On Apr 28, 2007, at 3:40 AM, Mark D Lew wrote:
my immediate problem is I can't figure out how to use a metatool
for an expression and not have it show up on every staff. I don't
see a place to define that. What am I missing? Most of my work is
piano-vocal and most of my expressions I want on one staff only.
If I can't get the metatool to put the expression on one staff only
then I have to go back through the dialog box anyway which would
defeat the purpose of the metatool.
Use note-attached expressions for that.
In fact, once I cottoned on to the following advice, I got a lot
quicker.
Dynamics, along with any instrument-specific instructions, should be
assigned as note expressions. This often means assigning the same
expressions in several staves, but with metatools and automatic
placement, this goes very quickly, and you can even assign everything
in one staff and copy only note-attached expressions into the other
staves.
Things that are global, like rit, accel, a tempo, rehearsal letters,
and any style markings, should be assigned using measure-attached
expressions. These are the only things that measure-attached
expressions should be used for (though I also put in elapsed measures
this way, you know, repeated measures that get numbered?)
Yes, it is a drag that you can't use staff lists when using metatools
on measure-attached expressions, but the staff assignment dialogue
box is only a right-click away.
I also noticed that once I assign a default position to an
expression, any time I enter that expression and want it somewhere
else, I have to type in the relative offset from the default
position instead of the absolute coordinates. That will take some
getting used to. I'm basically going to be doing math in my head
each time, like, "Let's see, I want this at -66, but my default
position is defined as -42, so I need to type in -24." I'm
starting to doubt that this is really going to save me time.
Jef gave you some good advice about this. I learned it this way, so
all my placements are off the default baseline.
Christopher
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