Creating and saving a document [Light] [Beginner] [Professional]

If you are new to computers and if Pizzicato is already running following the previous lesson, please first quit Pizzicato and then start it again, otherwise the sequence of actions of this lesson will not proceed exactly as expected and you may not understand why.

We will now learn how to create your score and to save your work in the computer. Do not hesitate to do this lesson several times, because a good understanding of these concepts is essential.

Here is the usual sequence of a working session with Pizzicato:

• You launch Pizzicato. A new document is automatically created.
• You work to build your score.
• You decide to stop working and you save it on the hard disk of your computer by giving it a name, for example "Disco-1" (you choose the name).
• You quit Pizzicato and you switch off your computer. Your work remains on the hard disk.

Regularly, you work in this manner. Each time you save your document under a different name.

Later, you decide to modify or complete one of your documents. The working session becomes:

• You launch Pizzicato.
• You open your document by choosing your work "Disco-1". Pizzicato loads it in the working memory.
• You modify your work and save it again. Pizzicato updates your document on the hard disk of the computer, so that the new version of your work can be later modified again or simply played back or printed.
• You quit Pizzicato and you switch off your computer.

Note that these working steps are the same for most programs, either a drawing program, a text processor or anything else.

Let us see that in a practical way. We will create a score with one note and we will save it under the name Test 1. We will close this score and open it again to modify it. Then we will save it again.

• Start Pizzicato; a new score is automatically created. We will introduce a note in our document. Type the key "3" on the computer keyboard (numeric keypad located to the right).

• Place the mouse cursor like this on the score:

• Click. A note appears:

The rest of the manual will explain you how to place notes, where are the keyboard shortcuts (like here, "3"), etc. For now, we simply want to personalize the score.

The work executed on this score (placement of one note) is now in the working memory of the computer. It is in the random access memory (also called RAM in computer terminology). If you switch off your computer now, or if a power failure occurs, your work will be lost because by switching the computer on again, you will find no traces of this work.

To memorize this work definitively, you must write it on the hard disk of the computer. The data remain preserved on the hard disk, even if the computer is switched off. Select the Save item in the File menu. A dialog box appears:

On Mac OS X, the first time, the folder shown will be the document folder. To reach the Pizzicato folder, click on the left on Applications, then on Pizzicato 3.

The main area contains the names of existing folders and documents. The basic principle of folders is very simple. In life, when you have many papers, documents and information, you place them in different files, cabinets or drawers, in order to find them easily. If you place them all in one large box, you would need a lot of time to find a specific document.

In the computer, it is the same principle. Instead of placing all the scores which you will make in the next years in the same folder, you classify them in various folders. The way to classify them is your choice: by type, working date, period… you have the choice.

In Pizzicato, you will find at least the following folders (use the vertical scroll bar to see them all):

• Examples: this folder is found in the DataEN folder and contains the examples used in this manual. Each time a lesson requires you to open a document of the type ExNNN.piz, you can find it in this folder.
• Music: this folder is found in the DataEN folder and contains some pieces of various music styles, provided with Pizzicato.
• Libraries: this folder is found in the DataEN folder and contains various documents related to the musical libraries.
• Misc and Prefs: those folders are reserved for Pizzicato. Do not modify them, nor their contents, because they are necessary for the correct working of Pizzicato.
• Templates: this folder is found in the DataEN folder and contains several templates to start a new score.
• Tests, Documents 1, Documents 2, Documents 3, Documents 4 and Documents 5: six empty folders ready to receive your documents. If you want to personalize their name, see the instruction of the Windows (the section concerning the Windows explorer) or Macintosh manual.

In this manual, we suggest you to use the Tests folder to save the documents of your first experiments with Pizzicato. So do not modify the name of this folder.

• To place a document in a folder, this folder should first be opened. Double-click on the Tests folder. The other folders disappear and the dialog box displays the contents of Tests. As you did not yet save anything there, it is now empty.

• You can now specify the name under which you want to save the document. Click in the area of text located just below the list (above on Mac OS X) and fill it with Test 1 using the keyboard. Click now on the Save button. At this time, the dialog box disappears and you return to the score. Notice that the title of the main window displays among others the name of the document, Test 1.

Your document is now recorded on the hard disk of the computer. If you go on working with this score and want to save the modifications, select the Save item again in the File menu. As you already gave a name to your document, Pizzicato will no more display the above dialog box. It will simply save your document, in the place of the last version, with the same name.

If you choose a name already existing in the folder, Pizzicato asks for confirmation. If you answer yes, the last version is replaced by the new one. Be aware of that. Let us take an example. If you create tomorrow a new document and try to save it under the name Test 1 in the Tests folder, Pizzicato will let you know that this document already exists (since you created it today) and will ask you to confirm you want to replace it. If you choose yes, the last document named Test 1 will be lost and replaced by the new one. By choosing no, you must then find another name for the new document.

The rule is that two documents cannot have the same name in the same folder. However, you can create two documents with the same name by placing them in two different folders.

• Close the score view.

The scrolling score view [Beginner] [Professional]

Beginner and Professional versions only

We will now open the Ex045.piz document.

• Select the Open... item in the File menu. The open document dialog box appears. In the last step, we worked in the Tests folder. This is why Pizzicato now indicates the contents of the Tests folder which contains the document named Test 1. If we want to open a document from another folder (here the Examples folder), it is first necessary to get out of the Tests folder. The icon located in the upper part of the dialog box lets you go up one level. Click on this icon and the list of the Pizzicato folders appears. Double-click the DataEN folder and then the Examples folder. On Macintosh, it is a bit different. The title of the list displays the folder of which the list displays the content. By clicking on this title, a menu appears and lets you select a parent folder, here "Pizzicato 2 Folder". Then double-click the DataEN folder then the Examples folder. The documents contained in it appear on the list. Now open the Ex-045.piz document.

• Select the Scrolling score item in the Windows menu. The following view appears:

• The purpose of this scrolling score view is to play or follow a score while it scrolls. At any moment, measures to be played are displayed in advance. When a view area has been played, it is automatically replaced by the next measures of the score. When you arrive at the bottom, you just need to start reading again at the beginning of the screen, because the score was updated. Moreover, while reading you are never surprised by the score entirely disappearing before being redrawn. You keep your reference points. This method of score reading and follow-up can be used to learn how to read a score. A cursor follows the current measure. Let us see that in practice. Hit the space bar of the keyboard to listen to the score or use the recorder start button (yellow triangle).

• Close this view and the score view.

Modification of a document [Light] [Beginner] [Professional]

We will load the document you have just created.

• Select the Open… item in the File menu. If you opened the last example, you find yourself in the Examples folder. Click the icon located in the upper part of the dialog box two times and you get the list of the Pizzicato folders, then double-click the Tests folder. On Macintosh, click on the dialog box title to go up two levels. Double-click on the Tests folder. The Test 1 document that you created appears. Open it by double-clicking it.

• Hit the "2" key on the keyboard and place the mouse cursor as follows:

• Click. The measure becomes:

• Your document is now modified. You have the possibility to save it by the Save item in the File menu. In this case, your last version (which is still on the hard disk) will be replaced by the new version (which have an additional note).

• It is sometimes interesting to open a document, to modify it and save it under another name, in order to keep the original version. Select the Save as... item in the File menu. Again, Pizzicato displays the dialog box seen at the beginning of this lesson, in order to let you specify another name for the document. Fill in Test 2 in the text box, using the keyboard. Click on Save. Your score is now recorded under this new name. The title bar of the document now displays Test 2.

• Close the score view.

Exercise

The concepts introduced in this lesson are fundamental with regard to the opening and the saving of documents. As an exercise, if you are new to computers, we advise you to do again the various steps of this lesson, in order to fully assimilate them.

Light

Beginner

Professional