Hi All,
we have been working on a neat new feature that will let you create named sections to better organize your songs. You can select these named sections and copy/paste/delete them. In addition, the new section nav bar (pictured below) can be used to navigate your longer songs (clicking between sections or selecting them scrolls the main staff to that location.
If you are interested in helping beta test the feature out before we release the full update to everybody, we have created a preview at devhookpad.hooktheory.com
go there and type:
use demo/demo as user/pass when prompted.
We want to be careful in particular that there are no musical consistency issues when cutting/copying/pasting/deleting sections as this is a fairly destructive action.
Thanks!
Dave
( @ ting @HertzDevil, @Vaz123, @bigyihsuan since you all have helped out in the past and thought you in particular might be interested )
This is a really great enhancement. For context, we know the importance of rhythm, melody, and harmony in music composition and Hookpad supports those well. Now with the “sections” feature we can start learning about and working with musical form!
Will the Hooktheory book series also be updated with extended information on musical form?
Relatedly, what are your thoughts on how Hookpad might allow us to work with expression in our compositions (like dynamics and articulations)?
The idea is really cool and seems to be a great start. However, working with sections is somewhat clunky, requiring the user to jump around and click multiple times when adding and naming sections. E.g. to add a section the user highlights the bars, clicks a far removed button, then fills in a modal dialogue.
What if the sections feature was more like the loop bar, where the user just dragged a region of the song and then changed the label in place. Less looking and clicking around would make sections more simple and intuitive. Similarly, rather than using shift+mouse to scrub the song, why not also provide a scrubber bar that people can click (or touch) and drag?
The main design paradigm is called “direct manipulation” where objects that can be changed are represented in their continuous state and changed through direct interaction rather than through layers of indirection (clicking around the page, modal dialogues, etc.).
“Name This Section” names the section after the selected measures “Section” instead of reusing the name of the preceding section. This is inconsistent with other measure properties like meter and key changes.
Also the measure number is off by one on both the navbar and the “Name This Section” dialog when a pickup measure is present. (The dialogs for the other changes are not off by one, and they lead to a different bug instead.)
As with other measure property changes, it’s disappointing to see that the editor still doesn’t provide GUI support for syncopated regions even though the editor internally supports them.
Agree this is a great feature. Finally! On quick testing though, the pasting behavior on my system has an issue. If I select a region from the section nav bar, and hit C, then if I repoint between two sections on the nav bar, and hit V, it works as advertised, as an insert.
HOWEVER, if I instead select a section by clicking on the section name in the main window, then hit C, then point between two sections in the nav bar, then hit V, it is an overwrite! Very destructive!!
)