Nightingale is a powerful, MIDI-compatible desktop publishing program used to create, edit, and print publication quality musical scores. It is designed with four basic goals in mind:
1. To provide “one-stop” desktop music publishing — a single user at a single computer can create, finish and publish his/her scores to a world wide audience, either on paper or electronically over the Internet.
2. To provide extreme flexibility — you, as the composer/arranger, are allowed to create anything you want.
3. To be a fast and intuitive tool for quickly notating music, while staying out of the way of your creative instincts.
4. To create the highest quality of PostScript output available.
WITH NIGHTINGALE YOU CAN:
• Create a score of anywhere from 1 to 64 staves and a total of 100 voices.
• Input music using the Mac keyboard and mouse.
• Input music from any MIDI instrument using Real Time Recording or Step Time Recording, letting Nightingale notate on the screen exactly what you played.
• Insert notes, rests, barlines, text, dynamics, tempos, articulations, or any performance information, with complete control over appearance and placement of any symbols.
• Create beautiful slurs and tuplets, flip stem direction, or transpose pitches, all in a single step.
• Zoom in and out in seconds, and instantly view any measure in your score — all pages are active at any time.
• View your score on screen exactly as it will be printed.
• Playback all or part of your score through MIDI or over the computer speakers, with tempo changes, instrument assignments, and letter dynamic markings audible during playback.
• Automatically transpose entire parts.
• Print individual parts or a whole score.
• Import Finale® (Enigma) files and standard MIDI files.
• Import a scanned music score via the NoteScan utility (available separately).
• Publish your score electronically over the Internet/World Wide Web using the included NoteView utility.
• Export PostScript® files to word and page layout programs.
• Export files to Adobe Illustrator® for use as artwork.
• Customize with ease any of over 100 default settings for how your software operates and feels using the NightCustomizer utility.
HOW NIGHTINGALE DIFFERS FROM OTHER PROGRAMS:
Nightingale assumes that you wish to exercise control over the notation, without a lot of decisions being made for you. It is not designed to automatically do all the notation for you. For example, you are free to place as many notes and rests in a measure as you like, but you will not be told that there are too many beats in a measure unless you request it.
As you create a score, Nightingale gives primary consideration to measure spacing. Beautiful spacing of the symbols in the staff is the single most difficult and time consuming job in music notation. Nightingale makes it fast and easy, and once a measure is entered, will not respace that measure without your requesting it. Nor will it assume that you wish to justify a system (spread it out from left to right to fill up the page), recalculate page formatting, or move a measure to a different page, without first asking for your permission.
A WORD ABOUT THE ON-LINE USER'S GUIDE:
The entire User’s Guide is provided to you as an electronic file which you access on your computer. This style of user’s guide offers many benefits over a printed manual:
1. It allows easy searching for any topic;
2. It facilitates jumping between related subjects without the need to search through an index;
3. It allows for frequent updating and inclusion of new features in a form quickly accessible; and
4. It allows you to print out any segment of the guide you wish.
You will find detailed information on every command, tool and feature in the on-line User’s Guide. It is organized as follows:
• Topics Section — Individual entries (arranged in alphabetical order) containing detailed information about each of the palette tools, and about broad topics relative to the use of Nightingale (e.g., “key signatures”)
• Commands Section — Individual entries containing detailed information about each menu command (arranged in alphabetical order and by menu)
• Tips and Tricks
• Troubleshooting
• Reference Topics — quick reference documents for topics not covered elsewhere in the User’s Guide
KNOW YOUR MACINTOSH BASICS:
This tutorial assumes you are completely familiar with the basic use of your Macintosh computer, i.e., opening, saving and closing files, using the cursor, and using the menus. If these are unfamiliar to you, refer to your Macintosh user’s manual.
Make sure your MIDI equipment is correctly set up and turned on before starting Nightingale. Complete instructions are provided in the Installation Guide.
Nightingale operates most efficiently with a black and white screen display (i.e., faster screen redrawing). If you have a color monitor, you can change your screen display to black and white by going into the Control Panels (in the Apple menu) and changing the values in the Monitors section.
How to Approach Nightingale
It is always best to enter music into the score working from left to right, filling each measure as you go. This will help you keep the notes and rests in the various instruments lined up and synchronized, making all aspects of editing easier.
Treat data entry much like you would when using a word processor: first enter all the “raw” data (notes, rests, slurs, ties, beams and barlines) for the entire score from beginning to end, and then go back to make formatting changes, alter page layout, and fine tune the score.
DEFINITIONS AND TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
• Staff
The set of horizontal lines (usually five) on and between which notes are written. A staff is considered to extend from the beginning of a piece to the end.
• Staves
The plural of Staff.
• Part
A part consists of one or more staves, assigned to an instrument. An oboe has a single-staff part, while a piano usually has a two-staff part. The part for each instrument is considered to start at the beginning of the score and extend to the end of the score.
• System
A system is one grouping of all of the instruments in the score. When a staff or group of staves begins at the left edge of the page and stops at the right edge, one system is completed. When the staff (or group of staves) continues below on the same page (if space permits), or on the next page of the score, a new system has begun.
• Voice
In musical notation a voice does not necessarily refer to a person singing. The term voice can mean a line of music in the score that is assigned to an instrument. That instrument’s voice contains only the notes it will perform. If another instrument’s notes appear on the same staff, they are shown in a separate voice. A staff can contain one or more voices. You see multiple voices in a staff in four-part choral music where the soprano and alto parts will be written on one staff, with the stems pointed up for the sopranos and down for the altos. Many orchestral scores show flute 1 and 2 on the same staff, with the stems pointed up and down, respectively. Also, keyboard music frequently shows multiple voices on the staff (so that the independent lines of music can be discerned), though all of them are to be played by a single performer.
• Grand Staff
In piano music, a treble staff and a bass staff are joined together by a curly brace into a grand staff. This is considered to be a single, unified part, though it is comprised of two staves.
• Reserved Area/Reserved Signature Area
The region at the beginning of each system where only the clef, key signature and time signature can be written.
• Initial Reserved Area
The reserved area of the very first system in a score.
• Symbols/Musical Symbols
In a Nightingale score, any note, rest, barline, dynamic marking, or other abstract representation of a musical element that you use to notate music, is referred to as a “symbol.”
• Shortcut Keys/Shortcut Key Equivalents
The key on your Macintosh keyboard that you can press to select a symbol from the Tool Palette.
• Key Command/Key Command Equivalent
The combination of keys (which always includes the “Command” key) you can type on your Mac keyboard to engage a menu command. The “command key” has two symbols on it: a curley-cornered square, and an Apple.
• Window/Score Window
The area on your screen, defined by a frame, which contains the staff and all notated music in your score. Also, Nightingale’s Tool Palette is a window that is normally positioned next to the Score Window.
• Activity Window
The small rectangular area at the lower left corner of the score window, in which valuable information is displayed about the contents of the score window, the position of the cursor, or about the status of the current activity you are carrying out.
• Dialog, Dialog Box
A box that is displayed on your screen requiring you to select between options.
• Alert
A box that is displayed on your screen providing an explanation only (e.g., “you must select a number between 1 and 100”) to which you respond by clicking on the [OK] button, closing the alert box.
• Radio buttons vs. Check boxes
In most dialogs, you can click the mouse on various buttons and check boxes to choose options. When you select a radio button, it is an “either/or” choice between available options. Pressing one button turns off the other options listed beside it. Check box options can be selected in any combination or grouping offered in the dialog.
• Popup Menu
A hidden list of choices that can be displayed by clicking on the first item in the list, and holding down the mouse button (usually indicated by a triangle pointing down or up at the right of the box).
• Default/Default Setting
The choices made for you by Nightingale’s designers, which are in force if you do nothing to change them. For example, the default tempo for playing back a score is 100, but you can you insert a new tempo marking any time you like. The default page size is 8.5" x 11". The default MIDI recording channel is 1. (You may change most all of these defaults if you wish.)
• Application
A computer program you use to create or edit. Nightingale is the application you use to create and edit musical scores.
• File/Document
A document or file is created and edited using an application. A file created with Nightingale is a musical score. The file is stored on your computer’s hard disk, and can be copied or transferred onto another disk. It can also be printed onto paper as “hard copy.”
• Folder
Folders are used to contain and organize the many files, applications and other items on your computer.
• Dragging
Moving the mouse up/down/sideways on the screen is referred to as dragging. If you click on a specific item on the screen and hold down the mouse button, you can drag the item to a new position.
• Highlight/Select
When you click one time on something or drag across something (with the mouse button pressed), it’s color on the screen is reversed (usually turned white, and surrounded by a small black box) indicating that the item has been selected and is ready to be edited.
• Double-clicking vs. Single clicking
As a general rule when using any Macintosh software, pointing the mouse at an object on the screen and clicking the mouse button a single time will select or highlight that object. Double-clicking on an object will open an item or display its controls/contents. In many cases, double-clicking will launch, open, show the contents of, call up a dialog box for, or let you control the size/position of the object.
• Selection Arrow
In Nightingale the standard, solid black arrow is referred to as the Selection Arrow. It is used to point to and select various items on your screen.
• MouseShaking™
To switch back and forth between the black selection arrow and whatever other symbols you use when creating your score, press the enter key on your Macintosh's number pad or “shake” the mouse from side to side (while it is still on the table surface). This action “toggles” between the selection arrow and the tool you were last using, making it very easy to insert a symbol, then select it for editing.
• Dragging Tool/Dragging Arrow
In Nightingale a hollow, white arrow is used for dragging individual symbols up/down/sideways on the screen. This is referred to as the Dragging Tool.
• The Threader Tool
The Threader is a selection tool unique to Nightingale that works for notes and rests only. Point to any note or rest while the mouse button is pressed, and that symbol will be added to the selection. De-select a note/rest by continuing to press the mouse button, and touching the Threader to the notes/rest to “release” it from the selection.
METHODS OF SELECTION:
Drag Selection
Use the black selection arrow to drag across a staff (with mouse button held down) to select/highlight notes and other symbols. You select symbols on the staff exactly like the cursor in a word processor selects text. Highlight a region of notes in your score by dragging the cursor across them while the mouse button is depressed. When you let off the button, the notes and symbols in the region remain selected/highlighted. Now you can copy, edit and delete the selected symbols. Click the mouse anywhere in the score to remove the highlighting.
Shift-click Selection
You can “shift-click” to select/highlight an entire region of material as you do in most word processing and graphics programs. Simply click the mouse anywhere in your score to place a blinking insertion point, then while holding down the shift key, click somewhere else in the score. All material between the two places where you click will be highlighted. You can even jump to another page in your score using the scroll bars or the Go To command, and while holding down the shift key, click somewhere on the new page. All symbols between the two clicks are selected.
Another Shift-click function lets you point and click directly on several individual symbols, and, as long as the shift key is pressed, you will continually add more and more symbols into what is selected. You can also unclick a symbol, or de-select it by continuing to press the shift key, and clicking on it. This will release the symbol from the selection.
The Threader (see above) can also be used for shift-clicking to select notes/rests only: select a single note/rest at the beginning of a passage, then press the shift key and point to another note/rest. All notes and rests between the two selected symbols will be added to the selection.
Command-click Selection
Command-clicking in Nightingale lets you click on any number of individual, discontinuous symbols in your score, and only those specific symbols are added into the selected group of symbols. Some commands (such as the Cut, Copy, or Clear/Delete commands) require a continuous selection, and are therefore not available for editing discontinuous selections (see the entry titled Techniques for Editing in the on-line User’s Guide for a thorough discussion of continuous/discontinuous selections). To command-click, hold down the key (also called the Apple key) while you point and click on the individual objects or drag-select specific regions you wish to edit.
