Staff view

Open the Staff view by any of these methods:

Use the Views > Staff View command.

Select Staff from the Clips pane right-click pop-up menu.

Press ALT+6.

The Staff view displays MIDI note events as musical notation. For some musicians, this may be the most familiar and comfortable view in which to work. The Staff view provides many features that make it possible for you to compose, edit, and print music.

The Staff view menu and toolbar buttons contain all the commands and options you need to enter and edit notes, and control the display of your notation.

The Staff view is composed of a Staff pane and a Fretboard. When you first open the Staff view, you may see only the Staff pane and not the Fretboard. Resize the Staff view by dragging its edges until you can see everything easily. When you save your file, whatever size the Staff view is will be the way it appears the next time you open the file.

The Staff pane displays MIDI note events as musical notation. For some musicians, this may be the most familiar and comfortable view in which to work. The Staff pane provides many features that make it easy for you to compose, edit, and print music. You can choose from a wide variety of clefs to display your music (see To change the Staff pane layout).

For guitar players who are new to musical notation, the Fretboard represents the notes in the Staff pane as they would appear on a guitar or bass fretboard. All notes that appear in the Staff pane at the Now Time are shown in the Fretboard. Page through your track by pressing CTRL+RIGHT ARROW and watch the note names in the Fretboard appear. If you enter notes in the staff at the Now Time, they appear on the fretboard. Likewise, you can enter notes into the staff at the Now Time by clicking the guitar strings on the fretboard. Notes and chords shown in the fretboard can be easily edited by dragging them up and down the guitar strings.

Staff view menu

Print menu

Print. Open the Print dialog box, which let’s you print notation.

Print Preview. Open the SONAR Print window, where you can view your document before you print it.

Export to ASCII Tab. Open the Save As dialog, where you can set the name and location for an ASCII text file of a track’s tablature.

Export to MusicXML. Open the Save As dialog, where you can export the displayed notation as MusicXML. For details, see Export to MusicXML.

Edit menu

The Edit menu contains the following commands:

Layout. Open the Staff View Layout dialog box.

Quick TAB. Create tablature based on standard fingering patterns. After you try the quick version, you can customize the tablature to your liking.

Regenerate TAB. Generate a new TAB staff in the Staff pane.

Play Previous. Play the previous note from the Now time.

Play Next. Play the next note from the Now time.

View menu

The View menu contains the following commands:

Show/Hide Track Pane. Show or hide the Track pane.

Show/Hide Fret View. Show or hide the guitar fretboard display.

Display Resolution. Use the submenu to specify the smallest note duration that will display in the Staff view.

Fill Durations. Visually round up notes to the next note or beat, whichever comes first—useful for displaying recorded MIDI notes, but not for entering notes with the Draw tool

Trim Durations. Visually round down note durations if they extend a little past the start of the next note—useful for displaying recorded MIDI notes, but not for entering notes with the Draw tool.

Tracks Menu

The Tracks menu contains the following commands:

Pick Tracks. Open the Pick Tracks dialog box, which lets you choose the tracks to display.

Show Next Track(s). Display the next track or group of tracks.

Show Previous Track(s). Display the previous track or group of tracks.

Toolbar

The Staff view toolbar contains the following buttons:

Zoom in/out. Zoom in/out horizontally and vertically.

Lyrics. Use the Draw tool to insert Lyric events.

Chords. Use the Draw tool to insert Chord events. After you enter a chord, right-click it to edit it.

Expression. Use the Draw tool to insert Expression events. Click below a staff to create a text box, type some dynamics, and press ENTER.

Hairpin. Use the Draw tool to insert Hairpin events (crescendo or decrescendo markings).

Pedal. Use the Draw tool to insert Pedal events. Click below a staff to enter a pedal down marker and a pedal up marker. You can drag both markers to reposition them.

Cursor position. This field shows the cursor’s current position in both project time and pitch level. The pitch level is listed in both letter and number formats.

 

For more information, see:

The Staff view

Basic musical editing

Chords and marks

Staff pane layout

Inserting notes on the staff

To audition with the Scrub tool

Moving, copying, and deleting notes on the staff

Using enharmonic spellings

Adding expression marks

Adding hairpin symbols

The Fretboard

Tablature

Working with lyrics

Beaming of rests

Setting up a percussion staff or line