Active Notation User Man2
Contents
1. The names of the sections can be anything so long as a matching file with the extension anm can be found in the Modules directory Customising Section Name and Sub Section Order Each section of the piece is defined by a module anm file If you open one of these files you will see the first few lines look like this Continuum with Blues Section B2 name Continuum with Blues B2 playmode 2 The first line starting with is a comment Comment are ignored by the system and can be placed anywhere in the file Following this is the definition of the section name which is displayed in the middle left of the screen see fig 3 above The name should be enclosed in quotation marks The final part of the module header is the play mode If playmode is set to 1 then the section will play through sequentially If it is set to 2 then the order will be shuffled with the exception of the first and last sub sections A playmode of 3 will create a playlist in random order with repetitions and redundancy again with the exception of the first and last sub sections Finally a user defined order useful for rehearsal can be created by setting playmode to 4 followed by the order in brackets e g BLaymode 2 r o Sy 6 39 10 14 EE 2 22 Lo SEE You may also see a line like the following toward the top of the file intro a 53 b 34 b2 23 blues 101 This indicates that the module has introductory images associated with it that will display2. before the first sub section The information in the brackets points to jpg images in the sound directory e g a jpg b jpg b2 jpg and blues jpg The numbers indicate the number of seconds allowed to display each image Customising Sub Sections The rest of the module file contains data relating to the sub sections A sub section is a fragment of musical notation that makes up the larger section of the piece The definition each new sub section begins with a For example the first sub section of B2 tempo 070g 32 fis 16 gis 32 tempo 140 gis 8 ais ais c tempo 070f1s32 fna 16 9 32 tempo 140 e 8l a c d 8 080 260 TEO FO TO HO 8080808080 SO 80 5 cy ratten eon sereen tin seconds free velocity allowed free duration allowed free pitches allowed beam height 40 alternative beam height 60 display offset 20 ip horizontal spacing sound file OOOO NN The section highlighted above contains the data used to display the following notation in the system This data is contained in two lines the notation data the text and numbers and the velocity data the numbers only The velocity data controls the s ze of the note heads displayed and generally runs from 50 v small to 100 larger than average with 80 being the average size A Brief Guide to Editing Notation Data Editing the notation data is a little more involved It is based on a very simplified version o
3. Active Notation User Manual Prototype Version LID AREY EEE ah MAN a Eora m a a pl T Phil Legard Active Notation User Manual Prototype Version Phil Legard System Requirements PC running Windows 95 or later 98 or XP recommended Screen resolution set to 1024 x 768 32 bit colour SSMB free hard drive space Preface The intention of Active Notation is to replace the need for a conventional score and music stand set up While this document focuses on the latter active sections of Continuum with Blues the final system will also display the three preceding sections on screen so that the player may solely use the computer display for the performance Note also that the sub section numbers are displayed in the system at the top left of each sub section display This makes for easy reference to the full score which may be kept open as a PDF and toggled between using the Alt TAB shortcut key Installing Active Notation Active Notation must be run from a local hard drive or other random access storage device it will not run directly from the CD ROM To install the software open the CD ROM folder and copy the folder entitled Active Notation to a suitable location on your computer Running The System To start the system browse to the location where you copied the Active Notation folder Open this folder and double click the icon ActiveNotation exe System Overview Initially you will be presented
4. eyond the first item in the section Advice to the player We suggest during rehearsals that the player first familiarises himself with the core material before moving on to the more advanced active notational elements of the system To this end we have created three scenarios that the player might like to work through as part of their rehearsal process To select a scenario you will need to edit the configuration file an cfg in a text editor This 1s located in the files folder of the active notation directory The default scenario is scenario 1 but others can be selected by editing the commented lines in the file For example to switch to scenario 2 the following edits need to occur Continuum with Blues Continuum with Blues scenariol b2 Scenariol b2 scenariol b2a2 scenariol b2a2 scenariol a2 scenariol a2 scenario2 b2 becomes scenario2 b2 scenario2 b2a2 scenario2 b2a2 scenario2 a2 scenario2 a2 scenario3 b2 ss scenarlio3 b2 scenario3 b2a2 Scenar1o3 b2a2 scenario3 a2 scenario3 a2 lend lend The three scenarios present the following approaches to the material in sections B2 B2 gt A2 and A2 Scenario 1 All material is presented as written in the order written Scenario 2 All material is presented as written with the order of B2 and A2 shuffled each time Scenario 3 Material for B2 and A2 is both shuffled and has varying chances of being displayed in alternative ways e g
5. f the Lilypond notation standard Briefly notes can be displayed by inputting the name of the note c d e etc followed by any accidental is sharp es flat na natural and then any octave positioning denoted by or So ais is A sharp below middle C bes is B flat above middle C and so on Note durations are specified by numbers directly following the pitch information for example c32 is middle C with a 32 duration Dots can also be added e g bes 8 Selections of notes can be beamed by adding either or directly after the first note in the group and using the corresponding close bracket to end the group for example c8 a e The difference between the use of and is that the beam heights are not calculated automatically but two alternatives are specified in the sub section definition see above Changes in tempo can be displayed using the format t empo nnn Note that the tempo must be three digits in length e g 070 in the above example for 70 Ties can be created by adding a to the end of the first note in the pair such as in the first note of the above example Barlines may be added using the following at the start of each new bar Single bar double bar start repeat sl end repeat aan I end repeat and start new repeat Chords can be created by enclosing two or more notes within lt and gt For example gis16 gna lt e a fis gt a32 gis would displa
6. i ZTE i It te te fete Or in any combination of above To do this set the corresponding flags see the sub section definition p 3 to 1 This means there 1s a 50 chance of the sub section either displaying the notation as 1S or with the free elements Sound Samples Sound samples can be triggered at the start of any section For example to play the file drone wav simply put the file in the sound directory and replace the last line of the sub section definition set as by default with drone This allows the performer to integrate their own sounds with the piece adding to or replacing the existing electroacoustic elements Troubleshooting I get a script error when I run ActiveNotation exe This can be caused by the file attributes still being set to Read Only after copying from the CD ROM To remedy this select all the files in each directory CTRL A and right click one of them Select Attributes from the pop up menu and un tick the Read Only tab in the subsequent window It is critical that an cfg and files in the Modules directory are not read only While stepping backwards through the section with I get a script error At present navigation through a section with and is temperamental Stepping forward with is fine and you will also be taken to the next section when you step past the last item in the current section However when stepping backward please take care not to go back b
7. t until the end of the section see fig 3 below The timings for each section are reflections of the timings in the computer simulation with some tolerance for repeated material To aid the player in reference to the printed score the sub section number will always appear to the left of the first system of the sub section being displayed T5 le 2 lie be te en i gt u or a Le Le b ak le Carta Guns B2 b PT Ty TI I 11101131134 Fig 3 Illustration of lower sub section fading in Controlling the System At the start of each section the system will pause To commence playing the section the performer needs to press the spacebar During the execution of the section the spacebar can be pressed again to pause the screen in its current state in order to rehearse Pressing spacebar again will resume the application from the point at which it was paused At any point whether paused or not the timer can be reset by pressing R As another aid to rehearsing is that while the system is paused the player can move back and forth through sections by pressing and Customising the Play list The play list contains the names of the files used for each section and the order in which they are played The play list file is called an cfg and can be found in the Files directory By default they play list looks like this Continuum with Blues scenariol b2 scenariol b2a2 scenariol a2 lend
8. with free pitches rhythm or velocity The material for B2 gt A2 remains the same
9. with the title screen showing the name of the piece Press space to begin execution If the first section of the piece has been prefaced by images then you will see these images displayed for a predetermined number of seconds You can also skip these introductory pages by pressing the spacebar again A Continuum with Blues Homage Gyorgy Ligeti slanciato le soffocato 70 Sar F SSS Ye ee waren Men rie eee we mp nx mp normale af 65 cres 5 Continuum with Blues Press SPACE to begin Fig 1 Title page and introductory material Once all introductory material has finished you will be presented with a screen that looks something like this d 140 I TB PDT am nah Buas El Fig 2 Default display The two grey areas at the top and bottom are windows in which fragments of musical score will appear for the duration of the piece In the middle of the screen is the title of the current movement to the left and a timer bar in the centre At the start of a section the first musical sub section will always appear in the top window The timer will then begin decreasing in size over a pre determined number of seconds While this occurs the next sub section will be fading in on the lower screen Once this sub section has fully appeared the timer having expired a new fragment will begin fading in This process will repea
10. y this A Y can be used to break up long phrases into two or more systems for example tempo 1406b8 1 bis ais e dis 8 f b que bis tempo 070e 32 f e 8 a 16 ais 32 fis32 fna lt cis 4 e b gt c 16 lt bes32 g d gt lt d4 g b gt Results in the following At present there is a limited support for accents Suffixing a note with will place an attack below the note head A suffix of will place a staccato mark below the note head Agogic accents can be place above or below by appending and _ respectively For example ees32 d16 fis32 f16 enaf ef dis r32 bes 32 a 16 des32 c bna 16 b 32 b bes 16 dna c32 bna results in eee J iJ T I Bs Finally numbers can be placed above the top line of the staff to indicate triplets and complex groupings using n For example c8 3c c would result in a group of 8 middle C notes with a 3 above it More complex timings can be displayed thus c16 cis 6 ena 5dna cna cis resulting in the following group Alternative Notational Displays The sub sections contained within the module file do not have to be displayed as written but can also be displayed in following ways With free velocities J 70 J 140 J 70 J 140 pry With free pitches J 70 d 140 d 70 d 140 ble p p ur mr mr With free durations d 70 d 140 ze d 70 Jat a je E ze i JE
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