Ars Nova Songworks 2

If you are interested in a flexible notation package without investing too much, Ars Nova Songworks 2 is an excellent choice. With the ability to compose lead sheets to full orchestra scores, Ars Nova Songworks 2 can cover you notation needs. Also included are several ways to review your piece interactively. Features Suggest chords to go with your melodies, or melody ideas for your chords Invent melody ideas with chord accompaniment Chords played by user are analyzed on-screen Active Listening feature allows you to "tap" one part while the others play Take a Picture feature easily exports high-resolution music images Imports MIDI files

Ars Nova Songworks 2 is the perfect tool for writing music. From simple leadsheets, to vocal and instrumental ensemble music, to choral music, to a piano score, to an orchestral score, Ars Nova Songworks 2 allows you to do it all. Compose your music with or without a MIDI keyboard, using any number of staves with up to 8 voices per staff. Best of all, Ars Nova Songworks 2 is intelligent enough to assist you in the composition process by offering melody and harmony suggestions. Never again will you have to wonder which chords are appropriate for your music masterpiece!

It's Polyphonic

For about half the price of other polyphonic (multi-voice) music composition programs, Ars Nova Songworks 2 boasts an impressive array of features. For example, you can:

• Choose from a palette of music symbols (to 64th notes/rests and double-dotted notes).
• Watch your notated music scroll by while listening via MIDI or your computer speakers.
• Listen to any individual part or combination of parts in a polyphonic composition.
• Transpose parts (for instruments that don't sound at the written pitch).
• Drag note stems and easily adjust beam angles.
• Drag bar lines to control the width of individual measures.
• Extract orchestra or vocal parts from a score.
• Form chords comprised of notes having different rhythmic values.
• Notate music that you play on a MIDI keyboard -- both hands simultaneously if you'd like!
• ...and much more.

OSX compatibility

In addition to running Ars Nova Songworks 2 native in OSX you can now use the MIDI features built into OSX. No more need for OMS (which of course doesn't work in OSX anyway). Songworks will automatically connect to available MIDI input; you can choose an output instrument at the right of the screen piano (QuickTime, MIDI, or various sampled sounds).

Microphone input

You can use any standard microphone such as the inexpensive Labtec USB microphone as an input device. This is good for singing or playing in pitches acoustically; it is not good for rhythm. We suggest picking a set note value such as a quarter note and then singing the notes of the melody. After the notes are on the staff you can use Record New Rhythm to change the rhythm in real-time by tapping letter keys, or manually alter the rhythmic values.

Live repeats

When using the Hear command (changed to command-E from the former command-H) Ars Nova Songworks 2 will now observe repeats, first/second endings, da capos, etc. if the "Observe Repeats" option is turned on in Listening Options. Da Capos and Dal Segnos are marked by setting a flag in the following barline's info box (in addition to any text indication you place in the score). Segno symbols, first/second endings, and repeats are live; the number of repeats taken is set by a box in the info window for the repeat bar.

Bar-for-nothing

Another option will cause the program to tick a bar-for-nothing before beginning a Hear. This is very handy if you're using the program to provide accompaniment as you play a part. If the music begins with a pickup the ticks will start with the first beat of the pickup bar.

Tool tips

Hold the mouse over a tool icon in the edit window or screen piano and a tool tip will pop up to let you know what that tool does.

Larger screen piano

The screen piano can be toggled between its large and small versions by clicking on its size box.

More intuitive editing layer behavior

Formerly, if you were editing notes you could not select a text item or a chord item in the music unless you switched to the text layer or the chord layer. Now the program automatically switches layers depending on what symbol you touched. You can still select overlapped items, because it will check the current layer first, and it will continue to select only items of the current layer when drag-selecting. We think this is a more intuitive and natural editing method, and speeds your writing.

Active Listening

Pick a part in a multi-staff, polyphonic composition and join your computer in performing it! You tap the rhythm of your part on your computer keyboard's letter keys and the pitches come out right automatically! Ars Nova Songworks 2 accompanies you with the other voices, pausing if you stop, jumping ahead if you play too quickly. The next best thing to performing in a live musical group, Active Listening is a great way to explore musical literature, practice rhythm reading or full melodic sightreading, proofread your own composition, or learn your part in a choral piece (also great for part learning in barbershop quartets).

Moreover, you can listen to the computer play your part alone, or with any combination of the other voices, just to hear what it sounds like. Then try it yourself. Try it with just the bass accompaniment, or with all the other parts joining in. If you want, turn off the automatic pitches in Active Listening and convert this to a real melodic sight-reading exercise with automatic accompaniment!

Realtime volume control enables you to play more expressively and to bring your part into prominence where appropriate, just as if you were performing in an actual chamber ensemble. Even with limited musical training, students using Active Listening can turn a group of Macs into a Macintosh quartet or a small orchestra and experience the fun of ensemble playing.

Take a Picture

Academic users will appreciate this quick and easy way to make music examples for a publication or for use in an assignment for (or by) students. With the "Take a Picture" command you just drag a select-box rectangle around the music you want to "photograph," and Ars Nova Songworks 2 will export a high-resolution image to the Clipboard or to a disk file. That image is not just a picture of the computer screen - it will print at the highest resolution of your printing device and also can be exported to other types of documents, such as this one.

Idea Generators

If you're stumped trying to add chords to a melody you've written, Ars Nova Songworks 2 can suggest harmonies. If you're at a loss for melody, it can stimulate your creativity with melody ideas to go with your own chords, or it can invent both melodies and chords. The idea generators are now adjustable; choose your preferred level of melodic and harmonic complexity. The ideas are always new and often interesting enough to start you down a new creative path. Again, all this can be done without a MIDI device - you can compose and listen to the results on a laptop.

Chord Analyzer

When the "chord layer" is active you can play any notes and have Ars Nova Songworks 2 tell you what chord it is that you're playing. It can then automatically enter the correct symbol for that chord when you press the Enter key. This is useful when writing a leadsheet; especially if you know how to play a chord but are not sure what it is called.

Transform Tools

These convenient tools, the regular transforms, are used by composers to extend and elaborate thematic material. "Real" and "tonal" inversion, transposition, retrograde, and retrograde inversion offer variants of selected melodic passages that keep a recognizable connection with the original tune.

Multimedia

Ars Nova Songworks 2 inputs and outputs MIDI files, outputs sound files (in the AIFF format), PICT files, and PICT images through the clipboard. MIDI or AIFF files can be opened as QuickTime movies and either sent to a friend directly or incorporated into multimedia documents such as those created in Adobe Acrobat - readable even on Windows computers. At the Ars Nova web site you can download several Acrobat files that demonstrate both visual and aural images from Ars Nova Songworks 2.

Flexibility and Ease-of-use

Ars Nova Songworks 2 compositions can incorporate any number of internal clef, key, or meter changes. Bar lines can be placed automatically or wherever you choose. You can adjust stem heights and beam angles for individual notes by dragging the stems up and down; triplets, tuplets, slurs, and ties all have drag controls to adjust their appearance. Alter individual measure sizes by dragging bar lines right or left; bar lines between staves can be extended individually if desired.

To enter text you just choose the text tool, click it where you want the text to appear, and start typing. If the text is on a "lyric line" it will automatically line up with the notes (each staff can have as many lines of lyrics as you want). Chord symbols are entered by clicking, or by playing the desired chord notes and pressing Enter to automatically enter the appropriate chord symbol. Ars Nova Songworks 2 includes its own TrueType music font, allowing high-resolution printing even on non-Postscript printers. It also compensates in page layout for your choice of size reduction or enlargement, so that you can print "big note" song sheets or an orchestra score in miniature.

The Windows version of Ars Nova Songworks 2 is fully file-compatible with the Mac version; the downloadable scores in the music library at this site will work on either platform. Owners of the Mac version can send scores to friends running the Windows version, and vice-versa.

Ars Nova Songworks 2 music plays via 16-bit Macintosh sound, QuickTime instruments, or MIDI (now including OMS compatibility). Unique capabilities such as Active Listening, Take a Picture, Idea Generators, Chord Analyzer, and Transform Tools make Ars Nova Songworks 2 more than a notation program: it's a composer's workshop and a great tool for exploring music.

Ars Nova Songworks 2 Features list

Output

• Does not require MIDI.
• Sound output is via built-in 16-bit sound, QuickTime instruments, or MIDI.
• Use of 16-bit output allows full 8-bit resolution of each part even in a thick texture.
• Built-in instrument sounds include sampled piano, organ, guitar, voice, brass, viol, and violin.
• Selection of historical temperaments for sound output (if using built-in sound).
• Optional microtonal control of pitch for individual notes (if using built-in sound).
• Active Listening feature allows you to easily "tap" one part in a score while the others play along - great for learning your part in a chorus or just for learning and fun (can also be used to make a live 'chamber ensemble' out of a group of Macs in a school lab).

Input

• Input is via letter keys played like a piano, via mouse on the on-screen keyboard, or via an external MIDI device.
• Imports MIDI files.
• Multiple ways to enter notes: step entry, real-time, directly in staff.
• Record New Rhythm feature allows you enter pitches first, then "tap" the desired rhythm (handy if doing both at once seems difficult).
• Or select note shapes with one hand and play the desired pitches with the other.
• Or place them directly in the staff using the mouse.
• Adjustable keyboard "split point" for real-time input.

Composition tools

• Can suggest chords to go with your melodies, or melody ideas for your chords.
• Can invent melody ideas with chord accompaniment using your choice of scale, key, meter, complexity, range, etc.
• Transform tools allow instant tonal inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, etc. of selected passages.
• Easy transpose tool allows you to transpose a score or a passage either by choosing the key or by choosing the desired starting note.
• Chords played by user are analyzed on-screen and can be entered as a chord symbol by pressing the enter key (great for making leadsheets).

Notation

• Sketch Mode allows quick edit response even in large files.
• Any number of staves, up to 8 voices per staff.
• Simultaneous notes of different time value can be entered in the same staff (as is needed for chorale and piano writing).
• Drag-control individual stem heights, beam heights, beam angles.
• Drag barlines to compress or expand individual measures.
• Drag rests up or down for placement in polyphonic writing.
• Drag-control slur endpoints, direction, and height.
• Drag-control tie height and direction.
• Drag-control triplet/tuplet endpoints and angle.
• Individual control of whether barlines extend to other staves.
• Information Windows for each symbol allow extra control over details: flipped note heads, invisible note heads, etc.
• Allows 'precautionary' accidentals.
• Includes double-flat and double-sharp.
• Includes all known clefs, including every C clef and historical clefs such as the French violin clef.
• Music automatically adjusts when a clef change is entered.
• Includes all key signatures.
• Allows "Custom" meters such as 15/8 or 7/16.
• Unlimited internal clef, key, and meter changes allowed independently in each staff.
• Includes tempo change tool and adjustable "functional" fermatas. Staccato, tenuto, wedge, etc. are also 'functional' (heard in playback).
• Extra symbols include dynamic signs, trill signs, grace notes, etc.
• All can be dragged to adjust their position.
• Drag-adjust size and placement of first-and-second ending symbols, crescendo, diminuendo.
• "Spreader" and "Shrinker" nudge tools add or subtract extra space between notes as needed, while maintaining vertical alignment throughout the score.
• Chord symbols (for leadsheets) are both seen and heard, according to a selection of accompaniment patterns.
• Each chord can contain up to six pitches, and the pitches are either chosen automatically according to chord name or can be entered specifically by user.
• Staves can be normal, one-line, or invisible.
• A clef is not required, in case you want to use a staff for percussion.
• In combination with invisible note heads, invisible staves allow the creation of "stick notation."
• Brackets and braces easily entered to join selected groups of staves.
• Part extraction for orchestra or band parts, including automatic multiple rests.
• Merge Staves feature helps you to create a piano reduction from individual parts.
• Transposing staves (for instruments such as Bb Clarinet) can be set to sound at a different pitch than notated.
• Beam groups can contain notes with opposite stem directions.
• Beam groups can be customized to depict different rhythmic groupings.

Text

• Easy entry of text anywhere within a score, either as commentary or as lyrics.
• Each block of text can be in a different font/size.
• Lyric text automatically lines up with notes and moves when notes are edited.
• Any number of lyric lines per staff.

Exports

• Take a Picture feature easily exports high-resolution music images of selected areas to the clipboard for pasting into page-layout or word-processing programs.
• Exports PICT files, MIDI files, and AIFF sound files for multimedia projects.
• Imports MIDI files.

Ars Nova Songworks 2 System Requirements

PC

• Win 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP
• 133mhz CPU
• 64MB RAM
• CD Drive

Mac

• MacOS
• 9.1 - 10.3.x
• PowerMac
• 64MB RAM
• CD Drive