A Song is created in the Arrangement window by placing sections along a time line. There is no limit to the number of songs you can create in a FreeStyle document, so you can try many different versions of the same song.
(1) Creating a song
Creating a song is easy. Just choose New Song from the Song menu. FreeStyle asks you to name it. After you do so and click OK, the song appears in the Arrangement window, as well as the Graphic Editing/Notation window. It is ready for you to place sections into it.
(2) Building a song in the Arrangement window
To add sections to the song, drag them from the Section list on left into the grid on the right. You can add the same section as many times as you want. For example, the chorus section may appear four times in your song. So just drag it from the Section list into the grid four times and place the four copies where they should go. The four copies are called instances of the original section. If you change the original, they all change, too. This doesn’t have to be the case, though. If you want to make a copy that is different, use the Duplicate Section command to make a copy of the original, and then modify the duplicate section.
You can freely drag sections around in the Arrangement grid. Place sections in any row you wish; sections placed above or below one another play at the same time. If you place a section between two other back-to-back sections, FreeStyle automatically moves them to squeeze in the new section. Sections in the same row cannot overlap. To overlap them, place them in different rows.
(3) The primary song structure row (top row)
The top row is the Primary Song Structure row. If you have sections named verse, chorus, etc. put them in the top row because doing so causes their names to appear in the Graphic Editing view time line. Sections containing fills, solos, or other material should go in the rows below.
(4) Changing section lengths in the Arrangement grid
To lengthen and shorten sections in the Arrangement grid, drag their right edges.
(5) Viewing a song in the Graphic editing and Notation views
The graphic editing and notation views can show an entire song as easily as a single section. Just choose the song from the pop-up menu in the upper left-hand corner of the window. The only difference is that in a song, you see all of its sections at once. Remember, sections in the top row of the Arrangement window grid appear by name in the time line, and their boundaries are indicated in the note grid by heavy vertical lines. In the Notation view, their names appear above each staff system. While viewing a song, you can rename it or get rid of it using the commands in the Song menu.
