Composing with Notate 
Contents
What is Notate?
Notate is a music composition/playback package for use with Acorn computers. It will accept input from either the mouse or a MIDI compatible keyboard connected to the computer's MIDI interface. The software displays information as music notes on a standard 5 line stave, therefore, some knowledge of note names would be advantageous to the user, though not absolutely necessary. Music can be created on up to a maximum of 8 staves, each stave being capable of playback with any one of a large number of sounds supplied on disc.Notate is supplied on 2 discs, the first containing the application
itself, some tune files and a 'Voices' directory of sounds; disc 2
contains another 'Voices' directory of a larger set of sounds. If you
are running the software from the discs, you may be prompted at
certain times to insert disc 2 for the application to load particular
sounds. However, if you intend mounting the software onto a hard
drive, a few precautions need to be taken, not the least of which is
making a backup copy of Notate and storing the original discs in a
safe place.
Installing Notate
Either use the 'Freda Management' disc to install both discs, or follow the procedure set out below.Create a directory on the hard disc called 'Notate', then double-click the Select (left) mouse button on the directory to open it (see the User Guide supplied with the computer for more details on creating a directory). Place the Notate disc in the disc drive and click Select on the floppy drive icon on the icon bar (denoted by the :0 symbol). Using the Select mouse button, drag everything from the floppy disc except !System and !Scrap into the newly created Notate directory on the hard drive. When these have been copied, remove the Notate disc from the floppy drive and insert the Notate Extra Voices disc. Click Select on the disc drive and copy the Voices directory into the Notate window on the hard drive as before. The contents of the Voices directory will be merged with the contents of the existing Voices directory previously copied.
Before running Notate from the hard drive, it is worth resetting the computer by either turning it off or pressing Control/Break.
Configuring Notate
To run Notate, place the pointer on the !Notate icon and double-click the Select (left) mouse button. After a short while, the Notate icon will appear on the icon bar at the bottom of the screen. You now need to decide what particular musical items you are going to allow the user to have access to. For beginners, you may only want access to a few notes and rests, whilst for the more advanced user, access to more musical items may be required eg. dotted notes and repeat marks etc. To set the requirements, place the mouse pointer on the Notate icon on the icon bar and click the Menu (middle) mouse button. A small menu will appear, from which you should click the Select (left) mouse button on 'Choices...'. A new window will appear containing a list of choices, the most important being a choice of 3 'Difficulty' levels; choose the level of difficulty required then click the Select (left) mouse button on either 'Save' or 'OK'. (See the diagrams below for the variations in the 'Level of Difficulty').
Level 1 Toolbar
Level 2 Toolbar
Level 3 Toolbar
Children may find that the procedure for installing voices (musical sounds) into the computer a little daunting. To overcome this, it is possible to make Notate install voices automatically as the program is run. To do this, first run Notate (see next section), and click the menu mouse button on the program‘s icon when it appears on the icon bar. Click Select on the Choices... item to display a dialogue box. At the bottom of the dialogue box is a section labelled 'Load voices:-', which allows you to enter the names of the instruments which you would like the program to load for you. You will find that there are two voices already installed, Piano and TomTom. Use the arrow buttons to scroll the list down to voice number three and enter the name of each voice to be loaded automatically (you can find the names of the available voices by opening the Voices directory). Press Return after each entry to scroll down to the next number.
Depending on the amount of memory in your computer, you should be
able to enter up to a maximum of 23 voice names. Try to use a variety
of instrument types eg. strings, brass, woodwind and percussion as
well as a few of the synthetic sounds.
After you have entered all the voice names, click Select on the Save
button before Selecting the OK button. Notate will then load the
voices you have entered. (NB. errors may occur if you have misspelled
any of the voice names).
Placing and removing notes from the stave
When you click the Select (left) mouse button on the Notate icon, a window will open on the screen showing one of the above levels of difficulty and an empty stave beginning with a treble clef and a time signature of 4 /4. It is possible to change these 'default' settings, although this should be done before placing any notes on the stave. To place a note (or any other item) on the stave, place the pointer on the required item in the 'Toolbar', for example a crotchet, hold down the Select (left) mouse button and drag the crotchet (move the mouse whilst holding down the mouse button) onto the stave. When you release the mouse button, the note will sound corresponding to where it was placed on the stave. If you decide that the note is at the wrong pitch, simply drag it to its new position. Be aware that Notate takes care of the horizontal position of all notes, depending on their length; also be aware that Notate checks each bar of music so that it is impossible to put too many notes in a bar.After you have placed several notes on the stave, you will probably want to play them all as a tune. To do this, click the Select (left) mouse button on the Play button in the Toolbar. You can adjust the speed and volume of playback by clicking the Select (left) mouse button on the arrows either side of the Metronome and Volume Slider in the Toolbox.
If you want to place an item which is usually associated with a note, eg. an accidental (sharp, flat or natural), drag that item directly onto, or slightly to the left of, the required note on the stave. Note that the tie can only be used between two notes of the same pitch.
Tip: If you are creating music consisting of a number of notes which are the same length, you can use the Adjust (right) mouse button to copy any note value already on the stave. To do this, point to any note on the stave, hold down the Adjust (right) mouse button and 'drag' to the appropriate pitch.
Removing items from a Notate stave is carried out by dragging them
off the stave. You can either drag items back onto the 'Toolbar' (you
don't have to place them exactly from where they originated) or
somewhere below the stave level (not onto any existing staves or they
will appear in that stave). In this case, think of deleting as
throwing away, rather than erasing.
To delete several items at once, it is possible to highlight an area
(by dragging the mouse button with Select held down over the items to
be deleted, in much the same way as highlighting text in Pendown),
then press the Delete key on the keyboard.
Rather than delete notes, you may want to alter the note's position on the stave. This can be carried out by dragging the note up or down, left or right, until it is in the correct (or preferred) position. Note: if you move a note out of a bar, the remaining notes will be shifted to the right, leaving an incomplete bar. Notate will assume a rest of equivalent value to the missing note when the music is played.
Saving and loading files
If you are saving your work to a floppy disc, place the disc in the disc drive and click the Select (left) mouse button on the disc drive icon. This means that on the screen you should see both the music you have created and a window representing your disc in the disc drive.Place the pointer on the music and click the Menu (middle) mouse button to display the Notate menu. Move the pointer across the arrow after 'File' and again across the arrow after 'Save F3'. You should now have the pointer in the 'Save as:' window. (Make sure you keep the pointer in this window). Use the Delete key on the keyboard to delete the name 'NotateTune' and replace with a name of your choice (maximum of 10 characters with no spaces), but do not press Return or click the Select (left) mouse button on 'OK'. Instead, place the pointer on the 'N' icon, hold down the Select (left) mouse button and drag to the window representing your disc. After a short time, a similar icon will appear in your disc window along with the name you gave to it. Your file has now been saved. If you need to load your file again at some future time, drag the file from your work disc onto the Notate icon on the icon bar.
To save your work onto the hard drive, open a directory to receive the file by either double-clicking a directory icon, or by Selecting one of the FREDA icons on the icon bar. Again you should see on the screen both the music you have created and a window representing your destination area. Now follow the same procedure as outlined above.
It is possible to have more than one Notate window open on the screen at the same time. This can be useful in trying out different versions of the same music. For example, you may wish to experiment with different tempos, volumes, instrumentation etc., without losing the original settings.
To load a file into Notate, either drag the file onto the Notate icon on the icon bar, or double-click the file. Either way, Notate will open a new window on the screen showing your music. Use the 'maximise' button to make the window fill the screen (box in the extreme top right corner of the window).