16. Playing and practising

Playing and looping

Play starts the song from the caret and stops it again. Loop a few bars to go over them, and let each pane follow the playhead or stay where you put it.

Play and stop

Available on every platform.

Play (Space) starts the song from the caret. While it plays, the same command is called Stop and stops it. You find it the Transport menu, and as the round play button in the Transport pane.

• Jumping while it plays. Click in the ruler and the playhead goes there at once. Stopped, the same moves the caret, and Play starts from there.
• Back to the start. The Transport pane’s first button puts the caret at the start of the song; while it plays, it jumps to the start of the loop, or of the song when no loop is on.
• At the end. The song stops by itself after its last bar, unless a loop is on.
• A song with a reference recording pauses rather than stops: Play goes on from where you last heard it. A click in the ruler moves that place. Stop, which a MIDI controller can send, lets go of the pause, and Play then starts from the caret again.

The metronome and count-in, the speed and the key change what Play does without changing the song.

Looping

Available on every platform.

A loop plays a passage over and over, without a gap at the seam. Notes still ringing at the loop’s end are let go, as they would be at a bar line.

• Drag across the ruler to set the loop and turn it on. Its ends snap to the grid, as notes do.
• Loop the selection. Select some notes and choose Loop Selection (⌘L)Loop Selection (Ctrl+L)Loop Selection (Ctrl+L (⌘L on a Mac)). The loop covers the bars the notes are in, from the first bar line to the last. It’s also in the notes’ right-click menu.
• Turn it on and off. Loop (⇧⌘L)Loop (Ctrl+Shift+L)Loop (Ctrl+Shift+L (⇧⌘L on a Mac)) switches the loop you set; it’s checked while on. With no loop set yet, it loops the bar the playhead is in and says so; drag across the ruler for a longer one. The Transport pane’s loop button does the same and lights while the loop is on.
• One key for both. L in an Editor or Score pane loops the selection when notes are selected, and otherwise switches the loop on or off.

Changing the loop while the song plays doesn’t move the playhead.

Following the playhead

Available on every platform.

While the song plays, each pane can keep the playhead in sight. Choose how under Follow Playhead, in the Transport menu or the pane’s ⚙ menuthe View menu or the pane’s ⚙ menu:

• Off. The pane stays where it is; the playhead runs out of sight.
• Page by Page. When the playhead nears the right edge, the pane turns the page, so the playhead starts again near the left.
• Continuous Scroll. The playhead holds still a third of the way in, and the music scrolls under it.

Each pane keeps its own choice, saved with the song, so a Score pane can scroll while an Editor pane turns pages. New panes start from Settings › Editing › Follow the playhead (Page by Page at first). New panes start from the Settings menu’s Follow the Playhead (Page by Page at first).

Looking elsewhere while it plays

Scroll a pane while the song plays and it stops following, so you can read ahead or look back. A pill, Resume Following, appears over the pane. Click it, or choose Resume Following (⌥⌘F)Resume Following (Ctrl+Alt+F)Resume Following (Ctrl+Alt+F (⌥⌘F on a Mac)), and the pane catches up with the playhead. Playing again from stopped also brings it back.