Writing cadenza passages in Notation Composer
 

Hi friends,

Here's another tip inspired by a friend's inquiry. He was using some sheet music and trying to get it into Composer to use for an arrangement he was working on. The note durations of a cadenza passage in the sheet music just weren't adding up to the written meter, and he was getting frustrated trying to figure out how to get it into Notation Composer.

Sometimes cadenza passages are not written to match the meter of the rest of the piece. Since cadenzas are intended to be "played freely", this makes sense to allow some latitude, but when working within the MIDI constraints of Notation Composer (and other composition software), it can be frustrating, as my friend found.

Which is why we bring you this hot little tip :)

When writing a cadenza, or any passage that doesn't "match up" meter-wise, and you don't want to have the meter be an issue, here's what you can do:

1. Write the notes as you want to over however many measures it takes.
2. Now go back and click on the barlines and delete them throughout the cadenza passage. You'll end up with some awful meter perhaps, but not to worry because you can ...
3. Double-Click on the EverlastinglyHugeMeter that just got created for the cadenza passage, and check the "Hide" button, then click "Ok".

If you find that you have rests left over at the end of the passage that you don't want included in the score after steps 1 and 2, then you can

1. insert a barline to split the "cadenza measure" at the last note, and
2. delete the new (and empty) odd measure.
3. Proceed with step 3 above.

It should now look beautiful :) Then of course you can use the various MIDI tools to massage the performance to sound however you want.

Enjoy!
Sherry