The Instruments window is used to add and edit intruments and their abbreviations used for Brian. These instruments and abbreviations have been seen on the popup menus of the Sidemen and Personnel windows. The abbreviations are seen in reports generated by Brian.
If you are using the starter database availble on the Jazz Discography web site, then instruments are preloaded for you. If you create a Brian database from scratch, you will need to enter your own instruments. This tutorial demonstrates using a database created from scratch but even using the starter database, you may want to add or edit instruments and the procedures are the same.
To open the Instrument window, select the Instruments item from the Windows menu. The picture below show the Instruments window as it is first opened in a new database. When a database is created, the Leader entry is created automatically. It is recommended to use this entry "as is" because some reports and reports features will rely on seeing this entry. For instance, the highlighting of the leader of a session on the session report will look for this entry.
Press the New button to add an instrument to the database.
Type the instrument name in the Instrument field and the abbreviation in the Abbrev. field. The abbreviation can be any 3 letter combination. The abbreviation must be unique to other instrument abbreviations on the database. Brian will issue an error warning if you try to save a duplicate abbreviation and stop the save. Press the Save button to, as shown below to save the new entry.
The picture below shows the window after the Save has been completed.
The picture below shows the Instrument window after many instruments have been added. Notice the Up and Down buttons to the left of the instrument list. They are used to change the order of the instrument. The buttons will move whichever entry is selected in the list. The Up button is dimmed because the top entry, Leader, is already up as far as it can go.
The order of instruments in the list affects the order in which sidemen appear in the reports. Sidemen are always shown with the instrument they play and the order is by instrument.
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