Watch also the following video:
What is a selection? [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
In this lesson, we will learn how to select
measures in order to move them or duplicate them. These
concepts will help you to save a lot of time.
In this context, a selection designates one or more measures highlighted in order to execute an operation on
them. The selection operation is used to select the measures
you want to work on.
- Start Pizzicato with a new document
and fill in the first measure to obtain:

- Open the Main Palette and
click on the
tool. This
tool is the selection tool. Click on the first
measure. Its contrast is reversed, i.e. the black
becomes white and vice versa:

- This measure is now selected. If you
click on the second measure, the preceding selection
disappears, and the second measure is now selected:

Copy and paste [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
We will copy the contents of the first
measure and place it in the second measure.
- Select the first measure again. In the
Edit menu, click the Copy item.
Apparently nothing occurred. Pizzicato however has
copied the contents of the selected measure (measure
1) in a temporary memory. This operation is called copy.
- Select the second measure, by clicking
on it. Select the Paste item in the Edit
menu. The two measures become:

The contents of the temporary memory was
placed in the selected measure. The transfer was thus
executed in 2 parts :
- Contents of the selected measure =
> temporary memory
- Temporary memory = > in another
selected measure
This double operation is called copy
and paste. It will be used very
often, because it is quite common to find measures repeated
several times in the same music work. Think for example of a
battery rhythmic or a theme appearing several times.
- When a measure is selected, it is
possible to erase its contents very quickly. Select
measure 2 and click the Delete item in the Edit
menu. The measures becomes:

You may also use the delete key:
.
Use the ESC key now. The arrow tool is now active and the
selection tool is disabled.
We will learn an even easier way to copy
and paste this measure.
- Type the lower case letter
"s" on the keyboard. The selection tool is
now active again, because this letter is its
shortcut. Click on the first measure. It is selected.
You will now click this measure again without
releasing the button and drag it to the right, in such a way that the
cursor comes inside the next measure. A rectangle
follows your movement:

When you release the mouse, the score
becomes:

This operation is a form of shortcut to
avoid using the Edit menu. It is recommended when
the measures to be copied and pasted are both visible on the
screen. If you want to copy a measure from the beginning to a
measure at the end of the score and when it is not possible
to see them at the same time on the screen, you will need to
copy/paste with the menu.
Imagine you want to have the same measure
repeated throughout a piece of 100 measures. You could of
course write the measure once and then copy/paste it 99
times. Let us see how to do a multiple paste. Select measure
one in the first staff. By holding the Control key, click and drag this measure on measure 3 in
the first staff and release when the mouse cursor is inside
this measure:

When you release, the following dialog box
appears:

Replace the "1" by "6"
and click OK. The measure is copied six times at
once and the score becomes:

Selecting several measures [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
It is possible to work with more than one measure and one
staff at the same time. Let us see how.
- In the Edit menu, click the Select all item.
You obtain:

- To erase the contents of all measures, use the erase key
now. The measures are redrawn empty. The Select all
item lets you select all measures and staves in the
score, even if they are not all visible on the screen.
- Select all measures again. When you want to cancel the
contrast on the selected measures, you may either select
another tool or click between 2 staves. The selection is
cancelled. Fill in the score to have:

- We will duplicate the contents of these measures and will
copy it starting from measure 5. Select the first measure
of staff one, by typing the "s" shortcut and by
clicking on this measure. To extend the selection to
several measures and staves, you must hold down the SHIFT key and to click on the other corner of the
measures block you want to select. By holding down this
key, click on the third measure of the second staff. Your
selection becomes:

- Click on the first measure of the first
staff and drag it on measure 5 (second system) and
release when the mouse cursor is inside it:

- To drag a block of several measures and
staves, you need to click and drag the upper left measure
of the selected block. The score becomes:

The whole block was copied to the new location.
Notice that the possible contents of the destination measures is
automatically erased.
- To select all measures of one staff, click
in front of the staff, left to the first measure. Click
in front of staff 2 and you get:

- Even the measures not displayed on the
screen (when there are several pages for example) are
selected. By clicking in front of another staff while
holding down the SHIFT key, you can extend the selection.
By holding down this key, click in front of staff 1.
Staves 1 and 2 are now selected. In a similar way, you
can select one or more measures on all staves. Click
above measure 2 and you get:

- By holding down the SHIFT key, click above
measure 3. The selection becomes:

For Pizzicato Pro and Composition,
when you select a block of measures and staves, it is possible to
drag it into the main or director views. When you release the
mouse, a new score appears in the main view. It contains only the
selected measures and staves.
Exercise
Starting from a new document, realize the
following score by fully using the copy/paste function.

Partial selection of measures [Light] [Beginner] [Professional] [Notation] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] [Drums and Percussion] [Guitar] [Choir] [Keyboard] [Soloist]
Starting with Pizzicato 3.5.4, it is possible to select parts
of measures and to copy and paste them.
The selection mode of entire measures (as described above)
works when the selection tool is activated. In that case, to be
able to make partial selection of measures, you need to hold down
the CTRL key (Control) when you do the selection.
It is possible to do the contrary, so that the partial
selection mode is the default mode. In that case, the selection
of entire measures can be achieved by using the CTRL key when
making the selection.
You can choose which default mode you want by double clicking
the selection tool on the palette, and a dialog box gives you the
choice of the default mode (the other mode is then achieved by
holding down the CTRL key). Select the mode you prefer to use.
The partial selection mode is used to select one or more notes
or rests, whether in sequence or not, on the same staff or not.
For the following example, we keep the default choice, i.e. using
the CTRL key for partial selection. If you choose the other mode,
then simply skip using the CTRL key.
- Enter the following notes in a new document:

- Select the selection tool on the palette. While holding
down the CTRL key, click inside the staff, between
the C and D notes, then drag to the right so as to cover
also the F half note and release the mouse. The partial
selection is displayed as you move the mouse:

- Use the Edit menu, Copy item or its
shortcut. Then, while holding down the CTRL key, click at
the beginning of the following measure. A small red line
appears to show the insertion point. Now use four times
the Edit, Paste menu item. You get the
following:

- The selection has been copied four times, while being
shifted in the measures. In particular, notice how the
half note has been split into two quarter notes, as it
was crossing a bar line.
- You can select non consecutive parts of measures. To do
that, do a first selection and then do it again while
also holding down the SHIFT key, which lets you add
another part to the first selection. You can for instance
select the three following parts:

- If you copy and paste this selection, Pizzicato will
assemble these various parts and paste them into the
destination measure.
- When you display the reference marks (shortcut
":"), a small number is displayed next to each
selection rectangle, which reminds you of the order in
which the selections were done.
- By this method, you need to start a selection by clicking
inside a measure (between the border lines of the staff).
Before you release the mouse, you can also go down one or
more staves to select more than one staff, for instance
like this:

- Another method may be used, to select one or more free
rectangles. This lets you select for instance only a part
of a rhythmic voice, while leaving the others untouched.
The first click you do to start such a selection must be
outside of a staff. Click for instance to select the
following rectangle:

- You may also extend the boundaries of an existing
rectangle by clicking and dragging one of its borders.
For selections done inside a measure, only the left and
right borders may be moved that way. By moving the mouse
over these borders, the mouse cursor changes to show you
that you can move these borders.
- When a selection is present, the main functions of the Edit
menu may be applied to the selected notes. This can help
you delete, copy/paste, transpose,... notes in the score.
- If you enable a specific rhythmic voice through the
"1-8" menu in the tool bar of the score window,
the partial selection of notes will only affect that
voice. In other words, if you have a staff with two
independent voices, you can make a partial selection,
enable voice 1 and then delete that voice while leaving
voice 2 untouched.
- You can use this type of selection to Drag and Drop
it to another destination in the score. Simply click
inside one of the selection rectangles (without the CTRL
key) and move it to another place. A temporary mobile
window will show you the exact destination position in
the measure as the measure number, the beat and the units
(480 units = 1 quarter note). By default, the precision
is the beat (quarter note in 4/4), but when also holding
down the SHIFT key while dragging, you can have a
precision of a fourth of the beat (16th note in 4/4) to
move the selection.
- This partial selection mode helps you to rebeam the
music. Copy for instance a set of measures written in 4/4
to measures written in 3/4 (or any other combination) and
the conversion will be done automatically.