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The use of rhythmic voices

Subjects covered:

• Rhythmic voices
• Using rhythmic voices
• Making a note or a rest invisible

Watch also the following video:

• Introduction of notes and rests (2) (07'51) - Flash - Quicktime

Rhythmic voices [Light] [Beginner] [Professional]

A rhythmic voice is a sequence of notes and/or rests which fills the rhythmic duration of a measure. In a 4/4 measure, here are 3 examples of rhythmic voices:

By adding the rhythmic values for each measure, you get each time 4 beats.

It happens that several rhythmic voices must be written on the same staff, such as for example:

The voice term comes from the vocal music, where each voice sings one melody. The above example contains 2 voices. The 4 quarter notes belong to voice 1 and the 2 half notes belong to voice 2.

Pizzicato handles up to 8 voices on the same staff. You may automatically or manually assign the belonging of notes and rests to voices and view them by colours. Let us see that with examples.

Using rhythmic voices [Light] [Beginner] [Professional]

• Start Pizzicato. In the Options menu, select the Graphic options item. In the dialog box, select the Voice colour item in the Use of colours popup menu to get the following:

This option asks Pizzicato to draw notes with the colour of the voice to which they belong. Click OK.

When you add notes with the automatic justification, Pizzicato automatically assigns the voices to notes and rests.

• Add a C quarter note on the staff. Pizzicato automatically assigns voice 1 to it, whose colour is red. The note is thus redrawn in red when you release the mouse. Add 3 quarter notes to have:

Each note has the red colour to form the first rhythmic voice.

• Now add an E half note under the first C. The note appears in blue because it belongs to a second voice and is perfectly aligned with the first quarter note:

• By adding a second half note just to the right, it appears in blue and is aligned below the third quarter note to complete the second voice. Add a whole note to the beginning of the measure. As the first two voices are complete, Pizzicato assigns the third voice to it and the note is drawn in green:

The use of colours lets you understand the automatic distribution of voices in the measure. It is only useful when you create complex measures with many different voices which imbricate the ones into the others. To encode notes and rests by rhythmic voices, see the lesson on the notes and rests introduction.