Change a TablEdit default to make your arrangements look cleaner.
By Melanie Johnston
Getting the standard notation to look good and clean on the staff takes a little work and knowledge.
In previous tips, I have mentioned that TablEdit defaults to the 8va clef, putting notes in the standard notation an octave higher than how they will sound. Unfortunately, at this time there is not a way to have TablEdit default to the standard clef so you need to set this manually.
Another consideration is the direction of the note stems. The TablEdit default is to have note stems going down until they get to the C in the 3rd space of the staff. This can cause note stems from lower notes to invade the lyric space.
Fortunately, this can be fixed by resetting the default.
Go to File/Options/Preferences. In the middle of the dialogue box, change the Upward Note Stem Default from >B3 to <B3. Now the notes stems will point up until you reach the C in the 3rd space of the staff.
Once you reset this, your notation should look good, but if you want or need to change a note stem direction manually, do this:
Highlight/select a note, group of notes, or a chord and press a lowercase “a” to force the note stem(s) up. A lowercase “z” will force note stems down.
You may see the note heads change to blue or red to alert you that you have chosen something different from the default, but these colors will not print on your final product.
Johnston, of Asheville, North Carolina, has played and taught mountain dulcimer since 2001. She regularly teaches TablEdit at dulcimer festivals and wrote “TablEdit, a Manual for Mountain Dulcimer Arrangers.” She hopes these tips help arrangers get maximum benefit from using this software.