Instruments and staves · Manual

This chapter shows how to build and change the ensemble of your score: add, remove and reorder instruments, set transpositions, clefs, key and time signatures, and manage measures. Most of it happens through the Staff tool (⌘8) and the Document menu, much like Finale’s Setup Wizard and Staff Tool.

Choose the Staff tool (⌘8, Ctrl+8 on Windows) and click a staff: its menu opens, with everything about that staff.

Rename “…”… and Abbreviated Name…: the full name appears on the first system, the short one on the following systems. If you don’t choose an abbreviation, Maestro derives one from the name (“Trumpet in B♭” → “Tpt.”, “Violin II” → “Vln. II”).
Instrument: changes the staff’s instrument (name, sound, clef, transposition).
Transposition: sets the staff’s transposition by hand.
Staff Size and the distance items for the staff above (see Staff distances).
Move Up / Move Down and Move After ▸ (to the top or after an instrument of your choice): reorder the instruments. The whole instrument moves (the piano with both its staves) and the other brackets stay: placed between two instruments in the same bracket, it joins it.
Add Staff…, the items that join the next staff with a brace, bracket or sub-bracket, and Delete “…” to remove the instrument.

The same properties (name, abbreviation, instrument, sound, transposition, size, distance) are also in the Inspector (⌥⌘I, Ctrl+I on Windows) when a staff is selected.

Adding and removing instruments

Document → Staves and Instruments → Add Staff… (or the same item in the staff menu) opens the instrument picker. At the top you search by name (type «clar» for the clarinets) and in the menu next to it (on Windows Show) you choose an ensemble (orchestra, band, jazz and pop…). On the left are Recently used, All instruments and the families, each with its own color and how many instruments it has; in the middle the instruments; on the right the card of the chosen one, with its family, the range drawn on the staff, staves and clefs, transposition and sound. In How many you choose how many to add at once (3 flutes become Flute 1, 2 and 3). A double-click or Add adds the instrument at the bottom of the score; then move it where you want with Move After ▸ in the staff menu, or by dragging it in Score Instruments. The same picker opens with Change Instrument… and Instrument Change….
To remove an instrument: staff menu → Delete “name”. Undo it with ⌘Z.
The list follows score order, by family: woodwinds (from piccolo to contrabassoon, with recorders from sopranino to bass, oboe d’amore, English horn, clarinets from E♭ to contrabass and basset horn, saxophones from sopranino to bass, harmonica, bagpipe, zampogna, ocarina, tin whistle), brass (horns, trumpets from piccolo in B♭ to C, cornet, cornett, band flugelhorns, trombones including the sackbut, euphonium, tuba, sousaphone), percussion (including crotales, steel drum and kalimba), keyboards (including fortepiano, clavichord, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, clavinet, positive and Hammond organ, diatonic accordion, bandoneon and synths), voices (including soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass, each with its own clef, lead and backing vocals), plucked strings (guitars, basses including 5-string, jazz double bass, ukulele, mandolin, mandola, banjo, lute, theorbo, bouzouki, balalaika, oud, sitar, koto, shamisen) and strings (including viola da gamba). Transposing instruments come with their transposition already set.
Piano, electric piano, harpsichord, celesta, harp, organ, accordion, synthesizer and marimba have two staves joined by a brace, with a single centered name.

To start from a complete ensemble, use the setup wizard in File → New Score… (see Getting started).

Score Instruments

Document → Staves and Instruments → Score Instruments… gathers all the instruments in one window, like Finale’s Score Manager.

On the left is the list in score order: next to each name a strip in the instrument’s color, below it the sound and transposition, and on the left the brackets and sub-brackets as in the score. Drag rows to reorder the instruments; a double-click takes you to that instrument in the score. With ⌘ or ⇧ (Ctrl or Shift on Windows) you select more than one at once: they are moved, dragged, duplicated and deleted in one step, and the shared settings (size, clef, hidden name, volume, color, bracket around consecutive ones) apply to all of them. The buttons below the list add an instrument from the picker, delete it, duplicate it (the new one is empty and numbered, and you type its name right away) and move it up or down.

On the right are the settings of the chosen instrument, in groups:

Name: name, abbreviated name and Hide Name;
Instrument and Sound: Change Instrument… from the catalog, the sound, the transposition, the volume with a slider (you hear it while you drag), Mute, Solo and the Color: the family’s or one of 11 colors, the same as the channel in the mixer;
Notation: the clef, the notation of the whole instrument (normal, slashes, rhythmic notation, tablature), the staff lines and the size;
Score and Parts: Always visible, Hide in score (the instrument stays only in its part, for example a reduction part), Show Part, and with several instruments selected New Part with the Selected Instruments…; with several flows, which flows the instrument plays in;
Staves and Brackets: name and clef of the other staves of piano, harp and organ, Add a Staff or Remove This Staff, Split the Staves, Join with the Instrument Below (the organ with its pedals), the bracket and the sub-bracket with the instrument below.

Identical instruments are numbered automatically (Flute 1, Flute 2; duplicating Violin I creates a Violin II) and renumbered when one is deleted. Before deleting instruments or staves that contain notes, chord symbols or text, Maestro asks for confirmation. Every change can be undone with ⌘Z.

Brackets, braces and names

Instruments of the same family (woodwinds, brass, percussion, voices, strings…) added one after another are joined by a bracket, and barlines run through each group, breaking between groups. Numbered parts of the same instrument (Violin I and II, Horn I and II) get a thin sub-bracket.

Document → Staves and Instruments → Bracket by Family recalculates all brackets.
From the staff menu you can add or remove a brace, bracket or sub-bracket between a staff and the next one.

A staff marked Hide Name (in the Inspector) has no name in front of its systems: useful for a melody written above the accompaniment. Staves without a name in Finale files get it automatically.

Transposing instruments and concert pitch

B♭ trumpet and clarinet, saxophones, horn in F, and guitar and double bass at the octave are written transposed, each with its own key signature. Notes are stored at concert pitch, so playback doesn’t change.

View → Concert Pitch (⇧⌘K; from the menu on Windows) shows the whole score in C, as in Finale.
Change a staff’s transposition from the staff menu → Transposition or in the Inspector.
When you copy music from one staff to another, the notes land in the right key for the destination instrument.

Key, time and clef

Key signature: the Key Signature tool (⌘4), then click a measure; or Document → Key Signature… (⌥⌘K; from the menu on Windows). The key applies from that measure to the next change. Naturals cancel the old key at the change, and a courtesy key signature closes the previous system. Transposing instruments change their own written key.
Time signature: the Time Signature tool (⌘5) or Document → Time Signature… (⌥⌘T; from the menu on Windows). Notes in that stretch are rebarred, with ties across the barline where needed. You can write 4/4 as common time and 2/2 as cut time. In the Grouping field, enter how the beats are divided, for example 3+3+2 for 8/8 or 3+2+2 for 7/8: it decides which eighth notes share a beam in eighth- and sixteenth-note time signatures, and the metronome clicks once per group (three uneven clicks in 7/8 as 2+2+3, also in the count-in and when recording); leave it empty for the automatic grouping. Without a grouping, in odd time signatures from 5/8 up the metronome clicks the automatic beam groups (5/8 as 3+2, 7/8 as 2+2+3). With Show the grouping in the time signature the numerator becomes 3+3+2 over 8, like Finale’s composite time signatures. Composite time signatures go through MusicXML and come in from Finale .musx files and MuseScore files.
Clef: the Clef tool (⌘6), click a staff, then pick the clef in the menu. On the first measure it changes the starting clef; on a later measure it creates a clef change, drawn smaller (or in the system header, with a courtesy clef at the end of the previous system). The tenor clef is there too; Remove the Clef Change removes it.

You can also change the key and time signature of the selected measure in the Inspector.

Measures

Document → Measures → Add Measures… (⌥⌘M; from the menu on Windows) adds measures.
Document → Measures → Insert Measures… inserts several empty measures at once, before or after the selected measure (or the one with the cursor), in all staves: the music that follows moves forward. It is also in the Measure tool menu.
Document → Measures → Delete Selected Measures (⌘⌫; from the menu on Windows) deletes them from every staff.
With the Measure tool (⌘7), clicking a measure opens a menu: Insert a Measure before or after, Add Measures at the End…, Clear the Contents of Measure (the rest stays), Delete Measure.
Document → Measures → Measure Duration… makes the measure at the cursor shorter than its time signature, for example the pickup of a piece that starts again in the middle of the score: the time signature stays the full one, numbering doesn’t change and the notes don’t move. Full, as the time signature says brings it back to the length of the time signature; in the first measure the command opens Pickup Measure…. Short measures in Finale and MusicXML files open this way too.

Rehearsal marks, repeats, system breaks and instrument changes follow inserted or deleted measures.

Percussion and maps

The Drum Set instrument has a five-line staff with a percussion clef and “x” noteheads for cymbals and hi-hat. When you enter a note (Speedy, Simple Entry or a MIDI keyboard), you get the sound for that position: bass drum in the first space, snare in the third, hi-hat above the staff.

Other percussion instruments have their own staves: Latin and orchestral sets on five lines; congas, bongos, timbales, wood block and agogô on two lines; triangle, tambourine, claves, cowbell, maracas, cymbals, tam-tam and more on one line. Glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba and tubular bells are pitched percussion, written like ordinary instruments.

Staff menu → Percussion Instrument switches an existing staff to another instrument: the notes move to the new positions.
On percussion notes, + and − switch to the other sound at the same position (closed/open hi-hat, snare/cross stick).
Staff menu → Percussion Map…, like Finale’s Percussion Map Designer: for each sound choose the name, General MIDI note, staff position and notehead (normal, x, circled x, diamond, triangle), plus the number of staff lines. Add Sound and − add and remove sounds; Default Map goes back to the instrument’s own map. The map is saved with the score and is used for note entry too.

Tablature

For guitar and bass you can use the Guitar (TAB) and Electric Bass (TAB) instruments, choose the TAB clef in the clef menu, or select the instrument and use Document → Staves and Instruments → Add Tablature: a tablature staff with the same notes appears below it, joined by a brace (it doesn’t play, so the guitar isn’t doubled).

Lines are strings (6, 4 or 5) and notes are fret numbers. Maestro picks strings and frets like a guitarist would: low positions, fingers within four frets, as little hand movement as possible. Notes out of range show “?”.
Edit → Tablature → Higher String / Lower String moves the selected notes to the neighboring string.
Choose the tuning in the Inspector: standard guitar, Drop D, half step down, 4- and 5-string bass, ukulele.

Instrument changes

When a player switches instruments (alto sax → flute, trumpet → flugelhorn), select the measure and choose Document → Staves and Instruments → Instrument Change…. From there the sound, transposition with its new key signature, clef if needed, range check and the staff name on later systems all change. The new instrument’s name appears above the measure, and a “To …” warning appears in the rests before the change.

Document → Staves and Instruments → Remove Instrument Change removes it. You can’t place a change on the first measure (change the staff’s instrument instead), on percussion or on tablature.

Explode and merge staves

Document → Staves and Instruments → Explode to Staves…, like Finale’s Explode: a staff holding several parts (Trumpets 1-2 in chords, or on different layers) becomes 2 to 8 staves (“Trumpet 1”, “Trumpet 2”…) joined by a sub-bracket. Parts are taken from the chord notes (the highest on the first staff) or from the layers. It works on the selected measures or the whole staff; the new staves go below the original or replace it.
Document → Staves and Instruments → Merge Staves… does the opposite: select measures on 2–4 adjacent staves (click the first, ⇧-click the last) and they become a single staff, “Trumpet 1-2”. Where the rhythm matches, notes become chords; elsewhere they go on layers. Or choose layers every time.

Both undo in a single step.

Staff size

Staff menu → Staff Size: 100, 90, 85, 75, 65% or Other Size… (40 to 200%). The staff shrinks or grows with its notes, clefs and text in proportion, like Finale’s Resize tool: handy for a piano accompaniment under a vocal line, a cue staff or an ossia. Notes stay vertically aligned with the other staves. In extracted parts the staff returns to normal size.

To resize whole systems, see Layout and printing.

Slashes and repeat signs

Select the measures, choose the Measure tool (⌘7) and click the staff: the Notation of “…” submenu offers Slashes (one per beat), Rhythmic notation (the first layer’s rhythm with slash noteheads), Repeat the previous measure and Repeat the two previous measures. Normal brings back the notes.

Only the drawing changes: the written notes stay and still play back.

The staff menu