There are two types glyphs that can be added to the composition panel. Those that have a duration associated with them and those that do not. Those that do not are ...
- Tempo: pull down list of standard tempos that can be added to the the composition at chosen insertion points.
- Time Signature: a pull down list of time signatures that can be added to the the composition at chosen insertion points. Associated with each is a stress pattern that denotes where the secondary stresses should fall (the primary always falls on the first beat of the measure). For example, there are two 4/4 times to choose from. One denoted as 4/4-1010 and the other denoted as 4/4-1000. In the former, there isnt a secondary stress, in the latter a secondary stress falls on the 3rd beat. Some other examples of time signatures are 7/4-1000100, 9/8-100100100, 9/16-100100100. The primary and secondary stresses are accomplished by increasing the volume for the note affected with a greater increase being used for the primary stress.
- Volume: a pull down list of time signatures that can be added to the the composition at chosen insertion points.
- Repeats: used to repeat a section of music. Can be nested.
- Measure bars: used to enhance the readability of the score and have no effect when score is parsed and played.
Glyphs that have a duration associated with them are either rests or notes that reference nodes, Notes can be added to the composition panel by selecting a node or tree from the 3D graph panel or by copying notes that are selected in the composition to chosen insertion points elsewhere in the composition. Besides the properties a note inherits from the node it references (such as the value of A||B) a note also has the following properties that can be modified in the composition panel.
- duration: the duration of one or more selected notes can be changed by by choosing a new duration from a pull down box where the standard durations from 1/32 to 1/1 are listed along along with their dotted counterparts.
- instrument: the instrument for one or more selected notes can be changed by choosing a new instrument from a pull down box where the midi instruments
- Tie: ties two notes together so that they play for their combined durations.
- Tuplet: of the form x/y, where x = the number of notes to play and y = the number of notes of that duration to play the entire tuplet for. All notes in a tuplet must be of the same duration.
- branch graph: of a graphic loaded in the Animation Panel.
- octave modifier: of the form 2n. A,B and G each have their own octave modifier.
- a base frequency: the base frequency used as the starting point for determining the pitch of a note.
- active section: which section to use when the color and frequency of a note is determined.
Notes are placed on the staff using a beautiful set of accidentals designed by D. Keenan and G. Secor that I've assigned to 5 cent increments, A note where A||B = 1:1:0:1:2:1:0:1, the active section = B, the base frequency = 55, and the octave modifer is 23 would have a frequency of 2/1×55× 8 = 440. If a notes or notes are selected and their active section, base frequency or octave modifiers are changed then their accidental and position in the staff would as well. At present the Composition Panel represents what I felt was the minimal set of tools needed to create compostions When the composition is played or saved as a wav and/or midi file it is parsed and converted to a Music String which can be handed off to JFugue for processing. The following screenshots will give the reader some idea of its functionality.
info box for notes selected above. From composition xpoles. accidentals
an example of tuplets
an example of nested repeats.