• Staff – The set of horizontal lines (usually five) on and between which notes are written. A staff is considered to extend from the beginning of a piece to the end.
• Staves – The plural of Staff
• Grand Staff – In piano music, where a treble staff and a bass staff are joined together by a bracket. This is referred to as one unified staff, though it is comprised of two staves.
• Part Music contained in the score, usually written on one staff, which is assigned to one player or to one group of players. In piano music, the part is written on a piano grand staff (see definition above). In some cases, a single staff may contain more than one part (i.e., in an orchestral score, flute 1 and flute 2 may appear combined on one staff).
• System – A region of your score where a staff or group of staves begins at the left edge of the page, and stops at the right edge, is a system. When a staff (or group of staves) reaches the right edge of the page, stops, and then continues below on the same page (if space permits), or on the next page of the score, a new system has begun.
• Reserved Area/Reserved Signature Area – The region at the beginning of each system where only the clef, key signature and time signature can be written.
• Symbols/Musical Symbols – In a Nightingale score, any note, rest, barline, dynamic marking, or other abstract representation of a musical element that you use to notate music, is referred to as a “symbol.”
• Shortcut Keys/Shortcut Key Equivalents – The key on your Macintosh keyboard that you can press to select a symbol from the Tool Palette.
• Key Command/Key Command Equivalent – The combination of keys you can type on your Mac keyboard to engage a menu command. The "Command" key on your Mac keyboard has a small Apple symbol on it, as well as the curlu "command" symbol.
• Window/Score Window – The area on your screen, defined by a frame, which contains the staff and all notated music in your score. Also, Nightingale’s Tool Palette is a window which is normally next to the Score Window.
• Activity Window The small rectangular area at the lower left corner of the score window, in which valuable information is displayed about the contents of the score window, or about the status of the current activity you are carrying out.
• Dialog, Dialog Box – A box that is displayed on your screen requiring you to respond (i.e., yes or no), or to select between options.
• Radio buttons/Checkboxes – In most dialogs, you can click the mouse on various buttons and checkboxes to choose options. When you select a radio button, it is an “either/or” choice between available options. Pressing one button turns off the other options listed beside it. Checkbox options can be selected in any number or grouping offered in the dialog.
• Highlight/Select – When you click on something (with the mouse) it’s color on the screen is inverted (usually turned white, and surrounded by a small black box).
• Double-clicking/Single clicking – As a general rule when using any Macintosh software, pointing the mouse at an object on the screen and clicking the mouse button a single time is the method used to select or highlight that object.
Pointing at an object and double-clicking on it usually serves to “open” the object. In almost all cases, double-clicking will somehow launch, open, display the contents of, display a dialog box for, or let you control the size/position of the object.
• Dragging – Pressing and then holding down the mouse button and moving the mouse up/down/sideways on the screen. You move a symbol by clicking on it and dragging. You can select/highlight several symbols at once by dragging the mouse across them on the screen.
• Default/Default Setting – The operating choices made for you by Nightingale’s designers, which are in force if you do nothing to change them. For example, the default Tempo for playing back a score is 100, but you can you insert a new Tempo marking any time you like.
