1.2.8. Voice Node
The Voice is a container for Cluster nodes.
In MAIDENS, Voices distribute content among the available staves of a Part. For example, a Piano playing four polyphonic lines would use four Voice nodes, allocated two per staff.
Two Voices allocated to the same staff display notes with stems up and stems down respectively, but only when there is music playing in both voices at the same time (otherwise, stem direction is automatic). Also, rests are omitted in Voice 2 if it is empty.
Previous versions of MAIDENS used to employ a very intricate voice allocation mechanism, where user was selectively allowed to add, remove or nudge voices in specific scenarios. There was also a dedicated, in-score floating toolbar that allowed the user to "connect" the current selection to either Voice 1, Voice 2 or their parent measure. All these proved to be both difficult to maintain and hard to use, therefore voice handling was entirely revamped in MAIDENS 1.5, and it now revolves around this simple rule:
A Part has at least two Voices.
As a direct consequence of the fact that now both Voice 1 and Voice 2 are persistent and guaranteed to exist:
- user can now directly access the needed voice by selecting the upper or lower rectangular sub-areas of a staff in the current measure;
- there is no need anymore to enforce rules on when the user can, and when he cannot add or remove voices. All the user can do now with voices is nudging them, which is as simple as selecting the corresponding voice's rectangular area on the staff and clicking the desired nudge button on the toolbar.
Conversely, there is no editable Voice property left in the Editor, which now only displays read-only information about the currently selected Voice.
