Song Editor and Event List Tutorial

The Song Editor shows an overall view of your music. On the left side of the window is a list of your tracks and beside each track is a horizontal list of bars. Each bar is filled in with colored rectangles if there are notes or other events present in the bar. Different colors denote different kinds of musical data. You use the Song Editor to cut and paste and insert space on a global level, i.e. to arrange your music.

If you haven't already loaded the tutorial file TUTOR13.QSD, load it by clicking on the File menu, selecting Open and then double-clicking on the entry TUTOR13.QSD in the file list box. If Lock Cursors and Lock Tracks are not set in the Window menu, click the Window menu and select Lock Cursors, then click the Window menu again and select Lock Tracks. Click the Window menu a third time and select the Song Editor.

Copying and Pasting Bars

The first thing we'll do is make a copy of the first two bars in both tracks and paste it in at the beginning of the piece. Select the first two bars in both tracks by clicking the mouse in the first bar of the first track and dragging the mouse while holding the left mouse button down so that it is on the second bar in the second track. The first two bars in both tracks should be highlighted. Release the mouse.

From the edit menu that appears select Copy.

Notice that the From time and the To time have been filled in with the range that you have selected. Make sure the Paste To box has a check in it. We want to paste at the beginning, which is the Paste To time already set by the dialog. All we have to do is click on OK. Take a look at the first four bars in the Song Editor. The first bar and the third bar both have different colors in them. What is this stuff? The best way to tell for sure is to go to the Event List and take a look. Select the Event List from the Window menu.

Erasing Events

We are looking at the first track. Scroll the display down to the beginning of bar 3. There is some stuff here we don't really need because it's already at the beginning of bar 1. This is the treble clef, the program change, and the volume controller. Let's get rid of them. Select the three events with the mouse by clicking on the treble clef symbol, keeping the left mouse button down and dragging down until all three events are highlighted and then releasing the button. Select Cut from the edit menu that drops down.

Go to track 2 by clicking on the track list box and selecting track 2. Repeat the previous operation. Note that in the Song Editor, bar 3 now only has a black rectangle in both tracks, indicating that only note events exist in this bar.

Changing Events

Let's go back to the Event List and change the volume controller value at the beginning of both tracks. Press HOME to go to the beginning of the track and then double-click on the volume controller event (the controller event with controller number 7).

For fun, lets make the value of the controller 120. Click on OK, then repeat the operation for track 1.

Erasing Bars

Let's go back to the Song Editor and cut out bar 3 and bar 4. Select these bars in both tracks the same way you did for bar 1 and bar 2. Select Cut from the edit menu that appears. The same dialog comes up as when you selected Copy, except that Cut is selected in the top left-hand box instead of Copy. Let's leave everything the way it is and click on OK. Now the music in bar 3 and bar 4 is gone, but the bars are still there. We want to delete the hole, so let's try again. Select the bars again and now, when the dialog comes up, put a check in the Delete Hole box. Click on OK. The blank bars are gone.

Inserting Bars

The last thing we can do in the Song Editor is to insert blocks of space for entering or pasting new sections of music. Let's try opening up the space we just cut out. Select bar 3 and bar 4 again as before. Now select Insert Space from the edit menu. We want to insert 2 bars (the amount we selected) starting at bar 3 (where we started our range) and this is how the dialog is set up. If we wanted to insert a different amount of space or insert at a different time, we could enter different values in the Insert At Time field or the Amount field. Click on OK. The display in the Song Editor reflects the two inserted blank bars.

Of course you can get rid of the two blank bars you created by selecting them and deleting them, remembering to check the Delete Hole box.

Starting Out

Score Editor Tutorial - Notes and Formatting

Score Editor Tutorial - Text, Lyrics and Symbols

Setting up for Sequencing

Piano Roll Editor Tutorial

Controller Editor Tutorial

MIDI Mixer Tutorial

Song Editor and Event List Tutorial

Recording MIDI Tutorial

Recording Audio Tutorial

Audio Mixer Tutorial

Glossary

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