Notes Editor — User Manual

What is the Notes Editor?

The Mazmazika Notes Editor is a professional sheet-music editor that runs in your browser — nothing to install. Write music note by note with engraving-quality notation, hear it back instantly, type notes straight from your computer keyboard or play them in over MIDI, and share a link so others can view — or even edit the same score with you in real time. When you're done, download MusicXML, MIDI, audio or a print-ready PDF.

The editor at a glance

Open the Notes Editor from the left sidebar (or the Notes Library, where every song opens straight into it). The workspace is one tidy deck: a menu bar (File / Edit / View, undo–redo and quick import/export icons, the Continuous / Page View toggle, Score Details, the on-screen Keyboard toggle, a MIDI status light, and Share), the palette of notation tools, your manuscript below, a floating zoom control on the right, and the transport bar along the bottom. A status pill under the sheet shows Saved · parts · bars and opens My scores.

Create & set up a score

File → New score (or Ctrl+N) asks how many bars you want — from a 4-bar sketch to hundreds — and opens a fresh manuscript; your current score is already saved. Then make it yours:

• Score Details (topbar pill) — title, composer and the other header fields; you can also click the title right on the sheet and type.
• Key and Time — pickers in the palette; key changes re-spell the whole score, and the time-signature picker covers common and odd meters.
• Measures — add or remove bars with the Measure +/− tools, or type a total straight into the measure-count field.
• Instrument — the palette's Instrument picker sets the active part's sound and clef (Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, Flute, Clarinet, Trumpet, Guitar, Bass, Voice).

Type your notes

The fastest way to write: just type. Letters become notes, and a small cheat-sheet (the keyboard button at the bottom-left, or on the transport) reminds you of everything:

• C–B writes that note at the insertion point; hold S for a sharp, X for a flat.
• Shift + a letter stacks that pitch onto the selected note — chords in seconds.
• 0–6 picks the duration, R writes a rest, ↑ ↓ nudge the pitch and Shift + ↑ ↓ jump a whole octave.

The palette

Everything you can put on paper lives in the palette: Tools (pen, select, erase), Measure, Key, Time, Duration, a matching Rest row, Rhythm (beaming, dots, ties, L.V., slurs, triplets), Instrument, Pitch (accidentals — including microtonal ones if you enable them), Articulation and Dynamics.

• Click to place — pick a note or rest duration and the pen arms itself: a ghost preview follows your pointer on the staff, and a click drops the note right there. Clicking close to an existing note stacks a chord; clicking further along adds the next note.
• Drag & drop — every glyph can also be dragged straight onto the staff, including onto a specific note (accidentals, articulations, ornaments, dynamics).
• Make it yours — the View menu toggles whole palette groups; turn on the extras (Insert, Staff, Ornaments, Note, Lines, Colour, Tempo, Groove) or hide what you never use.

Select & edit

• Click a note to select it (in a chord, exactly the notehead you clicked); Ctrl+click selects the whole chord; Shift+click adds more notes to a multi-selection; dragging across the staff selects a range.
• Arrow keys transpose the selection (Shift for octaves); Delete removes it.
• The Edit menu (and the usual Ctrl+C / X / V / A) copies, cuts, pastes and selects all — with full undo/redo (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z) behind everything.
• Selected notes also sound as you click them, so you can check a chord by ear.

On-screen piano & MIDI

No instrument at hand? Toggle Keyboard in the topbar and a piano dock slides up — click keys to enter notes. With a hardware MIDI keyboard (Chrome or Edge), the piano-shaped MIDI button in the topbar shows your device and entry mode: in step mode notes land one by one as you play; in real-time mode the ● record button on the transport captures your performance in time and quantizes it onto the grid when you stop.

Instruments & playback sounds

The palette's Instrument picker switches the active part's instrument — it sets both the clef and the playback sound. Scores from the Notes Library or imported MusicXML files open with all their parts (piano pieces get a proper grand staff), and each part plays with its own instrument.

Two views & live zoom

The topbar pill flips between Continuous (one endless system — great for writing) and Page View (real A4 pages — great for reading and print checks). In Page View, big themed ‹ › arrows flip between pages. The floating zoom control (30–200%) genuinely re-engraves the music — zooming out fits more bars per line, zooming in gives you fewer, bigger ones.

Playback

Press play and the score performs itself — the sounding notes light up and the view follows along.

• Position & scrubbing — the read-out shows bar.beat.tick; drag the progress bar to seek.
• Metronome and a count-in (0/1/2 bars) keep you honest.
• A/B loop — drag across some bars to set a range, then loop it while you polish or practise; the speed slider (down to 25%) slows it without changing pitch, and the BPM stepper changes the actual tempo.
• Volume — a real master-volume slider with a dB read-out, live even mid-playback.

Saving — autosave, My Scores & My Projects

Signed in, your work autosaves to your account as you edit — the status pill under the sheet reads Saved, and My scores (right on that pill) lists everything you've written so you can reopen or delete any score. On top of that, File → Save to My Projects keeps named snapshots in this browser — quick local versions you can restore any time.

Share & collaborate live

Hit Share and pick the link that fits:

• View link — anyone can open and play the score; no login, no editing.
• Edit link — signed-in collaborators edit the same score with you, live: you see each other's presence and changes in real time, and everyone's edits autosave to the one record. Undo only touches your own edits.
• Comments — on shared scores, readers and co-writers can leave comment threads pinned to specific notes — ideal for teacher feedback.
• Links are unguessable tokens and can be revoked permanently at any time.

Import, export & print

The File menu (and the matching topbar icons) covers the whole round trip:

• Open MusicXML… — bring in scores from MuseScore, Finale, Sibelius or anywhere else.
• Download MusicXML / MIDI — take your music to other notation software or a DAW.
• Download audio (WAV) — an offline render of the playback.
• Print / Download PDF / parts as PDF — publish-ready pages, including one PDF per instrument.

Appearance

The gear button (bottom-right) opens Tweaks: eight colour themes, light / dark / auto appearance, accent colours, layout density, the status pill, on-screen piano size, microtonal accidentals for Arabic maqam writing, and even the engraving font.

On phones & tablets

The editor is fully responsive: on a phone the palette becomes a tabbed sheet (Tools / Duration / Pitch …), the transport reflows into two touch-friendly rows with drag-to-seek, and a Sheet ⟷ Piano toggle swaps between reading and playing. In the Tweaks panel you can set the mobile piano to Landscape — during playback it opens as a full-screen piano with its own transport, following the music across the keys.

Handy keyboard shortcuts

• C–B — write a note (S/X held = sharp/flat) · 0–6 duration · R rest
• Shift + C–B — stack a chord · ↑ ↓ nudge pitch · Shift + ↑ ↓ octave
• Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z — undo / redo
• Ctrl+C / X / V / A, Del — copy / cut / paste / select all / delete
• Ctrl+N — new score · Esc — close any overlay

Tips

• Set up the score first (bars, key, time, instrument) — then the notes flow faster.
• Learn the typing keys — letters + 0–6 is by far the quickest way to sketch a melody.
• Loop a hard passage with A/B and pull the speed down while you practise it.
• Zoom out in Continuous view to see the piece's shape; zoom in to fine-edit.
• Share an edit link to co-write — it's the same score for everyone, live.

Troubleshooting

• "Tuning the engine…" on load — the notation engine loads on first open; give it a few seconds in an up-to-date Chrome or Edge.
• No sound on playback? Click the page once first (browsers only start audio after you interact), check the transport's volume slider, then your device volume.
• Changes not saving? Autosave needs an account — sign in and watch for the Saved status pill under the sheet.
• MIDI keyboard not detected? Use Chrome or Edge (Web MIDI), reconnect the device, then click the piano button in the topbar to pick it.
• Collaboration not syncing? Everyone must open the same edit share link; view links are read-only by design.

Related tools

Browse ready-made scores in the Notes Library, find a song's chords with the Chord Analyzer, train your ear with Ear Training, or lay down a groove in the Beat Maker.