Pieces

A piece gathers everything needed to work on it and perform it: its title and composer, its key and tempo, the parts with their starting note, and a list of documents (texts, PDFs, interactive scores, audio recordings).

The pieces of the space are in the “Repertoire” tab. The “Search a title or composer…” field filters the list; the sort offers “A → Z”, “Composer” and “Recent”.

In a shared space, only managers edit pieces; members see the same screen, without the editing controls.

#Creating a piece

In “Repertoire”, tap “New piece”, then choose:

• “Create manually”: type the title and composer, then “Save”.
• “Import a MusicXML”: choose a .musicxml, .mxl or .xml file. The title, tempo and recognised notes are filled in for you; a table lets you match each part of the file to a part of the piece, or ignore it.
• “Import from forScore”: a .4sc score or a .4ss setlist (see Import from forScore).

The piece opens straight away. Tap “Back” to return to the repertoire.

#Editing the title, key and tempo

The left column of the piece shows its details:

• the title: “Edit title” opens “Title and composer” (with the lyricist);
• “Key”: the tonic, the mode (major / minor) and the preferred spelling (sharps / flats);
• “Tempo”: the tempo in beats per minute (“Tempo (bpm)”) and the duration of the piece;
• “For the audience”: the public title and the programme note, used by a concert’s printed programme and online page (see Concerts);
• “Rights”: the status of the work and of its scores (see Copyright);
• “In programmes”: the programmes and next concert where the piece is played.

Tap a row to edit it, then “Save”.

#Adding documents

The “Documents” list holds all the documents of the piece, in the order you choose:

• “Import” adds a file: PDF, MusicXML (.musicxml, .mxl, .xml), text (.txt), audio (.mp3, .m4a, .aac, .ogg, .wav) or forScore (.4sc).
• “Text” creates a text to type in directly, for example the lyrics (see Lyrics).

Drag a document to change its order. The document marked with a star is the “Document shown by default”: it opens first, especially in the run. Tap another document’s star to choose it.

The “Document actions” menu (⋮) lets you:

• “Edit label”, or “Label and part”: rename the document and attach it to a part (“For part”). A musician who has that part sees this document marked “My part”, and it opens for them by default;
• “Properties”: kind, file name, size, number of pages, import date…;
• “Kind of document” and “Copyright” (PDF and MusicXML);
• “Reload information” (MusicXML): re-apply to the piece the title, composer, key, tempo, duration or parts read from the file, choosing which fields to replace;
• “Create a text from the score” (MusicXML): draft a text from the score’s lyrics;
• “Remove”: take the document off the piece.

#Setting the parts and starting notes

The “Parts” entry of the details lists the parts of the piece (Soprano 1, Alto, Tenor, Bass… or the instruments). For each one:

1. Tap “Add a part” and fill in its short label (“S1”), its name (“Soprano 1”) and its clef (treble or bass).
2. Choose its starting note on the keyboard (“Tap a key to choose”).
3. Tick “chord” if the note belongs to the opening chord and arpeggio.

“Hear the chord” plays the opening chord; each note can also be heard on its own. The notes follow the ensemble’s diapason.

When a piece is imported from MusicXML, the parts and their first notes are recognised automatically. A part linked to no section of the ensemble shows a “No section” badge (see Organising sections).

#Giving the starting notes, chord and tempo

In run mode, the bottom bar gives the starts:

• the part buttons each play their part’s starting note;
• “Chord” plays the opening chord, “Arpeggio” plays it note by note;
• the tempo button (a metronome icon followed by the beats per minute) gives the tempo of the piece: a metronome count-in that stops by itself. It is only available if the piece has a tempo.

These buttons are toggles: tap them a second time to stop the sound.

In My stand, the starting notes, chord and arpeggio are under “Piece tools” › “Starting notes”.

The length of a note and the gap between arpeggio notes are set in “Settings” › “Audio & display”.

#The chromatic pitch pipe

To give any note, open “Tools” (in the run) or “Piece tools” (in My stand) › “Chromatic pitch pipe”: tap a note to hear it, change octave with the arrows. The reference shown (“A = 440 Hz”) is the ensemble’s diapason.

#Deleting a piece

In “Repertoire”, open the piece’s “Piece actions” menu, then “Delete piece”. The piece is deleted permanently from the whole space and removed from the programmes that contain it; NoteStand tells you which ones before you confirm. A piece that belongs to a locked programme can’t be deleted: unlock the programme first.