This screen is supposed to make it easier for a person to enter a simple melody into jMusic's CPN. For example, if you have a songbook or piece of sheet music, and you want to hear what the melody sounds like or have the computer accompany your practice, this might make it easier for you to enter the notes. The notation used on this screen is not supposed to be any good for anything else -- it's just for pulling notes of a melody by hand from a sheet into the computer. Some people will prefer adding notes on the CPN screen with the mouse. Other people, eg me, are more keyboard oriented, and will find it less troublesome to type in the notes on this screen.
Before you use this screen, make sure that you have set the key signature of your melody correctly. You type in the note letters here, and the program will sharpen or flatten the notes as required accordingly to put the notes into the major or minor key specified by the key signature. You only have to enter information about sharps and flats (and naturals, double sharps, double flats, etc) that are not according to the key signature.
There are two large text areas on the screen. the top one is where you type in the notes to add. This is a multi-line text area. If you are adding more than a couple measures, you probably want to enter your notes neatly and systematically using more than one line, maybe one line per measure or two measures per line at the most. You can space the notes out with spaces and/or blank lines to enhance readability as you like.
Tthe bottom text area keeps and shows a history of what you have previously entered. When notes are added through the top text area, the multiple lines there get compressed down to a single line in the bottom area. Because music is repetitious, you may find yourself entering the same or similar notes multiple times. You can do this by highlighting the previously entered line in the bottom text area and then clicking on "Copy". This will put the highlighted line into the text box at the top. There you can make changes for any variations of the repetition, etc.
The other three buttons across the middle of the screen work as follows:
The Notation -- I really didn't want to invent another notation. Honest. I'll be glad to change this to anything else that's as quick and dirty and easy to enter and program, etc. To add notes, you type the note names, A thru G for musical notes, an R for a rest. You type them in in the order in which they are to be added. You can use upper or lower case. You can insert characters that are not part of the notation (eg blanks or vertical bar's | | | | to make the notation more readable to you, if you like. You might want to enter the notation using another program, maybe Microsoft's Notepad, for example, and then cut and paste the notes into this text area. IDK, whatever works for you.
Additional notation -- After the note letter, you add any of the following information, as needed, to further describe the note. There are defaults for all of this, so if you want to go fast, maybe most of your notes don't need this extra notation, but some will.
Sharps and Flats -- Sharps and flats are automatic according to the key signature. If this doesn't get you the right pitch you want for your note, add any of the following after the note letter:
I guess you have to know enough about scales to know which note letters will need what to get to the right pitch. There is no natural sign in this notation, so a # will un-flatten a note and a minus sign will un-sharpen it.
Octaves -- Notes are by default put into octaves to be close to the preceding note. This works out pretty well. Unless you add octave information, each note will be put within three positions on the stave of the one preceding it. So D, E, and F, for example, would be above the previous note if the previous note was a C, and G, A, and B would be below the previous note, if it was a C. This is all done by letter, sharps and flats, wherever they fall, are all ignored in guessing the default octave. To select a different octave, add one of the following characters after the note (can be before or after the sharp/flat data):
Rhythm Values -- The rhythm value of each note defaults to be the same as that of the previous note. Much music follows this kind of a pattern most of the time, so this default can save a lot of typing. Nonetheless, you will need to enter time values for some of your notes. To specify a note's time value, add one of the following characters after the note (can be before or after the sharp/flat data and before or after the octave data):
You can also add a period (dot) to increase the time value by 50%. The period should be after the W,H,Q,N,X, or T if both appear. You can add an ampersand, &, to indicate that a note should be tied to the preceding note. If you tie two notes, they get their rhythm values combined into one, and we don't do slides or bends, so they should be the same pitch. Once you have tied two notes, their combined value is what the program will use as the default for the next note's rhythm value, and that's probably not what you want. So be sure to explicitly give a rhythm value for the note following a tied note.
Example -- How does this all work out? Is it usable? This is the notation for the famous pop song phrase "Somewhere, over the rainbow" ...
c4h c> bq gn a bq c
This is a C, octave 4 (middle C) half-note; another C (defaults to half note) > means up an octave; then a B quarter note, G eighth note, A (eighth note is the default), B quarter note, C quarter note. After the octave leap after the first note, the default placement into octaves works for all the following notes.
Changes
to the File Menu
Parameters
(Options) Screen
The
Tools Menu
The Play
Menu
The View
Menu
Right
Clicking on a Note
Adding
Notes by Letter
Changes by Al Christians, Public Property Software, February 2002. For more information, contact achrist@easystreet.com.