[_CD8_]<mockingbird>manual1.bravo!3

13.0 PIANOROLL MODE 19
13.1 Special Looks 19
13.2 Recording 19
13.3 Playing Against Oneself 19
13.4 Beating In Measures 20
13.5 Automatic Syncing 20
13.6 Automatic Durations 20
13.7 Automatic Beaming 20
13.8 Overwriting the Pianoroll 20
13.9 Another Way to Enter Notes 21

Mockingbird is a composer’s amanuensis, a computer program designed to aid the composer with the capture, editing, and printing of musical ideas. The basic goal of Mockingbird is not to replace the composer, but to aid him by speeding up the process of notating music. Mockingbird is not a publisher’s aid, although it does print music; nor is it a performer’s aid, although it can play; it is strictly focused of the needs of a composer.

Mockingbird is an interactive music notation editor. It knows nothing about the rhythmic, harmonic, or melodic aspects of music except inasmuch as they are represented in common music notation. Its knowledge of music notation, however, is quite extensive and sophisticated. Mockingbird is highly interactive, presenting the illusion that the user can reach in and move things around as he desires. This illusion is supported by the fact that the detail of the score is always shown exactly as it might be printed.

Mockingbird runs on an experimental machine called a Dorado, which is a high-speed "personal" computer developed at Xerox PARC. All of the software is written in Mesa, which is an experimental language also developed at PARC. Mockingbird may optionally use a Yamaha CP-30 synthesizer. The user does not have to have the synthesizer to use the editor unless he wishes to record or play back music. Mockingbird alone will allow the user to enter notes and manipulate the score. In fact, we suggest that novice users use Mockingbird by itself before moving on to the synthesizer.

There are a few conventions that are followed in the remainder of the text about how commands and comments are printed. Commands issued by the user are always typed in bold. If only one character of the command is actually typed, it will be underlined. Command parameters are named with italics. The various mouse buttons, CR, shift and control keys are printed in THIS FONT. Irrelevent details are printed in this font. Of course, they are always read.

Mockingbird is the result of the work of John Maxwell and Severo Ornstein at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. They were supported in their work by Will Crowther, Gene McDaniel, Doug Wyatt, Mike Overton, and all of the Computer Science Laboratory. Special thanks should be given to Martin Kay for the term amanuensis.

The Dorado is an Alto-like machine with a keyboard, a display, a cursor, and a mouse. The mouse is a small pointing device with three buttons that allows the user to move the cursor around on the screen. We shall call the buttons on the mouse (from left to right): RED, YELLOW, and BLUE. The buttons are all black, but this is the standard naming convention. For convenience, we shall speak of pressing or clicking the mouse buttons. By this we merely mean pushing a button down and holding it there, or quickly tapping a button. In general, RED is used for selections, YELLOW is used for deselections and deletions, and BLUE is used for movements and insertions.

The keyboard has all of the keys of a standard typewriter keyboard. In addition, it has a CONTROL key just above the SHIFT key which is used in combination with the alphabetic keys, just as the SHIFT key is. The CONTROL key may also be used simultaneously with the SHIFT key. This only happens once in Mockingbird. Thus CONTROL SHIFT b is one character, just like SHIFT b (=B) and CONTROL b (=↑b). We shall never refer to the synthesizer keyboard as "the keyboard", rather we shall always be careful to refer to it as "the synthesizer" or "the synthesizer’s keyboard".

The Yamaha CP-30 synthesizer is a 76-key electronic synthesizer which has been modified to interface with a Dorado. The Dorado rapidly scans the keyboard looking for changes in the positions of the keys corresponding to notes struck by the pianist. It can also simulate the striking of notes, producing sound. The interface is carefully arranges so Mockingbird can both play and listen at the same time. This allows the pianist to add new material by playing along with an existing score.

Mockingbird’s screen is divided into three parts: a command window at the very top, a black bar just under it for the file name, and a window for the score which takes up the bulk of the screen. The command window has a menu of five commands: FileIn, Playback, Quit, Record, and FileOut. The user may invoke any of these commands by moving the cursor over the command until it changes into a bull’s-eye, and then clicking any of the buttons (Different buttons may have different meanings to a command). The command name will immediately invert itself, and remain inverted until execution is completed. All of the commands will run to completion without user control except Playback and Record, which can be terminated the same way they were invoked.

The black bar just under the command window is used to hold the current file name. This name is for communicating with the file system. To change the file name, move the cursor over the section just under "FileIn" until it changes into a bull’s-eye and then click any of the mouse buttons. Any current file name disappears, and Mockingbird waits for the user to type in a new file name. He should type in the name of his choice, using BS (backspace) and DEL (delete) as he desires, terminating with ESC, "." or CR. Mockingbird will automatically append ".music" to the filename.

At the left of the score window is a sensitive area that we call the scroll bar. If the user moves the cursor into this area, he will notice that the cursor changes shape. The scroll bar is used for scrolling and thumbing through the score (discussed later).

The user can obtain icons from a menu by holding CONTROL and BLUE down together. This will cause a special menu to appear under the cursor. To select a particular icon, move the cursor over it until the cursor takes on the shape of the icon, and then release CONTROL and BLUE. The cursor will keep that icon until the user goes to the menu again. To get rid of an icon, go back to the menu and move the cursor so that it is anywhere outside of the menu. (Moving left is easiest.)

When the cursor has an icon in it, Mockingbird is in a special mode that changes the meaning of BLUE. (CONTROL and SHIFT BLUE are not affected). Normally, BLUE is used for moving non-note items around. When the cursor has an icon in it, BLUE will acquire a new meaning that is dependent on the icon. Consequently, it is not possible to move non-note objects as long as the icon remains.

Most of the user actions within Mockingbird have the following paradigm: the user makes a selection and then issues a series of commands that apply to that selection. All of the commands that fit this paradigm are keyboard commands where the user types a single character for the command plus occasional parameters. The characters typed are usually suggestive of the command, i.e. g for grace and b for beam. We will take pains to underline the actual character typed by the user.

It is frequently the case that a SHIFTed command will undo the action performed by the unadulterated command. Thus, SHIFT grace un-graces and SHIFT beam de-beams the selected notes. Exceptions to this rule will be noted as they are encountered.

There are a class of commands called "look" commands which change how the score is viewed. These commands are like the "look" commands in Bravo. They take two characters (look plus some aspect of the view) plus occasional parameters. Typical look commands are look justified n and look hardcopy.

The user can abort a command anytime before he finishes typing it by typing DEL. Once a command has been issued, there is no way to stop it. Nor is there any way to undo commands. If the user makes a mistake he will have to fix it himself or go back to the last version filed out.

The user can move a file to or from the file system by using the "FileIn" and "FileOut" commands at the top of the screen. These two commands take the filename in the black bar as their parameter. The user can change the filename by clicking over with the cursor and typing a new name.

Mockingbird always checks its data structure for consistency before filing out and will abort the command if the data structure is in a funny state. This guarantees the integrity of the files that make it out of Mockingbird. If Mockingbird refuses to file out a particular file, it can sometimes be salvaged by a wizard if the user has not quit from Mockingbird.

Every so often Mockingbird will pause to file out the current file onto the file "backup.music". If the system crashes or the user accidentally mangles his file, he can always start over again with the last backup file that Mockingbird produced.

There is an subtle difference in Mockingbird between the view on a score and the score itself. The score consists of the notes, chords, signatures, etc. which make up the substance of the musical idea. The view is the choice of page on the screen, the scale the music appears at, and other aspects which affect how the user sees the score. Generally, the view is changed through look commands and the score is changed through non-look commands. This section will only cover the more important of the view aspects; other view aspects will be discussed as appropriate.

Mockingbird uses "Bravo" style scrolling and thumbing. To the left of the score is a scroll bar. If the user moves the cursor into the scroll bar without pressing any of the mouse buttons, the cursor will change into a double arrow. Pressing RED causes the cursor to change into an up arrow. Releasing RED while still in the scroll bar causes the nearest line of the score to be scrolled to the top of the page. Unless it is already the top of the page, in which case the next line is scrolled to the top. Releasing RED outside of the scroll bar aborts the command. Similarly, clicking BLUE will scroll the score down. Clicking YELLOW lets the user "thumb" to an arbitrary point in the score, much like a reader may thumb to any page of a book. The location of the cursor in the scroll bar determines where the user will end up in the score. If the user thumbs from two-thirds of the way down the scroll bar, then he will end up two-thirds of the way into the score.

Like Bravo, Mockingbird has a hardcopy mode for viewing the score as it will appear when printed. To enter this mode, type look hardcopy. To return to the standard mode, type look SHIFT hardcopy. Mockingbird also has a very low resolution mode called the overview that allows the user to work on large sections of the score at a time. The user may enter and leave this mode with look overview and look SHIFT overview respectively. The user can also jump from the overview to a particular point in the score by pointing at it and clicking YELLOW.

The user should be warned that any change in scale will change the positions of the line breaks in the score. This means that although a score is properly justified in one scale it probably won’t be justified in another. However, if the user returns to the original scale, the score should still be justified there, unless the score has been modified.

In polyphonic music, a score may have more than one thematic line running through it. A thematic line is a coherent idea, usually carried by a single instrument, which has note durations independent of the other lines. Thus the flute may be playing a whole note while the violins are running through an arpeggio of thirtysecond notes. We call each of these lines a voice. Although most instruments can only handle one voice at a time, the piano can play many voices concurrently. Usually two - one for the left hand and one for the right. The word "voice" is frequently misleading since it usually implies that only one note is played at a time. We explicitly allow a voice to contain chords (or unchorded clusters of notes) as well as single notes.

Mockingbird allows up to 10 voices, numbered from 0 to 9. Every note belongs to exactly one voice, as determined by the user. The user can look at the collection of notes that belong to a particular voice by typing look voice n, where n is the number of the voice the user desires. We say that the user is in the "voice mode", where n is the "selected voice". All subsequent commands will affect only these notes, and any note inserted will be inserted into this voice. The other voices will be drawn in a very light grey for reference. To look at all of the voices, type look SHIFT voice.

There are two important aspects of the spelling of a note: how the note should be spelled, and whether or not that spelling should be shown. Every position on a staff allows for five accidentals: double flat, flat, natural, sharp, and double sharp. The combination of the accidental, the position on the staff, and the current clef uniquely determines a pitch. Frequently, there is no need to explicitly draw the accidental for a note, since it can be derived from the current key. There is also a convention in music that if a note is spelled outside of the key, it temporarily changes the key until the end of the measure. Thus any notes downstream of the first note that have the same pitch and spelling do not need to explicitly draw their accidental. This suppression of accidentals is called carry.

Ninety-nine percent of all music is sufficiently regular that the carry rules are useful, but occasionally the music is so irregular that the carry rules only confuse the reader. In these few cases accidentals only apply to the notes that they are immediately in front of. For this reason, Mockingbird has a special mode that allows the user to enable or disable the carry rules at will. The commands for this are look carry (to enable the rules) and look SHIFT carry (to disable). The default mode is look carry.

The most common paradigm in Mockingbird for issuing commands is that the user first select a collection of notes or a section of the score and then issue a number of commands that apply to those notes or that section. To implement this, we have two different modes of selection: note selection and section selection. These modes are always disjoint - the user may use one or the other but not both. Starting a new type of selection will always clear the current selection. ESC will also clear the current selection, independent of its type.

The user may select a note by clicking RED while the cursor is over it, or by sliding the cursor over it while the RED button is down. Users will find it more efficient to select a number of notes by sliding the cursor over them all rather than clicking RED once for each of them. Up to one hundred notes may be selected at a time. If the user erroneously selects a note, he can deselect it by clicking YELLOW over it or by typing ESC (which will deselect all of the notes).

Once the desired collection of notes has been selected, the user may issue as many commands as he wishes without losing his selection. However, if he selects a new note after issuing a command, the old selection will be cleared unless the user uses SHIFT RED.

The user may select a section of the score by moving the cursor to the left edge of the section desired, pressing the CONTROL key, pressing RED, sliding the cursor to the right, and releasing RED. The area between the start of the selection and the current position of the cursor will flash as long as RED is down. If the cursor is moved to the left of the starting position, no selection is drawn. The user can also select the entire score by typing everything. Once a section of the score has been selected, the user may issue as many commands as desired without losing the current selection.

The user makes a secondary (grey) selection with CONTROL SHIFT RED. (Actually, the user can make a secondary selection by pressing the SHIFT key anytime while CONTROL RED is down. The original primary (black) selection will be restored and a secondary selection started. Releasing the SHIFT key changes the selection back to the primary selection and restores the original secondary selection). Only one primary and one secondary selection is possible at a time. Secondary selection is only used with the replace command (discussed later).

If the user wishes to exend either of the section selections after RED has been released, he may do so by pressing the appropriate CONTROL and SHIFT keys and double clicking RED. In this context, "double clicking" means pressing, then releasing, then pressing the mouse button again within a reasonably short period of time. The mouse button should end up pressed. Mockingbird will pick up the nearest end of the selection and allow the user to extend it in the normal fashion. This feature allows the user to start a selection, scroll up or down a few pages, and finish the selection.

The user can move a note by placing the cursor near it, pressing SHIFT BLUE, and moving the cursor around until the note is captured. Once it has been captured, the user can change its position or pitch by moving it as desired. When the user moves the note vertically, the note’s head will move in jumps from line to space to line, acquiring appropriate pitches and accidentals for each position. There are two modes for moving a note vertically: accidental mode and non-accidental mode. The user can change from one mode to the other by clicking YELLOW while still holding down BLUE. The default mode is non-accidental.

If the user is in the non-accidental mode, then Mockingbird will carefully choose the unique pitch and spelling for a note (given its position) which does not need an explicitly displayed accidental. To do this it will take into account the current key signature and any preceeding notes whose accidentals carry to the note. Thus, the note will move from pitch to pitch within the current key signature unless it is downstream of a note with an explicit accidental, in which case it will assume the spelling of that note.

If the user is in the accidental mode, then Mockingbird will display all five possible accidentals for a note (double flat, flat, natural, sharp, double sharp) for each position that the notehead is in. The user chooses the spelling he wants just by moving the cursor up and down, in the same manner that he moves the notehead. As the user moves the cursor up, he will see the notehead first with a double flat, then a flat, then a natural, then a sharp and then a double sharp. If the user continues to move the cursor up then the notehead will jump to the next position and start over with a double flat, and so on.

To insert a note, the user must obtain a note icon from the menu (CONTROL BLUE) and deposit it where he pleases. The user deposits a note by moving the note icon so that its head is where the new note should be, and then pressing or clicking BLUE. While BLUE is pressed, the user will be able to move the note around just as if he had picked it up (see above). When BLUE is released, the note will be deposited in its position. (Just clicking BLUE will work, too.) Once the user has the note icon in the cursor, he may deposit as many notes as he desires without going back to the menu. As each note is deposited, it is automatically selected so the user may issue commands to change its attributes (see below). The default note has no note value; it is neither a whole nor a half nor a quarter. It will be inserted in voice 0 unless the user has selected a voice, in which case it will be inserted in the selected voice. If exactly one non-rest note was selected before a note is inserted, then the inserted note will take on the selected note’s value. When the user is through, he should go back to the menu and get rid of the icon to avoid subsequent accidental depositions.

The user can change most of the attributes of notes by first selecting the appropriate notes and then issuing the desired command(s). The notes can be selected individually with note selection or collectively with an area selection. Again, only those notes in the current voice will be affected. The commands that follow will have the same meaning in either case.

grace - The selected notes become grace notes (SHIFT grace changes them back).
rest - The selected notes become rest notes (SHIFT rest changes them back).
voice n - The selected notes become part of voice number n.
[ n (bracket n) - The selected notes are moved to the nth staff from the top.
↑ (up arrow) - The selected notes’ stems are all turned up.
← (left arrow) - The selected notes’ stems are all turned down.
1,2,4,8,6,3,7,0 - Sets the duration of the note. If the numbers are shifted, the notes will be dotted.
(1=whole, 2=half, 4=quarter, 8=eighth, 6=16th, 3=32nd, 7=64th, 0=unknown).

We discussed earlier how the user could specify the spelling of a note as he moved the note. For historical reasons there is a second way which may be removed sometime in the future. The second way of changing the spelling is to get an appropriate accidental from the menu (CONTROL BLUE) and to set the note with it. To set the note, the user should move the icon directly over the head of the note in question and click BLUE. If the suggested spelling is illegal for that pitch, Mockingbird will flash the screen. Changing the spelling may cause the note’s head to move and the accidental may or may not be drawn depending on the context. The advantage of this method is that you don’t have to move the note and the pitch is guaranteed to remain the same.

Mockingbird understands three different embellishments: a trill and two different types of mordents. It will correctly display and play all three. To add an embellishment to a note, the user should get the appropriate icon from the menu (CONTROL BLUE) and set the note with it. The latter is done by moving the icon directly over the head of the desired note and clicking BLUE. Currently, the only way to remove an embellishment is to delete the note. Once the user has the icon in the cursor, he may embellish as many notes as he desires without going to the menu again. When he is through, he should remove the icon from the cursor.

The user may insert any of six different types of measure lines into the score: a standard measure line, a special measure line that looks like the standard but has a special meaning for Mockingbird, a double measure line, an end of section mark, and the left and right repeat indicators. The standard measure line is used to mark the boundaries of measures, and as such it is important for justification. All of the other measure lines serve this function, too. In addition, the repeat indicators and the special measure line have their own semantics. The repeat marks indicate sections of the score that should be repeated once. Mockingbird will correctly interpret the repeat marks and obligingly repeat the indicated sections when played. Mockingbird will handle nested repeats, too. The special measure line is used to mark style switches and ends of lines for the justifier (both discussed later). Its icon is the first measure line in the menu, the one directly above the natural sign. When it is inserted in the score, it will extend a little beyond the top and bottom of the staves, although it is always printed as a normal measure line.

To insert any of these, the user should get an appropriate icon from the menu (CONTROL BLUE) and deposit it wherever he desires. The latter is accomplished by pressing or clicking BLUE. As long as BLUE is down, Mockingbird will flash the measure line and allow the user to move it around. When it is released, the measure line will be inserted. Pressing YELLOW before releasing BLUE will abort the insertion.

To move a measure line, move the cursor near it and press BLUE. Move the cursor around until the line is captured, and then to the desired location. Release BLUE. To delete a measure line, move the cursor near it and press YELLOW. Move the cursor around until the line begins to flash. Release YELLOW, and it will be deleted. To abort a delete, move the cursor away until nothing is flashing. These commands can also be used to move and delete key signatures, time signatures, metrenomes, clef switches, and octava switches (discussed later).

The following commands apply to a group of notes and say something about how those notes are related. Thus the user may select a group of notes and say that they should form a chord, or a beam. These commands are unusual in that they have a different meaning if a section is selected instead of notes. For instance, if a section of the score is selected and chord is typed, then Mockingbird will make its best guess about how the notes in that section should be chorded. This will all be discussed in the appropriate sections.

Mockingbird’s notion of voice is not very important-- it is merely an attribute of a note that the user can use for his and the program’s convenience. What is important is the notion that there are collections of notes which all have the same metrical time (which all appear on the score "on top of" one another). We call such a collection of notes a sync, since it frequently syncronizes the voices. Mockingbird has an explicit data structure for syncs that it uses to distinguish between notes that are metrically equivalent and notes that are merely "very close". This data structure is fundamental to Mockingbird’s understanding of the score, and is used everywhere in the program.

Although syncs are critical to Mockingbird’s understanding of the score, the user rarely has to be conscious of what is synced and what is not. Most of the time Mockingbird makes very reasonable assumptions that match the user’s intuition. However, if the user wants to see how things are synced together, he only needs to type look sync and Mockingbird will draw vertical lines through those notes that it believes are synced. This isn’t foolproof, since the line drawn may pass through a note which is not part of the sync. The user should also check that the left edges of the notes are aligned. If the user wishes to sync notes explicitly, he should select the desired notes and type sync. This will create a new sync which consists of only those notes. If the user types SHIFT sync, a new sync structure will be created for each note, completely separating them. Chords are always treated as a single note: all of the notes in a chord will appear in the same sync. look SHIFT sync returns the user to the mode where sync lines are not drawn.

Actually, I overstated my case when I said that the notion of voice is not very important to Mockingbird. The truth is that both voices and syncs are very important to understanding the interactions between thematic ideas in polyphonic music. However, if the information given by the them ever conflicts, Mockingbird always believes the syncs rather than the voices. Futhermore, we have found that Mockingbird’s algorithms are often faster and simpler if they work with the syncs rather than the voices.

The user can chord a collection of notes by selecting the desired notes and typing chord. This will create a new chord consisting of only those notes. The notes of a chord do not have to all be in the same voice, nor do they have to all be on the same staff, nor do they have to all have the same duration. The user can make a chord with whole notes as well. Typing SHIFT chord will de-chord all of the currently selected notes.

If the user makes an section selection before typing chord, then Mockingbird will chord the notes in the selected area as it sees fit. The algorithm it uses is to chord thoses notes within each voice that are all part of the same sync. If the user types SHIFT chord when a section has been selected, all of the notes in the area will be de-chorded, just as above.

When the user chords some notes, Mockingbird will default the chord stem’s direction based on the positions of the notes relative to the center of the most common staff. If the user wants to change the stem’s direction, he should select a note within the chord and type ↑ or ←, exactly as he would change a note stem’s direction.

Pairs of notes or entire chords can be tied together with a single command by selecting the desired notes and typing tie. If the current selection cannot be segmented into pairs of notes with the same pitch, Mockingbird will abort the command and flash the screen. If exactly two notes are selected, Mockingbird will tie them together even if they are not the same pitch. Both notes will still be played, however. This feature can be used to represent slurs. Typing SHIFT tie will untie the notes, as might be expected.

To move a tie, press BLUE with the cursor near the center of the tie. Move the cursor around until it "captures" the tie, and then to the desired location. Release BLUE. If there are several ties close together, you may have to come at the tie from the top or bottom, or first move the other ties out of the way.

The user can beam a collection of chords together by selecting notes from the desired chords and typing beam. Think of individual notes as chords of one note. This will create a new beam which consists of only those chords. Mockingbird will ignore any chords with durations of a quarter or greater. It is perfectly legal to beam chords of mixed durations, and Mockingbird will automatically determine the number and grouping of the beams. Up to sixteen chords may participate in a single beam. Typing SHIFT beam will de-beam the selected chords.

The user can manually change the position and tilt of a beam with the BLUE mouse button. To change the tilt of a beam, move the cursor near the right end of the beam and press BLUE. Move the cursor around until it captures the beam, and then up or down to the desired tilt. Release BLUE. Similarly, the position of the beam can be changed by picking up the left end of the beam. The beam can also be moved by changing the stem direction of its notes. Whenever ↑ or ← is typed, the beam will be moved to at least three lines away from the nearest selected note.

An existing beam can be turned into an n-tuplet by selecting notes from the beam and typing n-tuplet nCR mCR. The parameters n and m form a ratio n:m which determines how fast the notes are played relative to the standard meter. Usually, n is the number of chords in the beam and m is the number of beats that those chords fill, but Mockingbird does not require this to be true. Thus a triplet may be represented as a 3:2 n-tuplet or a 6:4 n-tuplet, as the user desires. This flexibility is important when the durations of the chords of a beam differ.

If all of the selected chords do not belong to the same beam, then typing n-tuplet nCR mCR will create a new n-tuplet consisting of only those chords. This n-tuplet will be drawn with a bracket over it rather than a beam. However, SHIFT beam can still be used to "de-beam" such an n-tuplet. A bracket can be moved or tilted with the same commands as a beam is moved or tilted.

Frequently, the user will want Mockingbird to think of a collection of chords as an n-tuplet, but not display it as such. This happens when the n-tuple pattern is obvious from the context and drawing the numbers will only distract the musician. The user can accomplish this by selecting notes from the desired n-tuplets and typing SHIFT n-tuplet. The n-tuplet part will still be drawn (in light grey), but it won’t be printed. Please note that this violates our convention of using SHIFT to negate a command. However, we felt that since the user can already use SHIFT bean to "de-beam" an n-tuplet, it would be safe to use SHIFT n for making n-tuplets invisible.

If the user wants to beam beams (or n-tuplets) together, he can do so by typing CONTROL beam. This might be used when the user wants eight sixteenth notes to appear as two beams of four sixteenth notes, or a 12:8 n-tuplet to appear as four 3:2 n-tuplets. This command is not restricted to beams alone, but may be used with mixtures of chords and beams. It can also be used to get around the sixteen note restriction given above. Beams formed with this command are exactly like regular beams and can be de-beamed, n-tupleted, moved, and tilted in exactly the same way. CONTROL n works analogously with bracketed n-tuplets, and the resulting n-tuplets are also exactly like normal n-tuplets.

If the user makes a section selection and types beam, then Mockingbird will make its best guess about how the notes in that area should be beamed together. The algorithm it uses depends on the time signature and voicing of the score in that area, so be sure that those are correct. Mockingbird will not touch existing beams, so the user must explicitly de-beam those notes he wants Mockingbird to default.

If the user makes a section selection and types n-tuplet nCR mCR, Mockingbird will make all of the beams in the selected area beamed n-tuplets. All of the other beam commands (SHIFT beam and SHIFT n-tuplet) have exactly the same semantics with sections as with notes, except for the CONTROL commands which are undefined.