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1990-10-16
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Lyra Demo Documentation (version 1.40)
Thanks for obtaining the demo version of Lyra for the IBM PC!
Lyra is a music composition program that is designed to be
affordable, easy to use, and powerful. In addition, large ready-
to-use libraries of music files are available from several
sources.
Lyra will work with any IBM PC (AT recommended!) compatible that
has a Hercules or CGA (or EGA, VGA) display. A Microsoft mouse,
while not necessary, is highly recommended. If you wish to play
music, you must have an MPU-401 and a MIDI synthesizer connected,
or a Sound Blaster card. This version also supports the Covox
line of sound boards, including the Speech Thing, Voice Master,
and Sound Master.
If you are using a Sound Blaster card, just make sure that the
'LCONFIG.DAT' file is in the current directory; this configures
Lyra so music can be played on the Sound Blaster.
If instead you are using a MPU-401 compatible MIDI interface,
erase the 'LCONFIG.DAT' file. Lyra defaults to the MPU-401 when
the 'LCONFIG.DAT' file is not present.
All of the files on the disk can be copied to a hard disk; just
make sure that everything is in the same directory. (Note: the
commercial version is not copy protected.)
Load the program by typing
lyrademo
and pressing the return key. The screen will change to a 640x200
2 color graphics mode and a box in the center of the screen will
give you a brief introduction. Press any key to continue.
Move your mouse about and you will see a cursor shaped like an
arrow or diamond moving around the screen. Using Lyra is
basically knowing what you can do with the arrow.
ENTERING NOTES
The cursor keys at the right hand side of the keyboard can be
used to move the note on the screen, or you can use the mouse, or
a combination of the two. By moving the note up or down on the
musical staff, you select a pitch. This pitch is displayed just
below the bass clef. When you have the right pitch, press the
left mouse button or "return" (or "enter") key. The note will be
entered into the score.
CHANGING NOTE PITCHES
Once you have entered several notes, you can experiment with
changing notes to different pitches. This is done by simply
positioning the cursor (the movable note) directly above or below
the note you wish to change and pressing the left mouse button
or "return" key.
ENTERING SHARPS AND FLATS
A note that should have a sharp or flat in front of it can by
entered by positioning the cursor and pressing the "S" or "F"
key. A natural (used only when the key signature is being used)
is entered with the "N" key.
INSERTING NOTES
You can just as easily insert notes. Position the cursor just
before a note and press the "return" key or click the left mouse
button.
DELETING NOTES
Deleting a note is done by putting the cursor directly above or
below the errant note and pressing the "Del" key (on the right
hand side of the keyboard) or the "D" key. The right mouse button
or ESC key also deletes a note.
CHANGING VOICES
Lyra is capable of 8 simultaneous notes (or 8 note chords). When
you start the program, all notes are automatically entered into
voice 1. You can change this to one of the 7 other voices by
pressing the ALT key (left hand side of the keyboard) with a
number key. ALT+2 selects voice 2, ALT+8 selects voice 8, and so
on. You can also select a voice by moving the cursor to the upper
right hand corner of the screen with the mouse. When it is over
the box with the voice number you wish to select, click the left
mouse button. The voice you want to use must have its box
displayed as a solid white (or whatever is the same color as the
box border). Only one voice can be selected at a time.
You'll notice that repeatedly selecting the same voice will cause
the box to change from white to gray to black (or the background
color). When it is black, that voice will not be displayed on the
music staff. When the voice box is gray then the corresponding
voice is displayed in "halftone". This makes it easy to pick out
a voice when the display gets crowded.
MAKING CHORDS
Lyra "thinks" in terms of eight independent voices instead of
multi-note chords. Writing for Lyra is similar to writing music
for a choir. At first this might seem to be a limitation when
writing music for an instrument like a piano. The piano does not
care how many notes you play at once. On the other hand, a singer
protests violently if told to sing a three note chord.
Each voice in Lyra can have only one note at a time. To make
chords, you have to put notes in several voices. To do this,
enter the top note in voice 1. Select voice 2 and enter the next
note down. Continue with as many voices as you need to fill the
chord.
If a particular voice has not been filled with rests or notes
before the chord, Lyra will fill it with rests so that the new
note will be positioned correctly.
SELECTING NOTE LENGTHS
Note lengths are selected by pressing one of the number keys (1
through 7) or moving the mouse to the row of notes and rests at
the bottom of the screen and clicking on the desired note or
rest. You can select a rest by pressing the SHIFT key with the
number key. When you do, the selected rest will change colors.
You can also select a note or rest with the mouse; move the
cursor over the desired item and press the left button. The
selected note or rest will be highlighted.
TRIPLETS, DOTTING AND TIEING NOTES
All notes can be modified by making them triplet, dotted, or tied
to the previous notes. Just position the cursor directly over the
note you wish to change and press the "," (triplet), "." (dot),
or "T" (tie) key. Please note that the tie is NOT the same thing
as a slur!
MOVING THE DISPLAY
The cursor can be quickly moved up or down an octave with the "Pg
Up" or "Pg Dn" keys. The "Home" and "End" keys move the cursor to
the left or right ends of the score. When the cursor it at either
side of the score, it changes shape into an arrow pointing to the
side. If you press the left mouse button or the left or right
cursor keys, the whole display will move in that direction. You
can move to an approximate point in the score by moving the
cursor over the area directly above the notes and rests at the
bottom of the screen. Click in the box and the bar positioned at
the extreme left will move to where you clicked, and the display
will change. If you click in the middle of the box, the display
will start at about the middle of the score. If you click at the
point one-third from the left side of the box, the score will
display at about one-third from the beginning. And so on. You can
also use the "Goto bar" command under the Edit menu.
A NOTE ON DIALOG BOXES
Many of the commands accessed through the menus request
information from you through a box displayed on the center of the
screen. If there is more than one line to enter, you can move
about using the up and down arrow keys to move from line to line.
You can use the right and left arrow and HOME and END keys to
move from one letter to another. The INS and DEL keys can be used
to insert spaces or delete letters from a line.
When you are finished entering everything, press the ENTER key.
If you want to abort, press the ESC key.
Pressing the left button of the mouse is the same as the ENTER
key and the right button as the ESC key.
Some dialog boxes display a list of items with a large inverted
color selector cursor. Just move the cursor about with arrow keys
or mouse until the item you want is selected, and press ENTER (or
the left mouse button).
USING THE MENUS
At the top of the screen is a list of the various menus that have
different commands. You can access a menu by pressing the "Alt"
key plus the first letter of the menu. For example, to access the
"File" menu, press ALT+F. Or move move the cursor to the top of
the screen directly under the menu you wish to access.
Select a command by moving the highlight down either with the
arrow key or mouse and pressing "return" or the left mouse
button. Pressing the key corresponding to the first letter of the
menu item will immediately execute the command. You can move to a
different menu by pressing the right or left arrow keys or moving
the mouse in the desired direction. You can abort by pressing the
"Esc" key, or moving the highlight bar to beyond the bottom of
the menu.
When an item is displayed in half-tone, it is not available. This
is due to the fact that you must perform some other command first
(as with the block commands).
Most of the menu commands are fairly self-explanatory. Of those
that may cause you trouble, here's a brief explanation.
THE CONFIGURE COMMAND
The configure command is accessed through the EDIT menu. While
there are a number of parameters that can be modified with this
command, the only one we are interested is the "MIDI Device",
"Address", and "Interrupt". If you are using Lyra with an MPU-401
compatible MIDI interface, then you should set "MIDI Device" to
"MPU-401". If you are using a Sound Blaster card then set it to
"SBLASTER-S"; if you have the MIDI connection box for the Sound
Blaster, you can have MIDI by setting it to "SBLASTER-M". The
Covox Speech Thing has a device name of "SPTHING", the Sound
Master "SMASTER", the Voice Master "VMASTER", and MIDI Maestro
"MMAESTRO". You can type in either upper or lower case.
The "Address" and "Interrupt" lines should be set to the correct
numbers, depending on how your particular card is configured. The
numbers should be entered in decimal or hex. If you use hex, then
make sure that the last number is followed by an "H". The
interrupt number is important only for step time or system
exclusive MIDI recording.
THE OPTION COMMANDS
The purpose of these commands is to let you enter musical or MIDI
information that is not a note. Select the desired option; the
cursor changes to a box. Move the box to where you wish to put
the option and press the "return" key or the left mouse button.
The instrument option transmits MIDI program changes. You can set
up the names of the instruments and their associated program
numbers in the Instrument command under the MIDI menu.
"Tempo" is used to enter a "local" tempo change. The actual tempo
is a combination of the Master Tempo (which is set under the Play
menu) and the local tempo. When the Master Tempo is set to 1.00,
then the local tempo is the beats per minute (not exact in this
version). Setting the Master Tempo to 2.00 will double the
overall tempo, and setting it to 0.50 will halve it.
"Byte" instructs Lyra to send the specified hex byte (you must
enter two hex digits) unaltered to your synthesizer. By stringing
several together you can send almost any type of MIDI
information.
"Octave" is used to either raise or lower the pitch of a voice by
one octave. If the marker is placed above the staff, then it
raises the pitch; if placed below the staff, it lowers the pitch.
"Loco" cancels the effect of a previous Octave command.
"Volume" lets you change the volume of music. You can customize
the exact MIDI volume by using the Set Volumes command under the
MIDI menu.
"Events" is used to send larger amounts of MIDI data than can be
conveniently sent with the MIDI byte option. In fact, you can
send a whole file of MIDI data such as a system exclusive dump.
The actual data in the event is set up through the MIDI menu.
THE BLOCK COMMANDS
These commands let you work with blocks of music. You first must
mark a block by positioning the cursor over the starting and
ending points and pressing the "M" key each time. The music
within a block is displayed in inverted colors. A block may be
cleared by selecting the Reset command under the Block menu.
Always make sure that the start of a block is at a point in music
in which all voices have a note starting at that point. Lyra will
warn you if this is not the case.
If you select the Copy command, the music in the block will be
copied to a special area of memory and held until you make use of
it with the Paste command.
The Cut command copies the block of music to the holding area in
memory and also deletes that music from the score.
The Paste command takes the music in the holding area of memory
and puts it back into the score at a spot you designate. When you
select the command, the cursor changes shape. Move it to where
you want the pasting to occur and press the "return" key or the
left mouse button.
The Transpose command lets you transpose a block by a given
number of steps (use negative numbers to lower pitches). You can
specify either a "harmonic" transposition which will move the
notes to a new key, or "modal" which keeps the notes in the
current key signature.
The block commands work only with music that is currently
displayed. You can selectively work with different voices by
turning off the undesired voices first.
Take care with these commands. They all assume that when you
paste, all music at the paste point aligns at that point. If one
or more voices are empty or are in the middle of a long note,
then the new music for that voice will be out of alignment with
the other voices.
PLAYING MUSIC
In order to play music, you must have an MPU-401 (or compatible)
properly connected, and a MIDI synthesizer hooked up to the MPU-
401. Or, if you have corrected set up the Configure command (see
above), you can used a Sound Blaster card. If you have everything
connected up correctly, then you might check the channel
assignments under the MIDI menu to make sure your synthesizer is
"listening" on the right channels.
With a Sound Blaster or MIDI synthesizer, you can set different
voices to different channels and make each channel play a
different sound. This makes it possible to make music that sounds
like a small band playing!
The Filter command under the Play menu is used to filter out
certain types of data. Putting any letter on a line will make
Lyra ignore that type of MIDI data. For example, putting a letter
on the "Byte" line will make Lyra ignore all byte option markers.
If you want to filter the channel, you should enter a number 1-16
on that line to indicate which channel you want all notes to be
transmitted on. This command is very useful for playing music
that has not been correctly set up for your synthesizer.
The Play command will play only the music that is displayed on
the screen. If you wish to mute a voice, turn its display off.
PRINTING MUSIC
Lyra will print your music; the result is very similar to the
screen display. If you want to produce a professional score
printing, you should convert the music to a MIDI file and read it
into one of the available printing programs.
Before you start printing, you must make some changes in the
Configure command (in the Edit menu). The last two lines are to
describe your printer. The first, "Printer Number", is the ID
number of your printer. 25 is for Epson compatibles, 39 for HP
LaserJet series II, 44 for IBM PC Graphics Printer, and 45 for
IBM Proprinter. The last line, "Printer Port", should be set to
"LPT1", "COM1", or whatever printer port your printer is
connected to.
Load in the music file you wish to print. Position the music so
that the first notes you want printed are at the beginning of the
staff. If you wish to print only certain voices, turn off the
undesired voices. All voices that are in solid white or gray will
print.
Now you are ready to print. Select the Print command from the
File menu. The display will change so that only the music staff
is shown and printing will begin. If you press the Escape (ESC)
key, Lyra will stop printing after the current staff is finished.
MIDI NOTE INPUT
If you have a MIDI keyboard hooked up, then you can input notes
directly into PC-Lyra from the MIDI keyboard. Select the NOTE
INPUT command (under the MIDI menu). The cursor will change to a
'+' in the middle of the staff. Whenever you hit a key on the
MIDI keyboard, a note will appear on the staff. The pitch is
controlled by the MIDI keyboard, and the length by the selected
note or rest at the bottom of the display. You can change the
note length by pressing keys '1' through '7' (or SHIFT plus the
number to make a rest). Having one hand on the MIDI keyboard and
another on the computer keyboard lets you input music very
quickly and accurately. When you are done, press the ESCAPE key.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE PROGRAM?
Obviously, there is a lot more that Lyra can do than we've
covered here. Feel free to experiment! The only commands that
have been disabled are those that display the message "Not
Available: Demo Version". These are the disk save commands. If
you have questions about what certain functions can do, feel free
to write or call for more information.
ABOUT THE COMMERCIAL VERSION
Version 1.00 was released January, 1990. As of this writing
(October 16, 1990), the version is 1.40. As you can see, the
program is in a constant state of evolution and improvement.
Purchasing a copy puts you in touch with the latest changes and
makes you elegible for inexpensive updates. The price is $49.95,
(plus $2.00 shipping) which includes a printed 50+ page manual
and a disk full of music. As with all MusicWare products, your
purchase includes a 30 day money back guarantee of satisfaction,
free bug fixes, and free telephone help (when purchase directly
from MusicWare). Payment may be made with a personal check, Visa,
MasterCard, or money order. The phone number is (503) 738-0119;
ask for Lester Hands.
MusicWare
Hamlet Route Box 1261
Seaside, OR 97138
Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Lyra is a trademark of MusicWare.
Copyright (C) 1989 by Lester Hands. You are permitted to
distribute copies of the demo program disk for non-commercial
purposes, provided that no changes are made in any of the files.