Listen to tunes

Every RoR tune has its own page inside the RoR Player. When you open the Player for the first time, the latest Tune of the Year is opened.

Each tune page starts with some general information about the tune. Some tune pages contain an education video from RoR Tube, where you can see how the tune is played and maestrated. Further down under “Sounds”, you have the option to listen to (computer-generated) samples of the tune and its breaks.

The first item under “Sounds” is an example song for the tune. Clicking the play icon on the right will play the tune with all of its breaks in between, so that you can get a general impression how everything sounds in combination. (For defining a custom combination in which the tune and its breaks should be played, have a look at the compose documentation.)

Below the example song there is a box for the tune itself and each of its breaks. Clicking the play icon will just play this tune/break.

Note: On iOS (iPhone/iPad), silent mode has to be turned off in order for RoR Player to be able to play any sounds.

Playback settings

Clicking on the playback settings icon to the right of the “Sounds” heading opens a menu where you can make adjustments to how the sounds are played. The following options are available:

Speed: By moving the slider, you can change how fast the tune is played. The number shown represents the beats per minute.
Loop: When checked, the tune is played in a loop. When unchecked, it is played just once. (Note: Breaks that are supposed to be played in a loop are always looped, regardless of this checkbox.)
Whistle: When set to “On one”, a whistle sound is played on the first beat of each bar. When set to “On all”, a whistle sound is played on each beat. This can help to understand the rhythm and to find the 1.
Instrument volumes: Adjust each slider to make an individual instrument softer or louder. The “Master” volume adjusts the volume of all instruments.
Mute: Clicking the mute icon underneath an instrument will mute this instrument. If you want to listen to just one individual instrument, first click the mute icon under “Master” to mute all instruments, and then unmute the instrument that you want to hear.
Presets: At the bottom there are two volume presets. Clicking them will reset the volumes of all instruments to a level where they sound more or less balanced. The “Defaults” preset is better for proper speakers and headphones, while the “Shitty speakers” works better on laptop and smartphone speakers that cannot play low frequencies.

Find tunes

To navigate to a different tune page, click one of the tunes on the left. On small screens such as on smartphones, you have to first click the menu icon on the top left of the screen to open the tune list.

By default, all available tunes are shown in the list. To search for a tune by name, type it into the text field on the top. Clicking the icon right of the text field makes it possible to filter the tunes by categories:

Standard tunes: Only tunes that are listed in the current tune sheet.
Common tunes: Tunes that are commonly played in many bands.
Uncommon tunes: Tunes that are in the tunesheet but are not played very often.
New tunes: Tunes that have been added to the tunesheet recently.
Proposed tunes: Tunes that have been published but have not been added to the tunesheet yet.
One Surdo: Tunes that need only one Surdo, so they can be played when the band is small.
Easy, Medium, Tricky: Tunes filtered by how difficult it is to learn them.

Show tune sheets

By clicking on the pen icon on the right of a tune/break, you can open a dialog with its notes. Use the Play, Pause and Stop icons to play the tune/break. A black line will wander through the notes and indicate which part of the tune/break is currently playing. You can also click somewhere between the numbers on top of the notes to start playing the tune/break from there.

The playback settings are also available. In addition, headphones and mute icons are available next to each instrument:

Clicking the headphones icon next to an instrument will temporarily silence all other instruments so that you can listen to just this one. Clicking it again will enable the other instruments again. Pro tip: Holding the Ctrl or Shift key while clicking the headphones icon makes it possible to enable multiple headphones at once.
Clicking the mute icon next to an instrument will temporarily silence this instrument. Click it again to enable the instrument again. Clicking the mute icon next to the numbers on top will mute all instruments, which you can use if you want to unmute specific instruments only.

Note: You can find a link to the printable “official” version of the tune sheet on the tune page under “Notation”.