The Explorer tool allows you to hear or watch the different musicians that perform a piece of music, and you can find out more about the music itself. The Explorer gives you access to what every different instrument or voice is doing in the music, either listening to them or watching them on film.
Listening and moving around
The music is represented visually as a waveform. Click anywhere on this waveform to move the play cursor.
Click the play button to listen to the music.
The navigation window shows you the whole piece of music. Move the small yellow box to change your current view position along the timeline.
The time indicator shows the start and end times of the piece in minutes and seconds.
Use the volume controls to make the music louder or softer.
The zoom buttons control how much of the music you can see in the main waveform view.
Hide or show the bar lines.
Accessing the different instruments and voices
When the Explorer loads, it shows the full ensemble – all instruments and voices combined into one track.
Opens to reveal the groups of instruments that make up the full ensemble. Each group has its own waveform view. Use this feature to find out what groups of instruments are in the full ensemble.
This allows you to hear just that group when you press play. The other groups become darker to indicate that they are not in focus. You can hear the rest of the ensemble in the background.
Opens to reveal the parts that make up each group. Each part has its own waveform view. Use this feature to find out what instruments and voices are in each group.
Click ‘Focus on part’ to hear just that part when you press play. You can use this feature to listen to what each instrument or voice is doing on its own. You can hear the rest of the ensemble in the background.
This allows you to listen to the full ensemble.
The video buttons open a window with a video of the full ensemble or the individual part so you can watch the musicians performing. Videos are not available for groups.
Closes the groups to reveal only the full ensemble.
Using the clipboard and making your own music
You can take any bar from any track in the Explorer (ensemble, group or part) and use it to create your own music, or to experiment with changing the existing music. You can also combine sounds from different pieces of music by taking bars from different pieces on the Explorer.
Click on any bar to select that bar. A white box appears around the selected bar. Hold down the shift key and click to select multiple bars. You can select any number of bars from the ensemble, groups or parts currently in view. Using the ‘Expand’ or ‘Collapse’ buttons will clear your selection.
This will copy your selected bar(s) to the clipboard.
Displays the clipboard, with the list of your clips.
The list of clips displays the name of the clip, which piece of music it comes from and which instruments are playing.
The default name for clips in the clipboard is ‘Clip…’. You can rename a clip by clicking on the name and typing the new name.
Plays the current selected clip.
Deletes the current selected clip.
Copies the current selected clip to the Composer. You can also drag clips from the clipboard to the Composer.
You cannot copy clips into the Explorer. If you are in Explorer mode, close the clipboard and switch to Composer mode to use your clips.
Extra features in the Composer
Use the Hand tool to move the selected bar(s). The Hand tool picks up the selected bar(s) and allows you to move it in time or to another track. Click outside the selected bar(s) to drop them in place.
You can use the Hand tool in the Composer and the Explorer close-up.
Creates a copy of the selected bar(s). Duplicate works in the same way as the Hand tool but moves a copy of the original bar(s).
Delete the current bar(s).
Save your composition from the Composer. You need to be logged in to SoundJunction to save compositions.
Open a previous composition. You need to be logged in to SoundJunction to access your previous compositions.
Finding out more about the music
The list of links in the Explorer gives information about certain features in the music, including the instruments and voices performing, and how it was composed.
Yellow links are about the particular instruments and voices that perform the music.
Blue links are about the composer and how they composed the music.
Purple links are about particular features in the music, such as melodies, harmonies, or rhythms.
Each link applies to a particular point in the music and the list scrolls automatically, depending on the current play cursor position.
Click the ‘Find’ buttons to find where the link appears in the music. The appropriate part, group or ensemble track will open.
Use the ‘more’ button to find out more about the link’s music.
Hides or reveals the links.
Viewing the music in its written form
The score button opens a new window displaying the music written out in standard Western notation. You will need to install the Sibelius Scorch plug-in to be able to use this feature.
The score button will open the written music for the current track in focus. Use the ‘focus on…’ buttons in conjunction with the ‘score’ button to see the written music for any of the groups or individual parts that make up the full ensemble.
You can play the music from the score window but it will sound different to the recorded sounds in the Explorer tool. The score window does not use the same recorded audio as the Explorer but uses your computer’s own sound generation.
