Adding an octave line

To avoid having lots of ledger lines, the chord you input in bar 32 that jumps up an octave can be notated with an 8va octave line; that is, an octave line that indicates notes are played an octave higher than written.

Procedure

  1. In bar 32, click the grace note on the top staff, then Shift-click the chord on beat 2.

    Chord and grace note selected

  2. Press Shift-C to open the clefs and octave lines popover.
  3. Enter 8va into the popover.

    Clefs and octave lines popover above the staff with an entry for an 8va octave line

  4. Press Return to close the popover.

Result

An 8va octave line that spans the grace note and chord is input. All notes within the span of the octave line are automatically notated an octave lower than before you input the octave line.

8va octave line input in bar 32

The octave line’s endpoint is attached to the start of the next bar, as indicated by the dotted red line, but its continuation line ends to the right of the chord. This follows conventions for the length and placement of octave lines.

Tip

You can also add octave lines using the Clefs panel on the right of the window, which you can show by clicking Panels Panels button in the Notations toolbox, then Clefs Clefs button in the Notations toolbox in the Notations toolbox. They share a panel with clefs as both notations alter where notes appear on staves.