Engraving
Here’s what you can do to tweak your notation’s engraving within Soundslice — that is, tweak the details of how your notation looks.
These options live in the top panel’s “Format” section:
Controlling beaming
See Beams for more information.
Controlling stem directions
It’s easy to flip a note’s stem direction. Select the note(s), then click the “Flip stem direction” icon in the top panel’s “Format” section. Or search the editor for “Flip stem direction.”
If your selected note is part of a beam, this will flip the stems of all of the notes in that beam.
Setting cautionary accidentals
By default, we show and hide accidentals based on customary rules (accidentals hold until the end of the bar, etc.). You can add parentheses around an accidental — hence communicating that this is a cautionary accidental or courtesy accidental — by selecting the note, then clicking the “Toggle cautionary accidental” icon in the top panel’s “Format” section. Or search the editor for “Toggle cautionary accidental.”
Controlling slur side
See the slurs section.
Hiding note stems
Hiding note stems is occasionally done in educational music, to de-emphasize rhythm and focus on a specific series of pitches.
To toggle a note’s stem, select the note and click the “Toggle stem visibility” icon in the top panel’s “Format” section.. Or search the editor for “Toggle stem visibility.”
Hiding time signatures
See the time signatures section.
Hiding noteheads/rests
Above, we’ve notated the same multi-voice passage in two ways. In the left version, the bottom voice displays all of its rests. In the right version, we’ve hidden the bottom voice’s rests.
Sometimes people hide rests in this way to make music less cluttered. This happens often in piano music.
To hide a notehead or rest, select it and click the “Toggle note visibility” icon in the top panel’s “Format” section. Or search the editor for “Toggle note visibility.”
If you change your mind and want to display a hidden notehead or rest:
- Select it. This can be slightly tricky, given that it’s invisible. You can try clicking on it, or you can use the keyboard to navigate to it.
- You’ll see the “Toggle note visibility” icon in the current notations section. Click that icon to remove the invisibility, hence showing the notehead/rest once more.
Using small (cue) noteheads
To change a note to use a smaller (cue) notehead, select it and click the “Toggle small notehead” icon in the top panel’s “Format” section. Or search the editor for “Toggle small notehead.”
See also grace notes, which are a different concept. Grace notes have an undefined rhythmic duration, while notes with small noteheads use their normal duration.
Controlling line breaks
See the line breaks section.
Setting note color
See the note color section.