Copy, Cut, and Paste

With Composer's clipboard, you can move all details-- both notation and performance-- from one region of a song to another. You can do this for just a few beats in a measure, or you can do this for large regions, including one or more entire staves of the score. You can move the region of music not only to some other location in the same song, but also to another song.

Composer's clipboard serves as a powerful tool for composers and arrangers. For example, using the clipboard and a few commands, a composer can copy a 16-bar section of a song to a new second section, and then transpose the notes up, say, two half-steps.

You can copy a region and then paste it on top of another region or, alternatively, you can insert the copied measures somewhere in the middle of the song or at the end of the song.

As you copy and paste measures, you can use the Paste Repeated Loop can to fill the destination multiple repeated times.  For example, you might use the Paste Repeated Loop command to fill in a repeated percussion pattern.

Composer's clipboard also enables you to copy music from one region to another even if the meter and barlines do not match. For example, you can move notes from measures in a 4:4 meter to measures in a 6:8 meter. However, there is one restriction: If there are triplets or quintuplets in the region, then they must be moved in such a way that they do not straddle beats at their destination. For example, an eighth note triplet can be moved to a quarter note beat in the destination measure, but not to a minor eighth note beat in the destination measure. If you attempt to do this, Composer will display the following error message in the status bar:

       Action would result in misalignment of tuplet members

All clipboard operations begin with selecting the region to be copied, as described in Selecting and Editing Regions of a Score.

NOTE:         If you are currently viewing a MIDI graph, then the region copy and paste commands will apply only to the type of MIDI data currently displayed in the graph, and will not copy, for example, notes and text.

The following commands in the Paste Special submenu of the Edit menu are described in other topics:

Paste Tempo: Copying Tempo Changes from One Region to Another

Paste Lyrics: Copying and Pasting Text

 
To copy a region from one location on top of another region in the same song:

       -- OR --

       Type CTRL+C.

       -- OR --

       Type CTRL+V.

To copy a region from one location on top of another region in a different score:

Follow the same instructions as above, except in step 3 open another song if it is not already opened and select a region in it as the destination for the Copy/Paste operation.

To move a region from one location to another:

Follow the same instructions as above, except in step 2 choose the Cut command instead of the Copy command in the Edit menu.

       -- OR --

       Type CTRL+X (instead of CTRL+C).

To insert a copy of some measures elsewhere in the score:

       -- OR --

       Type CTRL+C.

       If you skipped Step #3, then you will be asked in a dialog box to specify the number of the measure where the copied measures will be inserted.

To copy region multiple times to a destination region, repeating as many times as necessary to fill the destination region:

       -- OR --

       Type CTRL+C.