How does the "P" key actually work?

Sometimes, when I click on a note in the score and hit “P”, it will start playing all tracks together at that position.

And sometimes, when I click on a note in the score and hit “P”, it will start playing just that staff at that position, and nothing else.

I have yet to figure out what causes this change in behavior. Is there some magic click or trick to make it always do the first thing (play all tracks)?

If you have a single note in a single instrument selected, it plays all instruments. If you have multiple notes selected either in one instrument or multiple instruments it will play only those instruments.

Or even multiple elements. For example, selecting a note plus a slur will solo that channel as well.

Ok thanks, that does seem to line up with what I’m seeing so far. It’s fairly subtle behavior to be sure!

To avoid soloing, when you select anything, hit the down or up arrow to ensure only one thing is selected before pressing P.

I just want to throw in that I find that method quite cumbersome.
More often than not I click into the position where I want to play from and find that more than one thing has been selected, making me click and concentrate again.

Since this differentiation has been implemented between “select whatever number of things you want to play back only one player” and “select EXACTLY! one thing to play back the whole score” the burden on me has gone significantly up. Or to put it in other words: The percentage of click area to hit in order to get full playback from a certain position has been minimized tremendously.

I’ve got used to clicking in whichever part has a rest or a single un-beamed, un-slurred note.

You can also do Alt+P, Space. Alt+P moves the playhead to the position of the earliest selected item (even if you can’t see the playhead when stopped), and Space starts playback from the playhead.

On this subject - what’s the process for playing from the beginning of the score without scrolling back and clicking the first note? I can’t find it in the docs.

Alt-Shift-Spacebar

All possible “playing-back-music” options here :slight_smile: