New in Mozart 9
Mozart 9 was released in November 2006.
It introduced the following new features.
Please note: the music images on this page were created with Mozart 9. The quality of engraving provided by the current version is much improved in many respects.
The score
- Everything to do with creating and editing the score structure, and its
instrumentation, has undergone a major overhaul, comprising a vast
enhancement to the "look and feel" of the whole program.
-
Creating a new score with all features in place is now much easier.
- The list of available score templates is both more extensive and clearer.
- If instead you choose to create an instrumented score from scratch,
a "wizard" guides you through the procedure:
- The same pages allow you to edit the score afterwards.
- The list of available score templates is both more extensive and clearer.
- Scores at Bb pitch are now supported, in addition to written pitch
and concert pitch.
- A default set of stave labels with numbered parts can be chosen automatically at the press of a button.
Instruments and voices
-
Instruments are now (by default) more tightly integrated with the score.
- Instrument changes within parts are now fully supported.
- Voice changes within parts are now supported eg arco<->pizzicato, open<->mute
- Instruments now adopt a suitable default voice from the General MIDI set. This
is overridable.
- The instrument data base now includes many more instruments.
- An optimum system of General MIDI voices can be chosen automatically at the press of a button.
Command interface
- The tie command is more versatile: for example press T at the end of the
piece and the next note entered will be tied to the previous one.
- The dot commands are now more versatile.
- The new "auto-dot"
feature allows very fast entry of common dotted note patterns
in simple time and compound time. The example on the
right is just one possibility - the entire rhythm can be created with no
reselection of note duration.
- Block selection can now be on a single strand, all strands, a single stave, or an arbitrary chosen set of strands.
- It is now even easier to play back an arbitrary chosen set of parts.
- The Item-properties command allows rapid access to edit a wide variety of items.
- Keyboard access to many accent commands is more versatile.
- Text editing
is more powerful:
there are now short cuts for entering non-native characters in lyrics and elsewhere when using a keyboard designed for English (or any language using the Western character set).
These follow Microsoft Word's convention - (eg Ctrl+' then e gives é; Ctrl+: then o gives ö, etc.) - but also go beyond it.
- Lyric editing is more flexible:
Ctrl+' ' enters a space without jumping under the next syllable.
Ctrl+'-' enters a hyphen without jumping to the next syllable.
Symbol support
- A pause (fermata) may now be put on a bar-line.
- "Relative tempo changes" are now supported
- eg crotchet=minim (see right).
- A variety of b13 and #11 chord symbols are now supported.
- Chord symbols can now be marked as
silent, allowing rhythm parts to appear very
simple while playing back quite intricately.
- Chord shapes are now possible for more instruments than just the guitar in
standard tuning. Chord shape dictionaries are provided for guitar and for
ukulele in different tunings; users can develop their own dictionaries for
other instruments.
- Chord shapes can be drawn without an accompanying chord symbol.
- Chord shapes may be drawn with all frets showing from the nut, or from the nearest appropriate fret.
- Dynamic entries now range from pppp, to ffff, and include fz,
sf, sfz, sffz, fp, ffp.
- There is a larger set of text substitutions available, including long and abbreviated versions of
strand labels, and time and date:
eg &d -> date in short format - eg 04/12/05 (or 12/04/05 in the USA)
&D -> date in long format - eg 04 December 2005 (or December 04 2005 in the USA)
&h or &H -> time in 24 hr format - eg 16:45.
- The breath mark symbol is now supported explicitly.
Page layout
-
First line indentation is now supported.
- Different stave labels are now possible on the first and subsequent systems,
with a choice of long label, abbreviated label, or none.
- Stave label text may now run to more than one line.
- The stave label font may now be chosen by the user.
- Pages can now begin with a number other than 1.
-
Chord symbols are now resizable relative to the notes
(see eg right).
- Chord shapes are now resizable relative to the notes.
- The layout editor can now be used to edit the inner vertical space in a grand staff.
- Hiding staves: if you wish to omit staves from the score then it can now be accomplished much more effectively.
Miscellaneous
-
The status bar now shows
more information.
- Right clicking on the stave offers a larger menu including general reformatting options.
- More sample music files are provided.
-
More dialogues have graphic buttons. Many of them now also have tool tips
explaining the buttons (which can be switched off if desired).
- The Help Window is no longer always on top.
- Mozart now maintains two independent sets of screen colours. You can edit each,
and select between the two sets.
- The background colour of the main frame window is now user-selectable.
- A command is provided to check the Mozart web site for available updates.
Linguistic
-
This version of Mozart makes a major step towards supporting languages other than English.
Language plug-in modules can now be accepted, and updated, as translations become available.
We will be asking for volunteers to help with the translation and making the plug-in modules available free of charge. In this way the English menus and dialogues can be replaced by translations into other languages