Pizzicato music notation and composition sofware features

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Pizzicato 3.4 now available! Draw your melodies on the staff, create your own synthesized sounds, use the full quality orchestral sound library, work in the global view, combining the best of Pizzicato in one window, as well as other new features,...

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Alain Lumbroso, clarinetist (France) - "Pizzicato and SharpEye2 are for me both essential tools for our activity."
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Anne Cadart, Choir Conductor (France) - "My main interest in Pizzicato is to write polyphonic music, so as to increase our repertoire. Now that I can use this software, it is wonderful!"
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Pizzicato Features

Pizzicato exists in three versions: Light, Beginner and Professional. Here is a general description of their respective fields of application and an exhaustive table the main features.

Pizzicato Light makes it easy to learn music and as an approach to music software. It excels as a companion to a music course followed in a music school or college (to practise music reading and generate basic exercises). Of course you can also use it just for fun. You can edit small scores (1 to 2 pages) with the mouse or the MIDI keyboard, with a predefined page layout. It contains the full Pizzicato music course so that you can follow it and do the practical exercises.

Pizzicato Beginner is dedicated to writing, printing and listening to music scores for soloist instruments and groups up to 16 players. It fits very well for choirs or bands of all styles. The size of the score is no more limited in pages and measures and the page setup may be customized. Very easily, with the progressive course in the manual and/or by watching the video tutorials on the site, you can define the number of measures per system, system per page,... The result is a nice looking music sheet. Pizzicato Beginner also contains all the features of Pizzicato Light (including the full music course).

Pizzicato Professional smartly helps you to write, compose, print and listen to your music from the soloist to the full orchestra. It contains many additional features to help you creating and writting music (drum notation, note heads, personal tools and palettes, parts extraction,...). The program also contains several innovative and groundbreaking tools to help you to create and compose your own music (proposing chords on a given melody, creating structured accompaniements, buildings scores like a construction set, drawing the shape of a melody directly on the staff, intuitively explore harmonic progressions,...). It is an ultimate music laboratory, to help you practise - but also learn - music composition. Pizzicato Professional also contains all the features of Pizzicato Light (including the full music course).

All versions have the same user-friendliness: you can concentrate yourself on the creative work and Pizzicato helps you to become more efficient.

At any time you may upgrade between versions on the basis of the price differences. You can start with a small investment and upgrade according to your needs. See the upgrade order page.

Pizzicato version 3.4 (Light, Beginner and Professional) is the most recent version. It contains the last improvements of the product and updates are regularly published. To discover the new features of version 3.4 as compared to the previous versions, click here.

The following table shows the main features of Pizzicato Light, Beginner and Professional 3.4.

	L I G	B E G	P R O
General presentation
Musical text processor allowing to write each element of a score	x	x	x
Print the score in high quality	x	x	x
Play the score on your sound card or MIDI synthesizer/piano	x	x	x
For Windows 95,98,ME,2000,XP,Vista	x	x	x
For Mac OS X (10.3 or later)	x	x	x
Documentation et training
English software and manual	x	x	x
Progressive lessons to help using the software	x	x	x
Full user manual available on screen	x	x	x
Paper manual with the most important lessons		x	x
Hints to help you find the tools and their keyboard shortcuts	x	x	x
Music course suited to users without musical background	x	x	x
Practical training to play the music keyboard	x	x	x
Notes entry
Note entry with the mouse and/or the musical keyboard or the computer piano window	x	x	x
Play on the musical keyboard, Pizzicato transcribes the notes on the screen	x	x	x
Recorder window with metronome and tempo value	x	x	x
Automatic spacing and layout of notes	x	x	x
The added or edited notes are played as an immediate feedback	x	x	x
Automatic scrolling of the score while playing	x	x	x
Visualization of playing notes by coloring or with a scrolling vertical bar	x	x	x
Up to 8 voices per staff	x	x	x
Work and view the score using a graphic zoom		x	x
Linear view that displays the measures one next to the other, outside of any page layout		x	x
Grace notes and various note heads			x
Custom layout of notes inside a measure		x	x
Copy/Paste measures	x	x	x
Triplets and tuplets	x	x	x
Automatic measure transposition function	x	x	x
Cross-staff beaming for piano scores.			x
Specific tools to display and play single and multiple grace notes			x
Special copy/paste function to split or merge voices			x
Note color can be customized for each note	x	x	x
Function to assign note colors according to the note name or pitch		x	x
Graphic note editor window to view and edit the notes as small lines	x	x	x
Function to display the note names (C, D, E,...)	x	x	x
Graphic entry mode for notes on the staff	x	x	x
Structure of the score
Maximum number of instruments per system	8	16	99
Unlimited size of the score		x	x
Custom page layout		x	x
Printing at 100 %	x	x	x
Printing at 85 %		x	x
Printing in all sizes (zoom for printer)			x
Orchestral score optimization			x
Reduced staff size			x
Guitar tablature staves and tablature library	x	x	x
Multi-document, multi-score			x
Measure numbers	x	x	x
Page numbers	x	x	x
Score creation wizard			x
Clefs, key signatures and time signatures
Treble clef and Bass clef	x	x	x
Other clefs (C, percussion...)			x
Keys signatures from 7b to 7#	x	x	x
Arbitrary key signatures			x
Different key signature for each staff (transposing instruments)			x
Time signature selection	x	x	x
Composite time signatures (3+4 /4, 6+2 /8...)			x
Flexibility to display/hide the time and key signatures, creating free measures, cut measures...			x
Easy handling of upbeats and incomplete measures		x	x
Chords, text, lyrics
Chord symbols	x	x	x
Chords diagrams for the guitar	x	x	x
Transcription of chords into notes	x	x	x
Chord analysis and chord searching on a melody			x
Personalized chord library			x
Chord progression fast encoding window			x
Text blocks for titles, author, numbers...	x	x	x
Up to 8 lines of lyrics; each syllable is automatically aligned under the notes	x	x	x
Lyrics fast encoding window		x	x
Note colored according to the current chord structure	x	x	x
MIDI effects and handling - Performance of the score
Realistic performance of symbols (nuances, tempo, accents, special effects...)	x	x	x
MIDI Sequencer	x	x	x
Possibility to add sophisticated MIDI effects		x	x
Graphic editor window for the MIDI effects (Volume, tempo, reverb,...)	x	x	x
Possibility to create your own graphic and MIDI symbols			x
MIDI input(s)/output(s)	1	1	16
GM (General MIDI) synthesizer handling	x	x	x
Drivers to give access to any sound of most synthesizers on the market	2	2	95
Import MIDI files		x	x
Export MIDI files	x	x	x
Others
Copy pictures of measures to your text processor		x	x
Global view, assembling all the best tools of Pizzicato in one single efficient window		x	x
Levels of UNDO	1	1	50
Tool palettes with a large selection of graphic symbols	x	x	x
Specific tool palette for the guitar	x	x	x
Customize tool palettes			x
TrueType music font	x	x	x
Possible to use some other music fonts from the market			x
Sequencer, piano roll, score and instruments windows	x	x	x
Personalized instrument window (mixing table)			x
Special window designed to be able to read a score with no page turn		x	x
Percussion handling and writing			x
Parts extraction from a conductor score			x
Import NIFF files (to cooperate with a scanning program)			x
MusicXML export function to exchange scores with other music software	x	x	x
MusicXML import function from other music software			x
Automatic saving and backup handling		x	x
Music composition tools - Intuitive composition
Accompaniment styles			35
Import Yamaha style files (*STY) and use them in the real time and score arrangers			x
Music library tools, to help you compose and build music scores on the basis of rhythmic, melodic and chord blocks.			x
Multi-versions measures	x	x	x
Smart link copy/cut function, to help you structure music composition based on rhythmic, melodic and harmonic aspects and transformations	x	x	x
Conductor window to assemble a music composition from several little scores, rhythmic patterns, smart copies,...			x
From a single MIDI keyboard, the Pizzicato virtual keyboards lets you play several instruments at once. Transform your MIDI keyboard into a multiple playing keyboard.			x
Hundreds of harmonic spaces help you to navigate through a given set of chords and to create a chord progression in an intuitive way, just by listening			x
Real time arranger, to select styles and chords in an intuitive way, by listening			x
Large libraries with tens of thousands of basic musical structures such as chords, chords progressions, rhythmic and melodic sequences,...			x
Score arranger. Starting with a chord progression, you may add individual instrumental patterns from the library or from your own creation. A set of harmony rules help you to add secondary voices and to construct your score.			x
Music generator : a programmable module used to create musical patterns (rhythms, melodies, chord progressions) by the thousands, starting from simple criteria you define. These patterns may then be dragged/dropped inside your own composition.			x
The graphic music vector: you can draw the shape of a melody directly on the staff and watch it be transformed into a melody based on chords and scales. You can reshape the rhythmic dimension in several ways. This is the basis of intuitive composition.			x
Creation and handling of general chords and scales that can be used with the score arranger and the music vectors			x
Audio functions
You may open, listen to, record and edit standard audio WAVE files (".wav" extension)	x	x	x
You may export your music score to a WAVE file so that you can use that file with your CD burning software to create an audio CD.	x	x	x
You may associate one WAVE file with the score playing in MIDI, for instance to add your voice or an instrument through a microphone.	x	x	x
You may associate several WAVE files with the score playing in MIDI, for instance to add your voice or an instrument through a microphone.			x
A real instrument orchestral sound library (1.2 GB) helps you to create a realistic sound performance	x	x	x
You can import sounds in the SoundFont format and use them directly in a music composition			x
You can adjust tuning and the exact frequencies of each note of the scale to affect the playback of the score			x
A modular customized sound synthesizer helps you to create your own sounds and work on instruments samples that you can use in a music composition			x
A spectral analyser helps you to work on sound frequencies and then resynthesize the audio signal			x

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