Professional

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Composition libraries(6)

Subjects covered:

• Erasing, duplicating and moving elements
• Library options
• Libraries in the sequencer view
• Copying libraries between two documents
• Summary - example of libraries
• Conclusions

Erasing, duplicating and moving elements [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

In this lesson, we will complete our knowledge of the composition libraries with various tips and advices used to handle the libraries.

• Open the Ex069.piz document. To erase an element (rhythm, melody, theme, chord or folder), place the mouse cursor arrow on the icon of the element and use the erase key. Erase the Maj C element and a dialog box appears to ask for confirmation. Click Yes. The Maj C element disappears.

When this dialog box appears, it means that the element is not used in a folder. By answering Yes, you erase this element of the document permanently. If this element is included within a folder in the document, it would disappear without confirmation, because it is always possible to recover it in the folder where it is used, as we will see a little further. The confirmation is a safety, in order not to erase an important element.

• When you erase a folder, the elements in it are automatically put back in the main view, providing that they are not used elsewhere. Erase the Melody 1 icon and confirm by clicking Yes. This icon disappears, but the 3 folders that were inside it appear again in the main view. They were extracted from the folder.

What you need to understand is that an element placed in several files remains in fact one single element. The copies you make by dragging it into various folders are references to the original. When you modify one of them, the original is modified and consequently all its references are also modified. When you erase this element somewhere and that it is also located in other files, it is simply a reference which is erased, the original remaining present as long as other references exist. It is only when you erase the last reference to this element that the original is erased and in this case, Pizzicato asks you a confirmation.

It can be useful to duplicate an element so that it becomes independent of its original. For example when you create a library containing several complex but slightly different elements. You create one of them, then you duplicate and modify it without changing the first. Here is the method to duplicate an element. First of all, this element must be located in the main view. We will for example duplicate the F Maj icon.

• While holding down the SHIFT key and the Control key, drag MajF towards a free location of the main view. A rectangle follows your movement. When you release, you get a second element bearing the same name.

Nothing indeed prevents from having two elements bearing the same name. You can then modify the duplicate, change its name and its contents without affecting the original. From this moment, the duplicate behaves in its turn as an original and can be placed in several folders. A remark is important regarding the duplication a folder. Only the folder duplicate will be independent of its original. If the copied folder contains for example 3 elements, these elements will remain references to the original elements. In other words, if you modify an element located in the copied folder, the modification will also apply to the element located inside the original folder and vice versa.

• Open the main palette and select the tool. It is the library tool. Its shortcut is the lower case letter "L (l)". With it, you can move and erase library elements directly inside measures in the score view. Close this Ex069.piz document (without saving) and open it again in order to recover its original contents. Open the score view and select the option allowing to visualize the libraries in the measures. Drag Melody 1 and R1 into measure 1. You should now see measures like this:

• By holding down the control key, move the Melody 1 element by taking it directly in staff 1, measure 1 and drag it downwards until it is in the second staff, first measure:

• Release it. It is moved from the starting measure to the destination measure:

• When you do the same operation without holding down the control key, the element is copied to the destination measure while remaining present in the starting measure. Drag Melody 1 from measure 1 (staff 2) into measure 2 (staff 2). You get:

• To erase an element in a measure, place the mouse cursor arrow on the element of the measure and use the erase key. Erase for example Melody 1 from measure 2 (staff 2). It disappears from the measure.

Notice that the library tool is also available via the arrow tool.

• Open the Melody 1 folder. Its contents displays 3 other folders which are not in the main view. By holding down the control key, drag the 1 note folder towards a free main view location and release it. This is the way to extract an element from a folder. Without the control key, drag the 2 notes element out of the folder towards the main view. It is placed in it but remains present in the folder. As we have already seen several times, the control key is used to drag an element without keeping it in the source element.

• Double-click the 3 notes elements inside the folder to open it. You can thus open and modify elements inside a folder. Double-click on the D-F element located in the 3 notes folder. The score view lets you modify or simply visualize its contents. Close this view.

• You can also erase elements located in a folder. Place the mouse cursor arrow on the C-E element and use the erase key. Pizzicato asks you to confirm, because this element is not used elsewhere and it is thus the last reference to it. Click Yes. It disappears from the folder.

Since Pizzicato 3.1, when right-clicking (Alt-click on Mac) on a library item in the main view, a contextual menu gives you access to the various windows already described and to the removal of the item. By right-clicking in the main view background, another menu lets you add an item or a score.

Library options [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

In the Options menu , select the Libraries... item. The following dialog box appears:

• The first option so that you can place a chord progression in the first staff of the score and use it for all other staves. As it is usually the case, all instruments of a score use the same chord progression. This option, not checked by default, is used to centralize the chord progression. Moreover, as soon as you place a chord element in staff 1, all measures of other staves are automatically generated to take the changes into account.

• The second option generates the results of libraries in musical notation. By default this option is checked. Each time you generate the score, Pizzicato calculates the contents of the libraries and transforms them into musical notation in the measures of the score. This step of musical transcription is what takes the most time in calculation. If musical notation is not necessary for you, you can simply uncheck this option. The result of libraries will be placed in the tracks of the sequencer and you will be able to listen to them and visualize them in the piano roll or sequencer view. You will save calculation time. You can for example remove this option during your tests, if only the sound result counts. Then, if you wish, you activate this option again and calculate the score again to see the result in musical notation.

• The last option, checked by default, calculates automatically the contents of measures when you place a new element in a measure. It avoids you each time selecting the Generate score menu. Moreover, only the concerned staves are computed. It can be useful to disable this option when you work on a rather big document. If you wish for example to use libraries to create an orchestra score with 25 instruments and 120 measures, it is sure that the calculation of the full score could take a rather long time. To build the score, you will perhaps have to drag 50 or 100 library elements into the score, which would imply that with each addition Pizzicato would start again a part of the calculation. In this case, you can initially disable the automatic calculation, place all the elements in the score and then select the Generate score menu to do the calculation only once.

Notice that before selecting the Generate score menu, you can make a selection of measures and staves with the selection tool. In this case, only the selected measures and staves will be recomputed.

• Click OK.

Libraries in the sequencer view [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

• Close the score view, the library elements and the main view (without saving). Open the Ex069.piz document again. Open the sequencer view. Click twice on the horizontal zoom (H+ button) and once on the vertical zoom (V+ button). The measures appear now as follows:

• Drag successively Melody 1 and R1 into measure 1 of the first track. The measures become for example:

The result of calculation is displayed in a graphic form. Notice that to get this result, you may disable the option transcribing in musical notation. It helps you to save time.

• In the Options menu, select the Sequencer item. In the dialog box, check the Library view choice in the Display type area. Click OK. The sequencer view is now displayed like this:

The operations we did in the score (erase, drag or drag with the control key) may also be done in the sequencer view.

Copying libraries between two documents [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

Just as it is possible to do with a score, you can drag a library elements from one document to another. This lets you use the libraries located in the documents of the Libraries directory, available when you open a document.

• Close the sequencer view. While leaving this document opened, create a new document (File menu , New item). Open the main view and close the score. Move the two main views to organize your screen as follows:

Notice that you can open up to 10 documents simultaneously.

• Drag the CMaj icon towards the main view of the other document. It is automatically copied in it. In the case of a copy between different documents, it is an independent copy. If you modify the original after, this modification will not affect the copy and vice versa.

• Drag the Melody 1 icon into the other document. In the case of a folder copy between different documents, all the elements contained in the folder are also copied so as to avoid dependence relations with the original document.

Notice that you cannot directly drag an element of the first document into a measure of the second document. It is always necessary to go through the main view of the destination document. First drag the element into the main view of the second document, then drag this copy into the measure of the second document. In other words, only the elements of the document main view can be used in a musical score of this document.

• Now drag R1 into the second document and close the first document without saving the changes. The following elements are visible in the main view of the document:

• Open score 1 and drag Melody 1 and R1 into the first measure.

You took elements of a document and used them in another. This process is the basic idea of the composition libraries, even if this example is a little too simple. You have basic libraries provided with Pizzicato. You create yourself your own libraries in a thousand different manners. Progressively while working, the contents of your composition libraries increase. Moreover, these libraries are marked by your composition style and allow you to reinforce the coherence of your work. Simply by dragging some elements, as we did here, you can access complex structures of libraries (representing hours or whole days of work) which you developed before. You can for example prepare accompaniment structures for the main families of orchestra as well as standard diagrams of orchestral effects, overall chords under various families of instruments. After that, each time you want to place a chord or an effect using for example 20 different instruments at the same time, you will just have to open the library, drag the element and possibly change the chord. In other words, you spend 15 seconds to complete a work of copy which would easily need ten minutes. Pizzicato helps you to do the tiresome and noncreative work.

Moreover, this method lets you test many possibilities very quickly. If you hesitate about the position of the chord in your orchestra score and you have for example a library with 10 different positions, you just need to drag them one after the other and directly listen to the sound effect with the synthesizer. In a few minutes you hear the 10 possible choices and you can make your choice. If you would have to modify the score each time to test the 10 cases, you would perhaps spend one hour or you would simply reject this work and choose a position without listening to the others. By using the composition libraries, this kind of work becomes easily possible and allows you to compose more quickly by leaving tiresome and unpleasing work to Pizzicato.

Close this document now, without saving the changes.

Summary - example of libraries [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

Here is an example showing how to create a complete arrangement with several instruments. It is a bossa-nova music style.

• Open the Ex070.piz document. The main view displays the following elements:

• Open the Bossa Nova score. It consists of 6 staves: a soloist instrument, a piano, a bass and 3 percussion instruments:

The library elements comprise:

• a chord progression with the chords of a well-known bossa-nova, "Desafinado",
• a folder containing 3 different themes for the bass,
• a folder containing 3 rhythms for the piano,
• three themes for the percussion instruments,
• a random melody and a random rhythm for the soloist.

Examine the contents of each one in order to understand the basic materials of our Bossa Nova.

• Place the library elements as follows, possibly by asking the visualization of the libraries in the measures:

• Select again the notes visualization. Here is an example of what you will get (as several options are random, it will not be exactly the same):

• Listen to the result. It will sound correctly only if you have a synthesizer or a polyphonic and multitimbral sound card compatible with the GM (General Midi) standard system.

We have placed the chords progression in the first staff and it influences the full score. For the percussion themes, the options Do not transpose and Do not arrange are checked to prevent the chords of staff 1 to modify them.

The piano plays a random rhythmic taken among 3 different rhythmics and based on the staff 1 chords. The bass plays a random theme taken among a series of 3. The notes are arranged and transposed according to the staff 1 chords. The soloist instrument plays a random melody which is arranged on the chords progression.

By opening the dialog box of the Progression icon with the SHIFT key, you will be able to see the chord list and the duration associated with each one of them.

A last significant remark. If you do not place chords in the libraries, Pizzicato will not arrange the themes and melodies. But if the Chord progression window contains chords, Pizzicato will use them to arrange the melodies and themes. In some way, it could be easier to write or modify a chord progression with this special window.

Conclusions [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

These 6 lessons review the theoretical characteristics of the library composition system. All essential information are in them. To exploit all possible combinations of this system to your advantage, there is nevertheless something missing which is not acquired by the reading of a manual: the practice of it.

A good understanding of the theory exposed in these 6 lessons is necessary. Then you will have to make your own tests and experiments so as to start thinking in terms of musical libraries. This manual contains some lessons about the use of the musical libraries. They show you how to exploit the provided original libraries, using examples and practical exercises. They give you an approach of composition which allows the beginner to make his first steps in musical creation. The professional composer will find in them a progressive way allowing him to gradually acquire the practice of the musical libraries.

We highly advise you to study and make the exercises of these lessons. Whether a beginner or a professional of composition, you will end up being able to think with the libraries and they will then become a very powerful tool for your composition work.

When you have more practice of the library use, we advise you to read these 6 lessons again. Areas of shades will probably be cleared up on concepts which perhaps seemed too theoretical or too abstract to you at first reading.

Professional

Composition Light

Composition Pro