Moving Notes


Moving is a two stage process i.e. click on the item to highlight it (it turns blue). Then drag it to its target position with the mouse and then release the mouse button. NB: notes can only be moved manually when the note spacing method is set to 'Manual' in the Note Spacing tool window.

Single notes

To move a single (unbeamed) note, first click on it to highlight it. When it is highlighted, click on it again, hold the mouse button down and drag it to its destination. Then release the mouse button. The destination may be inside the same bar, or in a different bar.

To move it up or down by pitch only, you can move it vertically with the mouse, but there's a better way. Click on it, release the mouse button, hold down the SHIFT key, keep it depressed and move the note vertically with the UP/DOWN Arrow Keys on your keypad. This restricts any horizontal movement and it changes in pitch only.

A note can of course be moved horizontally with the mouse, but to move a note either right or left by very small increments (half a note head width), do the following: select just the note, press down (or keep pressed) the SHIFT key. Now with the SHIFT key still depressed, move the note horizontally with the RIGHT/LEFT arrow keys.


Beamed note group

The procedure to move a group of notes is different to moving single notes above. (NB: This is different from v2 but it should be easier). Moving a single beamed note will not move the whole group. To move the group, you need to select the group you want to move. Either select the first note and extend the selection using SHIFT-click or 'Rubberband' or 'box' the group with the mouse to highlight the group. Once highlighted, it can be moved with the mouse.

Care must be taken to ensure that the group will fit into an existing bar, though the software does do its best to fit them in by autospacing any existing notes, and the moved group inside the target bar.

An individual note inside a beamed group may be moved by:
  1. making sure nothing is selected
  2. clicking on the note head (or rubberbanding it)
  3. moving the note vertically or horizontally
Note: An UP/DOWN arrow key can be used if it is a change in pitch only.

(Unexpected results may appear if the autobeam setting is on when moving beamed notes. If this happens, select UNDO and turn it off on the Options or Preferences screen and then proceed to beam/unbeam manually as necessary).

Selection of notes

A mixed selection of adjacent notes and/or one or more beamed groups may be selected by 'Rubberbanding' (as described previously). As long as this group is still selected, moving them is the same as for a Beamed note group, described above.


Embellishments/Grace notes

These behave in a similar manner to other single notes and beamed notes the only difference being that they are grouped by proximity, rather than explicitly grouped. This means that if a single grace note becomes adjacent to another gracenote or group of grace notes (e.g. an embellishment), it will automatically group with it. This allows groups and ornaments to be built up quickly on the fly.

The only drawback with this is that if a bar is a bit 'busy' and a gracenote note is moved too far so that it gets to the wrong side of a main note, it may unwantedly group with an existing embellishment or group of grace notes. Similarly, if an embellishment is moved so that one or more of its component notes is moved to the wrong side of a main note, these notes will be split off into a separate group. If this happens, either move the note(s) back, or select Edit->Undo and try again.

It is useful to remember that one or more notes in a group may be deleted by selecting them individually (see above) and then pressing the delete key or delete button on the main toolbar.


Note: If, after moving the note(s), you aren't happy with the note alignment inside the bar, the Note spacing toolbar button Note spacing button may help. Otherwise, each note will need to be re-positioned with the mouse. Using a higher Zoom factor is advisable during this procedure.