Playback

SongWriter can play your score back over any MIDI channel configuration you can devise. See ScoreManagers to find out how to assign each staff to a MIDI channel.

To play back a score

While pressing the Space bar, click the measure at which you want to begin playback. See the table below for various options in starting playback. It doesn’t matter which tool is currently selected.

Command	Keyboard Shortcut
Begin/Pause playing (Playback Controls open)	Spacebar
Begin playing (Playback Controls closed) from the current measure	Spacebar–click in staff
Begin playing from current measure in the current staff only	Shift-spacebar–click in staff
Begin playing from current measure in the global staff list	Spacebar–click in between staves
Begin playing from measure one in the global staff list	Spacebar–click to the left of a staff system
Begin playing from measure one in the current staff only	Shift-spacebar-click to the left of a staff
“Scrub” onscreen music - all staves	Option-spacebar (and drag across music)
“Scrub” onscreen music - current staff only	Option-Shift-spacebar (and drag across music)

Click on the screen to stop the playback. SongWriter may take a moment to respond.

To play back selected staves

From the Window Menu, choose ScoreManager. The ScoreManager appears.

Click in the Play column so that the square disappears (for each staff you want to silence), or click in the Solo column (to silence all other staves). In other words, if your score has 40 staves, and you just want to hear the piano part, it’s much quicker to click Solo for the two piano staves than to turn off Play for the other 38 staves. But if you want to hear everything but the piano, click in the Play column for the piano staves so that the squares disappear.

Click again to reverse the status of a staff (click a Play square to make it solid again, or click a Solo circle to turn it off).

To send an All Notes Off message

On rare occasions, you may encounter a situation called MIDI lock, in which your synthesizer is “stuck” on a certain note or chord.

From the MIDI Menu, choose All Notes Off. SongWriter sends an “all notes off” message to every note of every channel. You should find that, after a moment, the situation is corrected.

To specify playback parameters

From the MIDI Menu, choose Play As Recorded, so that a checkmark appears. When Play as Recorded is selected, you can hear your music exactly as you played it in HyperScribe or an imported MIDI file. You will not hear any adjustments to tempo or volume added later with SongWriter expressions or articulations.

To “audio spot-check” music

No particular tool has to be selected.

While pressing option and the Space bar, drag the cursor across your score. As the cursor strikes each note, you hear it played on your MIDI keyboard. You can drag in any direction, and at any speed, and from one staff to another. You might use this trick for checking chord voicings, scanning small sections for wrong notes, or just for fun. See Keyboard Shortcuts - Playback for more information.