 04-23-2009 05:24 AM

Oh, I just realized I can no l
 
Oh, I just realized I can no longer use my "Mouse" trick to restart song with butt of bow because the cursor position I want to restart at almost immediately scrolls off the screen. Mouse trick generally only works if the whole song can fit on the screen. And "my part" easily does but with 5 instruments it's like 5 pages of scrolling.

Sherry Crann (sherry) 04-23-2009 12:04 PM

Howdy George, It sounds lik
 
Howdy George,

It sounds like perhaps you have selected the violin staff (made it all turn blue) before playing the file. Selecting a staff and then clicking "Play" will play the file and any instruments that aren't muted, but the selected staff will have a louder relative volume than the other instruments. This feature is used to focus on a particular staff if you want to hear what it sounds like against the other instruments without disrupting the more balanced volume settings that are already in place.

To display only the violin staff but have all other instruments playing, use the Part drop list on the menu bar and be sure that none of the staves is selected (blue). If you want to see the Page view of the score (what it will look like when printed) and have the violin muted, then you can use Staff/Setup, and check the "Mute" box for the violin staff.

If the above doesn't resolve it for you, do let me know.

ttfn,
Sherry

George Mills (mswlogo) 04-26-2009 04:27 AM

Nope, nothing is blue. In case
 
Nope, nothing is blue. In case it's the file I attached it.

It works if I have "Conductors Score" up with Violin off and all other instruments on. As soon as I switch to from Conductors Score to Violin it shuts all instruments off and turns Violin on.

I swear I did get it working on another file the other day but now I cannot.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons...hment_icon.gif
Swallow_Tail_Jig.not (90.7 k)</td></tr></table></center>

Sherry Crann (sherry) 04-26-2009 01:14 PM

Howdy George, Thanks for in
 
Howdy George,

Thanks for including the file - that's worth more than a thousand words and lots of time spent typing them http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

The "Solo" button is turned "on" when I selected the violin part from the menu Part drop list. Clicking that again (lower left button in the staff control 4-button group) so it's "off" solves the problem.

ttfn,
Sherry

George Mills (mswlogo) 04-27-2009 04:31 PM

Thanks. It is still a sligh
 
Thanks.

It is still a slight problem for me.

I don't see why changing from Conductors View to an individual Instrument should change anything that is being played.

I Select what instruments I want on or off in the conductors view and then choose what I want to view. When I switch to the single instrument it forces just that instrument on with all others off, or just that instrument off with all others on and ignores how I individually set them up.

The Viola and Violin are almost identical so I want those both off and all others on while viewing just the Violin. But I can't see to do that.

Sherry Crann (sherry) 04-27-2009 05:21 PM

Howdy George, For the file
 
Howdy George,

For the file that I downloaded above, the only problem was that the "Solo" button was clicked "on" as well as the "mute" button. If "solo" and "mute" and "violin part only" are all "on", Composer has to guess about which staves should take precedence for playback http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif Since "solo" and "violin part" are two out of three, Composer guessed that you really wanted to solo the violin part. When I chose "Violin" from the part drop list and clicked the solo button "off", all the other tracks then played as expected while the violin (and viola) remained muted.

We could make Composer so that you can't have both "solo" and "mute" buttons on at the same time, but it would risk some of the "on the fly" flexibility that many folks enjoy when listening back through compositions and checking parts.

So, just make sure that you don't have both the "Mute" and "Solo" buttons on at the same time when viewing the violin part and you want to practice with the whole band http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

ttfn,
Sherry

Ian Douglas Graham (iandgraham) 04-27-2009 06:37 PM

Dear Sherry and George Nota
 
Dear Sherry and George

Notation being the wonderful programme it is, there's actually more than one way of skinning this cat.............I started off using the 4-button onscreen staff controls for this sort of situation, but now I find I use the staff > setup route, and then check or uncheck the 'show' and 'mute' boxes as appropriate.
This also has the advantage that you can dispense with the onscreen 'Staff controls' , and so create more screen room for whatever score you do want to see.

Another 'wrinkle' which may be of help to you, George, is to insert an extra 2 or 3 blank bars at the beginning to give you a few seconds to get your hand(s) from one place to another. Obviously, if you wish, you can also insert an audible count-in in one or more of thes bars.

Sincerely

Ian G.

Sherry Crann (sherry) 04-27-2009 07:45 PM

Howdy Ian and George, Good
 
Howdy Ian and George,

Good observations and suggestions! Yes, there are a number of ways to do a number of tasks in Composer. Ian's suggestions are excellent for showing the most "score real estate" (and essential for Page View) during practices.

ttfn,
Sherry

George Mills (mswlogo) 04-27-2009 07:55 PM

What Ian described is much mor
 
What Ian described is much more than optimized real estate. It was the ONLY way I could accomplish what I wanted. I won't be using the button any more either. And not because of real estate.

I wanted Viola and Violin muted while all other instruments playing with only Violin in View.

The Staff setup was the only way to do this.

By default a solo view would force Solo (Just Violin) or Band (All but Violin) and nothing in between. But I wanted all instruments playing except Violin AND Viola. The Staff setup dialog was the only way that would let me do that.

Sherry Crann (sherry) 04-27-2009 09:04 PM

Howdy George, Aaahh.... I t
 
Howdy George,

Aaahh.... I think I now understand the usability issue here. Sorry for being so slow on this one....

Composer "remembers" the button states of each Part, rather than applying the Conductor's score button state to all Parts. I think that is the main issue.

The Violin part had the "Solo" button on, but the Conductor's Part had the Violin "Mute" button on. Thus my recommendation to just click off the "Solo" button. But doing that, while it does mute the violin you can still hear the Viola. (What the heck is a viola doing in this piece anyway? ;) just kidding....)

The single staff Part (eg. Violin) using just the Staff Control buttons allows for three states:
1. The entire band (including violin)
2. Solo (just violin)
3. Band minus violin.

For most instrumentalists, a file will only have one staff with their part that needs to be muted. That can easily be accomplished with the current button setup and "button memory" setting, per the above listed "states". However, in the case of the Swallow Tail Jig file above, there are _two staves_ (single-staff parts) that have the melody, and you needed both muted while viewing a single part. The button settings while viewing just the Violin Part doesn't allow for that. If you Define a Part for Violin+Viola, you could do it using the Staff Control Buttons.

So yes, to mute more than one staff at a time while viewing a single-staff part, you'll need to use the Staff/Setup assignments because Composer doesn't apply the button settings from one Part to the other Parts. It "remembers" the different button settings of each Part separately.

ttfn,
Sherry


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