NOTION Music Forum

Hi there,

Is there a way to select a bunch of notes, spanning several measures and clear out JUST the notes? I want to keep the chord symbols, but get rid of the notes. The problem is that when I select using dragging it selects more than just notes.

I tried "clear special" but notes is not an option in there.

Bobby

Dear Bobby,

There is not a really quick way to Clear Notes in Notion. You can manually select all of the notes with your mouse and delete them by holding "Shift" and clicking directly on them.



There are some other options that you can use too that are less destructive.

If you just don't want them to playback, you can use "Set As Tacet". Make your selection in the score by rubber band selecting or double-clicking the measure and Shift Clicking the entire selection, then right-click:



Or, you can "Show As Cues". When using the "Show as Cues", you can choose whether or not to print the cues which would leave them in for printing or ignore them for your printed version.



Then go to Score>Full Score Options>More and Select or Deselect the checkbox for "Print Cue Notes".



Hope this helps,

-Admin

Thanks for the detailed reply, but it doesn't really help much: The problem is the manual selection of notes. If I have a hundred notes, that's a hundred point-and-clicks to select all hundred notes, when it seems like I should just be able to drag my mouse to select them.

My use case is: I am writing a bunch of exercises for a chord progression, and want to copy the chords from the first part of the score to the second but without the notes so I can write new exercises for the same progression.

I just started using Notion and find it has amazing potential, but there's still serious work on the UI front to do to make it usable in my opinion. I like that it's amazingly easy to get started with (more so than any other package in any other price range) but once you get going you want some power features - I'm mostly talking about keyboard entry here for things here - placing notes with the mouse is a drag unless I zoom in far more than I'd like to. Are there plans for more (computer) keyboard entry options in the future?

Thanks!

bobbyrullo wrote:My use case is: I am writing a bunch of exercises for a chord progression, and want to copy the chords from the first part of the score to the second but without the notes so I can write new exercises for the same progression.

The way to do this is to begin with a bit of planning with respect to the different variations of cutting, copying, and pasting, where one strategy is to create a few more staves that you will use as if they were separate clipboards, where for reference there is one operating system supplied clipboard for cutting, copying, and pasting, hence you want to create a few more so that you have additional options for making temporary copies and "parking" music phrases in a handy working location, and in NOTION 4 you can do this with additional staves, which can be hidden later and marked so that any notes on them are not played and heard . . .

In the example you provided, the strategy is to create the chord progression first, but instead of immediately adding notes for the exercises, copy the entire chord progression and paste it to a "helper" staff that is defined for the same instrument, where if you are doing this for Piano, then create a "helper" Piano staff . . .

Now you have a copy of just the chord progression only, and it is parked in the "helper" Piano staff, and you can add notes for the first exercise on the original Piano staff . . .

Then when you are ready to create the second exercise on the same chord progression, you will copy the chord progression from the "helper" Piano staff but paste it into the original Piano staff at the start of the measure where you want the next exercise to begin, at which time you have the chord progression but without notes, so you then can add a new set of notes, and so forth and so on . . .

Another thing you can do, which is similar but a bit different, is to save a score as a template, and you can add the template to the list of predefined templates for NOTION 4, which is done one way if you are on a Windows computer but is done a different way if you are on the Mac . . .

And you can includes notes in templates, which effectively makes a template similar to a database table, but even if you do not configure templates to appear in the list of NOTION 4 predefined templates, you can simply open a saved NOTION 4 score and use it to copy musical phrases and whatever is convenient to another open NOTION 4 score . . .

For example, you might save a score that has several drumkit patterns, electric bass patterns, rhythm guitar chord patterns, and so forth. Then, if you want to use one of the saved patterns in a new song, open the saved score and copy the pattern you want to use, followed by switching to the score for the new song and then pasting the saved pattern which now is in the cllpboard into the new song . . .

If you need to have a lot of instruments and are using NOTION 4 with a Digital Audo Workstation (DAW) application like Digital Performer 8 (MOTU) where you record the NOTION 4 generated audio as soundbites via ReWire 2, then you can have a set of NOTION 4 scores for a song, where you begin with the original set of basic rhythm section instruments in the first NOTION 4 score but then clone the first NOTION 4 score by doing a "Save As . . . ", where you give it a name like "Song PT 2", where the first score is named "Song PT 1", and so forth, with the easy way being to put all the scores for the song (original and clones) in the same folder . . .

[NOTE: If you "sparkle" all the instruments in a 125 piece symphonic orchestra, then this maps to somewhere in the range of 1,000 instruments based on eight (8) staves per individual instrument or voice, hence the need to split the NOTION 4 score into subscores, which also makes it easier to work with layers and to do the soundbite recording in the DAW application, where again the key aspect of the strategy is to do as much advance planning as possible, although once you develop a system for creating songs in layers, it is flexible so long as you keep the basic structure of the song consistent (verse, chorus, bridge, interlude, and so forth), but even then if you need a part in a specific place, you can create the music notation for the desired virtual instrument and then record as a separate soundbite in the DAW application, where later you can move the resulting soundbite along the timeline for the song in the DAW application, with the point being that there are several strategies for creating songs . . . ]

This is the way I do elaborate instrumentation, and it works nicely, where the reason for doing it this way here in the sound isolation studio is to be able to "sparkle" instruments, which is a technique I developed in which the notes for one instrument are spread over as many as eight (8) staves, each of which is panned to a different location across what I call the "rainbow panning arc", so that you can put notes into motion from far-left to top-center to far-right by putting specific notes on the staves that correspond to the desired panning locations . . .

"Sparkling" an instrument takes a while, but it sounds fascinating--especially when you listen with headphones--and it is the easiest way to do it, because (a) it is done with music notation and (b) NOTION 4 has true stereo panning controls, hence everything is done very precisely, which is important because the rules for panning and loudness are logarithmic and are a bit different than what one might expect intuitively, where the basic rule is that notes near top-center are louder, so you need to lower their volume, while notes to the far-left or far-right are not so loud, and you need to make them a bit louder, with the locations between far-left and top-center or between top-center and far-right requiring more subtle adjustments in volume and panning location . . .

Using a clock face to indicate far-left, top-center, and far-right, these are 9:00, 12:00, and 3:00, respectively, and these locations generally are easy for panning, but 10:00, 11:00, 1:00, and 2:00 are not so easy, and it takes a bit of experimenting and practicing to discover the rules, but so what . . .

So what!

This is an example of a "sparkled" Psaltery Harp accompanied by a Tormented Bass, both of which are IK Multimedia VSTi virtual instruments (a personal favorite but at present only available for use in the 32-bit version of NOTION 4) . . .

[NOTE: Currently the IK Multimedia VSTi virtual instruments are 32-bit only, which is a bit annoying, but IK Multimedia plans to release 64-bit versions sometime this year, so I am using the time until then to learn more about MachFive 3 (MOTU), Addictive Drums and Addictive Keys (XLN Audio) and Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), as well as Reason (Propellerhead Software), all of which are 64-bit and can be controlled by NOTION 4 running in 64-bit mode, where the key to controlling Reason is to do it via NOTION 4 External MIDI staves in a ReWire 2 session, which is very easy to do on the Mac, since the Mac has built-in "virtual MIDI cables" (a.k.a., "IAC Driver"), and NOTION 4 communicates with Reason via "virtual MIDI cables", such that the music notation is on a NOTION 4 External MIDI staff but at playback time the notes are sent to Reason, and Reason uses the MIDI notes, commands, and instructions to play the Reason synthesizer or instrument you specify in the Reason project . . . ]



[NOTE: This was done with NOTION 3. When you listen with headphones it is easiest to hear how changing the panning locations for notes puts the notes into motion . . . ]

"Sparkles" (The Surf Whammys) -- MP3

This is complete song that has "sparkled" instruments, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: All the instruments were done with music notation and virtual instruments in NOTION and recorded in Digital Performer. . . ]

"Baby You Were Only Dreaming" (The Surf Whammys) -- YouTube music video

Fabulous!