Chapter 5
Markings and text
Articulations, dynamics, slurs, text and repeats are all added the same way: pick the notes or measures, then the command. Almost all of them are also heard in playback, and they import and export with Finale and MusicXML.
How markings are added
The commands live in three places, and each does exactly the same thing:
- the Notation menu (on the Mac also with the keyboard shortcuts listed at the end);
- the Articulations (⌘9, Ctrl+9 on Windows), Expressions and Lines tool palettes, at the bottom of the palette on the left, as in Finale;
- for repeats, the Document → Repeats and Jumps menu and the Repeats and Jumps palette.
A marking goes on the notes selected with the Selection tool (or with one of the palette tools), or, in Speedy Entry, on the note at the cursor: that way you can add an accent or a dynamic while you type, without switching tools.
To move a marking by hand or delete it, see Moving items by hand.
Articulations
The Notation → Articulation submenu has accent, staccato, tenuto, staccatissimo, marcato and fermata. The command adds the articulation to the selected notes (or to every note in the selected measures), or removes it if they all have it already. Articulations sit on the notehead side; marcato and fermata always go above.
In playback, accent and marcato make the note stronger, staccato and staccatissimo shorten it, and a note under a fermata lasts twice as long.
With the Articulation tool you can work faster, like Finale’s metatools: hold a key and click the notes (or a measure, for all its notes), or drag a rectangle around several notes; release the key without clicking and the articulation goes on the notes already selected. It works the same on the Mac and on Windows.
| Key | Articulation |
|---|---|
| A | Accent |
| S | Staccato |
| T | Tenuto |
| E | Staccatissimo |
| M | Marcato |
| F | Fermata |
| R | Trill |
| P | Upper mordent |
| I | Lower mordent |
| G | Turn |
| V | Inverted turn |
| B | Breath mark |
| C | Caesura |
Trills, mordents, turns, breath marks and caesuras
The same Articulation submenu also has the trill, the upper mordent (no stroke) and the lower mordent (with the stroke), the turn and the inverted turn, the breath mark and the caesura. Trills, mordents and turns always go above the staff. In playback the neighbouring notes follow the key: the trill alternates the note with the one above; the mordent plays note, neighbour (above or below) and note again, very fast at the start; the turn plays upper note, note, lower note and note (the inverted turn starts from below), spread over the note or, on long notes, as 16ths at the start. Breath marks and caesuras shorten the note they belong to.
Tremolos
Tremolo: 1, 2 or 3 slashes on the stem (eighths, 16ths, 32nds), or None to remove it. In playback the note is repeated at that value.
Arpeggios
Arpeggio puts a wavy line to the left of the chord (choose it again to remove it). In playback the chord is rolled from the bottom up.
Dynamics
Dynamic: from pppp to ffff, plus fp, sf, sfz, sffz, sfp, fz and rfz. The dynamic goes below the staff, at the first selected note: one per staff when the selected notes are on several staves. With measures selected it goes at the start of the first one, on every staff. On the Mac, ⌃1…⌃8 enter ppp to fff and ⌃0 removes the dynamic that is there (on Windows Ctrl+Shift+1…Ctrl+Shift+8 and Ctrl+Shift+0).
With the Expression tool, hold 1…8 (ppp to fff) and click the notes (or drag a rectangle); 0 removes the dynamic. Release the key without clicking and the dynamic goes on the notes already selected.
In playback, dynamics set the volume, drums included.
Hairpins
Select at least two notes on the same staff and choose Crescendo or Diminuendo. The hairpin runs from the start of the first note to the end of the last, at the height of the dynamics. In Speedy Entry it runs from the note at the cursor to the next one.
In playback a hairpin moves the volume gradually toward the dynamic that ends it.
Slurs
Select the first and the last note (or everything in between) on the same staff and choose Slur. Choose it again on the same notes to remove the slur. Slurs jump over the notes in between and break across systems by themselves.
Glissandos
Glissando between two notes on the same staff draws a line labeled “gliss.”. Choose it again to remove it.
Octave lines
Octave Line: 8va, 8vb, 15ma and 15mb over the selected notes. The notes are written one (or two) octaves away but sound where they are: Maestro draws the dashed line with its end hook and, if the line carries over to a new system, repeats it in parentheses.
Pedal
Notation → Lines → Pedal puts the sustain pedal under the selected notes (or from the Speedy Entry cursor note), in the Pedal (Ped. … ✱) style or Pedal with line, with hooks at the start and end. It’s also in the lines palette. A staff’s pedals all sit at the same height, below dynamics and text lines; two pedals back to back read “✱ Ped.”. In playback the pedal sustains the sound, the other hand of the piano included: a pedal written under the left-hand staff applies to the whole brace.
Text lines
Text Line (cresc. - - -)… asks for the text (“cresc.” by default) and writes it at the first selected note, followed by a dashed line to the last one. Use it for “cresc.”, “dim.”, “rit.” and the like. In playback “cresc.” and “dim.” behave like hairpins, while “rit.” and “accel.” change the tempo along the line.
Removing slurs, hairpins and lines
Remove Slurs, Hairpins and Lines removes the slurs and glissandos touching the selected notes, and the hairpins, octave lines, text lines and pedals that start among them.
Text and rehearsal marks
Text… opens a dialog where you pick the type and type the text:
- Technique, above the staff (“con sord.”, “pizz.”);
- Expression, below the staff, in italics (“dolce”, “cantabile”);
- Tempo marking, in bold above the system (“Allegro”, “Swing”, “Rock ♩ = 108”);
- Rehearsal mark, in a box (A, B, C…).
The text goes at the selected note; with a measure selected it goes at the start of the measure, on the first selected staff.
Notation → Text → Rehearsal Mark… (⌃R) opens a dialog of its own, which also changes a mark that is already there: double-click the mark to get to it. At the top is this mark:
- Text and Automatic: an automatic mark follows the numbering (A, B, C…) and updates itself when you add or remove marks and measures; untick it to write your own text (“Coda”, “Trio”). A hand-written mark that belongs to the sequence (an “F”) makes the following ones continue from there;
- Double barline before the mark, already ticked for a new mark (unless the measure before has a repeat or a final barline); removing the mark removes it too;
- Offset to the right and up, in staff spaces (the same as dragging the mark);
- Remove the mark, for a mark that is already there.
Below is what applies to all marks in the score: the numbering (letters, numbers or the measure number), the letters after Z (AA, AB… or AA, BB… or A1, B1…), skip I and O, the enclosure (rectangle, circle or none), the font, size and style (the same as the “Rehearsal marks” row of Document → Fonts…) and Also repeat above: the staves above which tempo markings and rehearsal marks are repeated, as above the strings in an orchestral score. The staff moves away from the one above to make room for them; in the parts the mark appears only once.
Tempo markings and rehearsal marks belong to the whole score: they appear in every part, break multimeasure rests and stay in place when you insert or delete measures. Tempo markings also affect playback: “♩ = 132” changes the tempo, “Swing” or “Straight 8ths” turn swing on and off (see Playback and audio).
Remove Texts removes the text at the position of the selected note or measure.
Symbols
For anything that doesn’t have its own command (a turn, a mordent, a harp technique, a percussion pictogram, an arrow, a sign from early notation) there is Symbol…: almost 3,000 SMuFL symbols, in 132 categories.
- Select the note the symbol belongs to (or put the Speedy Entry cursor on it). With a measure selected, the symbol goes at the start of the measure, on the first selected staff.
- Choose Notation → Text → Symbol….
- Find the symbol:
- in the search field, type a word from its name, as in the SMuFL specification: “turn”, “mordent”, “segno”… The search looks inside the chosen category: to search everywhere, pick All symbols;
- from the Category menu, pick a group of symbols (“Common ornaments”, for example). Recently used is at the top.
- Click the symbol in the grid (or move with the arrow keys). Its description and SMuFL name appear below the grid.
- Under Position, choose Above the staff or Below the staff: Maestro remembers your choice for next time.
- Click Insert, or double-click the symbol.
The symbol is drawn in the score’s music font and changes with it; if that font doesn’t have it, Maestro uses Bravura (the dialog says so below the grid). Above the staff it sits over the highest notes, below the staff under the lowest.
A symbol behaves like text: you drag it, nudge it with the arrow keys and delete it like other items (see Moving items by hand), Remove Texts removes it along with the text at that position, and it appears in its instrument’s part too. It doesn’t affect playback. In exported MusicXML it is a real symbol, with its SMuFL name, and it comes back the same way on import.
The dialog is the same on the Mac and on Windows. Symbol… can also be added to the toolbar.
Lyrics
- Select the note where the lyrics begin (or put the Speedy Entry cursor on it).
- Choose Lyrics….
- Pick the verse (1 to 6) and type the text, with words separated by spaces and syllables by hyphens: “Ma-ry had a lit-tle lamb”.
- Click Assign.
Maestro puts one syllable on each note, from the selected note onwards, skipping rests, grace notes and tied notes. If some syllables don’t find a note, it tells you.
To correct lyrics you’ve already written, double-click a syllable (or select the note and choose Lyrics…
again): the window opens with the text of that verse already filled in, from the note to the end of the phrase (the
first rest after a finished word) or of the piece. Switching verse in the window shows the other verse’s text. Fix the
words and click Assign: that stretch is replaced, and notes left without a syllable lose that verse, so you can
also remove words (or clear the whole text to remove the phrase). An underscore _ leaves a note without a syllable:
the syllable before it is held over that note (“A---men”, “Glo _ _ ry”). Separate the underscore from the syllables with a space, or join it with a hyphen: typed right against a syllable (“Glo__ry”) it becomes part of that syllable.
Each verse has its own line below the staff, at the same height across the system. Hyphens appear between the syllables of a word, and a word-final syllable sung over several notes (a melisma) gets an extender line, even across a line break. Dynamics move down below the lyrics.
Remove Lyrics removes the lyrics from the selected notes.
Repeats and jumps
Select one or more measures and choose from Document → Repeats and Jumps (or the Repeats and Jumps palette):
| Mark | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Repeat Start | at the start of the first selected measure |
| Repeat End | at the end of the last selected measure |
| Ending (Volta)… | over all the selected measures; asks which passes it is played on (“1” or “1, 2”) and suggests the next number |
| Double Barline | at the end of the last measure |
| Final Barline | at the end of the last measure: it closes a piece or one version of it when the score goes on |
| Segno, Coda | at the start of the first measure |
| To Coda, Fine | at the end of the last measure |
| D.S. al Coda, D.S. al Fine, D.C. al Coda, D.C. al Fine | at the end of the last measure |
Choosing the same mark again on the same measures removes it; Clear Items from Measures, at the bottom of the menu, removes all of them from the selected measures.
Repeat barlines get their dots on every staff, endings get their bracket (closed when the music goes back). The marks follow measure insertions and deletions and time signature changes, and they break multimeasure rests.
The look of repeat barlines is chosen for the whole document with Document → Repeats and Jumps → Repeat Style…, like Finale’s repeat options:
- Wings: none, curved, straight or double, above and below the barline and pointing towards the dots, as in jazz and big band parts;
- Back-to-back repeats (the end of one repeat followed straight away by the start of another, “:‖:”): two thin barlines, a thick one between two thin ones, or two thick ones.
The style comes across from Finale files, and wings also travel through MusicXML.
Playback and the cursor follow the order of performance: after a D.C. or D.S. repeats are not taken again and the last ending is played. To play everything once, in written order, turn off Playback → Play Repeats.
Keyboard shortcuts
On Windows use Ctrl+Shift instead of ⌃ (staccato is Ctrl+Shift+.); marcato and rehearsal marks are chosen from the Notation menu.
| Command | Mac |
|---|---|
| Accent | ⌃A |
| Staccato | ⌃S |
| Tenuto | ⌃T |
| Staccatissimo | ⌃E |
| Marcato | ⌃M |
| Fermata | ⌃F |
| Dynamics ppp to fff | ⌃1…⌃8 |
| Remove Dynamic | ⌃0 |
| Slur | ⌃L |
| Crescendo | ⌃C |
| Diminuendo | ⌃D |
| Glissando | ⌃G |
| Text… | ⌃X |
| Rehearsal Mark… | ⌃R |
| Lyrics… | ⌃Y |
| Automatic Position | ⌥⇧⌘R |