These pages will help you to use Logotron's Notate Program in a number of composing activities. No prior knowledge of musical notation is required as the activities are based on aural perception and pattern recognition. Those pupils who have musical experience will also gain from these examples by composing for a purpose. Information about Notate can be found on the Logotron website.

If you have followed the notes on using Notate for the RiscOS (Acorn) platform, you will be familiar with some of these examples. However, the PC version of Notate is so similar that you will feel right at home! So, let's start from the very beginning (a very good place to start!).

Getting started with Notate

When first run, Notate opens with a single stave of music, complete with treble clef and 4/4 time signature. The toolbar has a standard set of icons for saving, opening and printing files, icons for controlling the playing of the music as well as a metronome to control tempo and a volume slider.

There is a small collection of notes and rests - quaver, crotchet and minim (or 1/2, 1 and 2 beat notes). These can be dragged onto the stave and will play as soon as the mouse is released. Click the note again to hear it. To change it's position on the stave, drag it up or down. Notate checks that the correct number of beats has been entered into the bar and will automatically sort out notes from left to right.

You can copy notes that are already on the stave by holding down the Control Key (Ctrl) and dragging off a copy. This is a useful method if you want to create a passage using the same note values.