Light

Beginner

Professional

Notation

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Drums and Percussion

Guitar

Choir

Keyboard

Soloist

Composition tools - Rhythmic variations

Subjects covered:

• Purpose of this tool
• Using the rhythmic variations tool

Purpose of this tool [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

This feature is present in all versions of Pizzicato. The idea is to be able to change the rhythmic structure of one or more measures, by replacing existing rhythms with a selection of rhythmic variations. It does not however modify the pitches of the notes involved.

It can also convert rests or empty measures with a given pattern. If more than one pattern is selected, the program will randomly use the selected patterns to fill the selected measures.

Using the rhythmic variations tool [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]

To use this tool, you must first select one or more measures, with the selection tool from the main palette (in the Tools menu) or by selecting all.

• Starting from a new document, select the whole score with Edit, Select all. Go in the Edit menu and choose Apply rhythmic variations... The following dialog box appears:

The left part shows the list of possible variations to apply and the right part lets you define the set of possible variations that will populate the list. Here are the various options.

• In the Basic duration(s) frame, you can check which rhythmic values you want to detect for a change. The default value here above shows only the quarter note and the 4 possible transformations all starts from a quarter note. This means that the program will find any quarter note in the selected measure and replace it by one of the 4 rhythmic patterns shown. If you select for instance also the half note, you will get:

You can also check the Dotted box, which will make all these rhythmic values dotted.

• The next two check boxes specifies which of the notes and/or rests will be converted. If you check also the rest, then any rest will be converted to the existing rhythmic patterns, with a default pitch value to the middle of the staff or to the last note found before that passage. An empty 4/4 measure will be considered as a whole rest. If you check the Whole note in the previous frame, then the empty measures will be filled by the choosen patterns.

• The Split by frame determines the division factors used to propose rhythmic variations. The program will take all possible combinations that fills the value to be replaced. For instance, if 2 and 4 are selected, a half note can be split into two quarter notes OR 4 eighth notes OR 2 eighth notes + 1 quarter note OR 1 quarter note + 2 eighth notes. For tuplets you can select values 3 or 6, as well as irregular groups of 5 or 7 notes.

• Rhythm splitting is checked by default. One rhythmic value is then split into several other rhythmic values.

• If you check the Rhythm merging, the reverse operation is now possible. This means for instance that 4 eighth notes found in the selected measures example may be merged into one half notes. You should use only one at a time, splitting or merging, even if the use of both is possible.

• By default, the rhythmic values are only split into notes. By checking the Include rests box, the program will create all variations that also include the corresponding rests. For instance, splitting a half note with a factor of 4 and including the rests will give you:

• The next two check boxes enable the use of syncopations. Level one is for instance a half note starting on beat 2 of the measure. Level 2 is for instance a half note starting on the second half of the first beat of a measure.

• The two buttons Select all and Select none let you select all or no variations from the list. Selected variations appear with a background color. You can select or unselect variations individually simply by clicking on them:

Only the selected variations will be applied. If more than one variation is selected with you click on OK, they are applied randomly.

 

Light

Beginner

Professional

Notation

Composition Light

Composition Pro

Drums and Percussion

Guitar

Choir

Keyboard

Soloist