<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Editing the Music Notation > Selecting, Editing and Deleting Notes > Editing the Rhythms of Notes > Note Duration

The procedures below describe how to change the duration of a note by directly editing the note. You can also change the duration of a note by deleting the rest after it, or by dropping a rest on top of the start or end of the note. See Deleting Rests to Extend the Durations of Previous Notes and Using Rests to Erase Notes.

To change the duration of a note:

    Composer will display the Note Palette:

   

    -- OR --

    Type the equivalent keyboard commands for the buttons, such as "81d" for dotted eighth note.

    -- OR --

    Type D+ or D+ key one or more times to increase or decrease the duration of the note.

The procedure for changing the duration with D+ and D+ is similar to that for changing the attack location of a note with A+ and A+. The amount by which Composerincreases or decreases the duration depends on the context of the note. If there are no other notes nearby in the same staff, nor any other staff, then the duration will be increased or decreased by one sixteenth (of a whole note). If the note is not a member of a triplet or quintuplet, and if the original duration is not a multiple of a sixteenth note, then the duration will be rounded up or down to the nearest multiple of a sixteenth note. If the note is a member of a triplet or quintuplet, then the duration will be changed so that it aligns with an adjacent tuplet member position. If in the same staff or other staves there is another note or rest which lies closer than one sixteenth away from the current note's as-notated release (end of note), then the note's duration will be changed so that it ends where the nearby note or rest begins. This is illustrated in the following example. It is not really necessary for you to know all of these details. Try using D+ and D+ and you will quickly get a feel for how it works.

The quarter note is selected with a mouse click:

   

In each of the subsequent pictures below, the keys D+ have been used to increase the duration. The duration increases by one sixteenth at a time until the note ends at the 32nd note. Then the next D+ command extends the duration by only a 32nd beat rather than the normal sixteenth beat, so that the duration ends at the start of the next 32nd note.

   

   

   

 

 

To "Swing" the performance of notes

Sometimes, in jazz or big band "swing" music especially, music may be written "straight" but is understood by the musicians that the performance of those notes is to be "swing" style, where the duration of the first note of a pair of notes is to be longer than the second note of the pair.

When entering notes from such scores and using the mouse or Step-time entry it is much easier to enter the "straight" notation, but playing back such entry also performs "straight."  Composer allows you to quickly change the performance that you hear to "swing style" by using the "Convert to swing" button on the Notes/Notes palette.  We strongly suggest that you

1.enter the notes,

2.use the "convert to swing" conversion, and then

3.re-transcribe (to give the "straight" notation but preserve the "swing" playback) before annotating your score so that you don't lose annotation work.

 

 To convert notes from "straight" performance to "swing" performance:

 

1.  Select the notes in the score that you want to convert by either click-dragging across the notes to select them, or using Region select.  In either case the notes to be edited should turn blue in color:

 

 

2. Now click the "Convert to swing" button on the Notes palette:

 

 

3. Now the notation will reflect the actual "swing" performance:

 

 

 

When you playback the song now the audio performance will correctly "swing".  If you make audio files for your musicians to practice with this will help them to "feel" the music better.

 

For printing out sheets for your musicians that are "cleaner" and show the "straight" notation, you can use the Format/Re-Transcribe feature and select "Swing" to get the original "straight" notation, but retain the "swing" style performance.  Be sure to do this before annotating your score so as not to lose annotation work.

 

Fine- editing of note duration

By default, the as-performed duration of the changed note will be slightly less than the as-notated duration. The result of this is that sequential notes will play in a legato style, that is, with almost no gaps between them. Sometimes this is not what you will want. You may want a more crisp sound, with brief gaps of silence between them. You can individually adjust the as-performed duration of each note, or of several selected notes at a time. Composer also enables you to set a default as-performed duration corresponding to each standard note size, so that whenever you add a note, its as-performed duration will automatically be adjusted. For example, you can set the as-performed duration of a quarter note to be the equivalent, of, say a dotted eighth note. For details, see Saving and Applying Note Duration Adjustments.

You also have the option to change the as-notated duration without changing the as-performed (heard) length of the note.

 

To change the as-notated duration, while ensuring that the as-performed duration remains unchanged:

-- OR --

Type SHIFT+Y.

Composer will display the Piano Roll Palette:

-- OR --

Type "en" for edit notation only.

Now the piano roll rectangles will be white to indicate that the performed timings are temporarily locked, as illustrated in the next picture.

The result of this last procedure is illustrated below: