Instruction manual - Pizzicato 3.6.2 EN810 - Revision of 2013/05/29

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Composition tools - The conductor view

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Watch also the following videos:


The conductor view [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

The conductor view has been designed to be your music composition desktop. As you may have several scores in a music document (Pizzicato Professional only), there must be a tool to organize and manage them and to play them easily and in many combinations. This tool is the conductor view.

To work with the conductor view and so that the lessons happen as they should, we strongly advise you to switch on the menu option found in Windows, Windows management, Based on the conductor view. This mode is oriented around the conductor view and the examples and applications of the following lessons will behave the way they should. The other two modes have a different way to handle the windows behaviour.

This window is divided in two parts:

This view has some particularities compared to other views :

The rest of this lesson will explain how to use the main area of the conductor view.

The five icons that you notice on the upper left border of the orange rectangle are in fact shortcuts to the most useful of the above menu items. With a simple click on these icons, you can:

Some of the above options can also be reached in the document manager. You can use both of them indifferently.

Let us apply this with some examples.

Using the conductor view [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

In the conductor view, a score is represented by a colored rectangle. The numbers in the upper part of the main area show the measure numbers of the score. Vertical lines separate the measures through the main area of the conductor view.

It is called Score 2 and its name is written in black. The active score title is displayed in red. Up to now, there was only one score and by default it was the active score.

When you use the recorder of the conductor view, it is the active score (with name in red) that is played.

Playing and grouping scores [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

The conductor view lets you play a score by selecting it and using the recorder. But you may also group different scores and play them together. Here is a simple example to show you how this view will help you compose and create music like a construction set game.

This new block is a group of scores. It may have four coloured squares in its top part. We will explain them further in this lesson. The group is now empty and we will drag scores into it.

The group has been resized automatically. You can see that the Arpeggio 2 score now displays 4 measures. But there is in fact only 2 measures in the score (if you double-click it, the score view only shows 2 measures). The real measures are displayed in the original color and the additionnal measures are displayed in a lighter color to show the full duration of the score, taking into account the number of loops of the score.

Notice that if you drag the bottom right corner of the group while holding down the SHIFT key, any score that was reaching the right border of the group will be automatically multiplied to fit the new size of the group.

You may change the position of the arrows while the group is playing. To remove the stop arrow, click it outside the group limits.

We have explained here how to use the conductor view to arrange and dispose a music composition. Even if the example is very simple, it shows the mechanics of it. In the next lessons, we will explain the use of instruments, of the music generators and other music objects and also the use of music libraries in combination with what we have seen here. Be sure you understand this lesson before continuing to the next one.


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Professional

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Composition Pro