Creating custom playing techniques

You can create your own custom playing techniques, including choosing their continuation line styles and playback playing techniques, for example, if the default glyph used for a particular playing technique is not the one to which you or the players reading the music are accustomed.

Procedure

  1. In Engrave mode, choose Engrave > Playing Techniques to open the Edit Playing Techniques dialog.
  2. Select the category in which you want to create the custom playing technique from the Category menu.
  3. Create a new playing technique in one of the following ways:

    • To create a blank playing technique, click New in the playing techniques list action bar.

    • To create a playing technique that is a copy of an existing one, select the existing playing technique in the playing techniques list and click New from Selection in the playing techniques list action bar.

  4. Enter the name you want for the new playing technique in the Name field.
  5. On the General tab, select one of the following options from the Type menu:

    • Glyph

    • Text

  6. Customize the appearance of your playing technique in one of the following ways:

    • For text playing techniques, change the text in the Text field and/or change the font style used.

    • For glyph playing techniques, click Edit Composite below the appearance you want to customize to open the Edit Playing Technique dialog, in which you can customize its appearance.

  7. Optional: For glyph playing techniques, choose one of the following options for Appearance on the General tab:

    • Same above and below

    • Different above and below

  8. Optional: If you chose Different above and below, customize the other appearance.
  9. Select the playback playing technique you want the playing technique to use in playback from the Playback playing technique menu.
  10. Optional: If you want to use a playback playing technique that is not available, click Edit to open the Edit Playback Playing Techniques dialog, in which you can add and edit playback playing techniques.

    For example, some sound libraries require you to map specific actions/switches manually, so you might create a new playback playing technique to which you can assign actions/switches in the expression map for such a sound library.

  11. Change any other options on the General tab as required.
  12. Optional: If you want the playing technique to show continuation lines, select Line from the Continuation type menu on the Continuation tab.
  13. Optional: For playing techniques that show continuation lines, select the style you want to use for duration lines and transition lines from the corresponding menus.
  14. Optional: Change the alignment positions of duration and transition lines.
  15. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog.

Result

The custom playing technique is created. It is available in the current project only.

After Completing This Task

  • If you created a new playback playing technique, add it to the expression maps for all the instruments that use the custom playing technique and assign the appropriate action/switch for the sound library.

  • You can save the custom playing technique as default to make it available in other projects.

  • You can input the playing technique so it appears in your music.