Music spacing
Music spacing is automatically applied
when you enter music into SongWriter. However, if you decide to turn off
Automatic Music Spacing, the spacing is linear; in other words, a whole
note gets exactly the same horizontal space as four quarter notes. Furthermore,
this newly-entered music may contain collisions between lyric syllables,
overlapping chord symbols, and crowded 32nd notes.
- From
the Edit Menu, choose Automatic Music Spacing. When the checkmark
is not shown, Automatic Music Spacing is not enabled. Choose the menu
item again to turn it back on.
- Click
the Selection tool
.
- Select
the music you want to respace. In general, you’ll want to select
all the staves in a system. If you select only one staff, for example,
you could get unexpected results, because the respacing command sets the
measure widths for all staves according to the spacing of the selected
region. Thus, if you select and respace measure 1 in the flute staff,
which contains only a whole note, the running eighth notes in another
staff’s measure 1 will be compressed and overlapping.
- From
the Utilities Menu, choose Apply Music Spacing. This command may
take time. But when the truck cursor disappears, you’ll find that your
music has been carefully respaced.
If Automatic Update Layout is not checked,
the final step is extremely important:
- From
the Edit Menu, choose Update Layout. The Music Spacing command
is responsible for laying out the notes within each measure. In doing
so, SongWriter adjusts the widths of the selected measures, and they may
no longer fit neatly into one line of music across the page. The Update
Layout command is responsible for laying out the measures across the page;
it justifies the measures with the page margins.
If you don’t choose Update Layout after respacing
your music, you may find measures at the ends of systems in Page View
that seem much too wide or too narrow. (Choosing Update Layout will solve
the problem immediately.)
Note: When SongWriter
spaces the notes of your score, it widens the selected measures as necessary
to make room for lyrics, if any.
