Boomwhackers® Tuned Percussion Tubes / Chroma-Notes™ Instruments

Boomwhackers Tuned Percussion Tubes / Chroma-Notes Instruments are brightly colored plastic tubes that are tuned by length to musical notes. Each pitch is identified with a specific color based on the Chroma-Notes color scheme. Finale supports colored noteheads and its default colored noteheads settings are also based on the Chroma-Notes color scheme used with Boomwhackers percussion tubes and other instruments using the Chroma-Notes colors as they become available. Additionally, Finale includes options for starting a new Boomwhackers percussion tube / Chroma-Notes instruments score directly from the Setup Wizard.

 

Note:  “Boomwhackers” is a registered trademark under license to, and “Chroma-Notes” is a trademark of, Whacky Music, Inc., of Sedona, Arizona (www.boomwhackers.com).  MakeMusic has licensed from Whacky Music, Inc., the use of the “Boomwhackers” and “Chroma-Notes” trademarks and logos, Boomwhackers® tube sounds and Chroma-Notes™ Colored Music colors in Finale.

To create a new Boomwhackers® Percussion Tubes or Chroma-Notes™ Instruments score

  1. From the File Menu, choose New, then Document with Setup Wizard.
  2. Choose the desired Document Style and click Next. For details, see Document Styles.
  3. In the list box to the left, click Pitched Percussion. "Boomwhackers(R) Tubes" and "Chroma-Notes(TM) Instruments" appear in the middle list box.
  4. Double-click "Boomwhackers(R) Tubes" and/or "Chroma-Notes(TM) Instruments" to add it to the list on the right.    
  5. Click Next and enter a title, composer, and additional information as required.   
  6. Click Next and specify a time signature, key signature, and document details. See Setup Wizard.
  7. Click Finish. The document opens based on your settings. Notes are now automatically colored based on the Chroma-Notes color scheme as they are entered. See Simple Entry. Note that although you can enter pitches outside of the Boomwhackers tubes' range, only pitches within the range will sound during playback. The supported range is C2-G5 (see MIDI Note to Pitch Table). The lowest octave requires using specially designed caps on the bass octave tubes.

To apply colored noteheads to an existing score

  1. Open the document.
  2. Click the Staff Tool image\Staff_Tool.gif.   
  3. Double-click a staff. The Staff Attributes dialog box appears.
  4. Check Colored Noteheads. Click the Define button to the right to open Document Options-Notes and Rests where you can adjust the coloring as needed.
  5. Click OK. Repeat the previous three steps for any other staves that require colored noteheads.

See Also:

Staff Tool

Simple Entry