Thoughts as a first-time user
Hey, I tried out Musescore for a few hours and I love it. I plan on switching to it from LMMS (a DAW), as I mostly use proper instruments anyways. Additionally, it helps me learn notation better. HOWEVER, I had and still have some real difficulties with using Musescore.
This is a list of those things, and I'm curious what solutions there are out there and whether people agree that some of those really need to be fixed.
(This List might be influenced by Tantacrul's youtube-video which made me aware of Musescore in the fist place. My reactions might therefore sometimes be a little over-dramatic.)
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Those hint-popups really are distracting... I guess I'll turn them off and watch a tutorial eventually.
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Why does placing notes need to be activated? Actually, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it does. Sometimes you can't place drum-beats because all the notes at the top left menu are grayed out. Most of the time it works just fine. No idea, what I'm doing wrong.
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I wanna add a new Instruments? Hmmm.... Should be in "Add" – nope.
Let's check again... nope.
Maybe "tools"? Nope.
Aaaaahh... "Palettes"? Nope.
Check "Add" again... still NOPE.
After 10 minutes of me and my dad, a professional programmer, searching for the option, i gave up and googled.
Well, it's actually in "edit". I guess i had missed it when glancing over - WHAT?? "Edit"? The place where Copy & Paste options are supposed to be? "Add" would be way more intuitive if you tried to ADD an instrument. -
Couldn't find arpeggios. Had to google. Putting them under "Add Palettes" actually makes sense, i just didn't think of it.
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I. Want. To. Be. Able. To. Delete. Breaks. PLEASE! Random 1/16th breaks that got added because I changed the length of one note are one of the most annoying things in Musescore. Make it so that if I delete a break, it gets added to the end of the measure. (I hope the thing is called measure... english isn't my fist language) If I delete a break in a row of breaks, join it with the previous/next break if they are of the same length. (or at least do so, if I delete BOTH of them.
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Why if i change a note's/key's length, a break gets added after it or a following note gets cut off?? This is super weird and causes A LOT of extra work. Just keep all lengths the same and move everything over a little bit. Please. This is the most important point on this list. It's not that it completely stops you from progressing, but it causes so much precious time to be lost! Is there a workaround I'm not aware of????
Just to highlight 5. & 6.: How would you change that measure so that the blue note is only active for 1/8 (=remove the dot after it) and – to compensate – make the following note is 1/8 as well instead of 1/16?
With 5. & 6. added (actually, 6 is sufficient), it would be 4 clicks.
a. Click on the blue note
b. Remove the dot
c. Click on the next note
d. Change its length to 1/8th
Easy.
Thoughts?
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Comments
Select an item with one click, press F1 to access the menu. The suggestion is to read the handbook
https://musescore.org/en/handbook and take a look at the How To https://musescore.org/en/howto?version=All
In reply to Select an item with one… by Shoichi
Shoichi, it is very nice of you to always try to help, but here the o.p. described things for which the feeling is " that's unintuitive".
Like the "add ..." which is not in the add menu.
By googling he has found the option. Not sure if recommending to read the user manual is the right answer here.
Well except that of course reading the manual is always a good idea of course.
In reply to Shoichi, it is very nice of… by frfancha
It's nice to see how Musescore-people always seem to be open to improvement ideas! :)
I agree, reading the manual first is the optimal way to go, but this was mainly meant to highlight what problems I, an unknowing user, had when first trying to do a few things.
Anyway, I'm especially interested in feedback to #5 and #6!
Welcome to MuseScore.
There are things that I would change also.
But I find it interesting that you would just dive into using a program without spending time in the manual. Plus calling it unintuitive based on....what? everyone's intuition is different. Any notation software is a complicated thing.
In reply to Welcome to MuseScore. There… by bobjp
I agree, reading the manual first is the optimal way to go, but this was mainly meant to highlight what problems I, an unknowing user, had when first trying to do a few things. #5 and especially #6 were the main motivation for writing this post.
If you have a particular reason why you think, for example, that "Instrument" should be in the "Edit" tab, please share it with me.
Also, I'm not sure designing something with the mindset "it's gonna be complicated anyways" will yield the greatest results.
In reply to I agree, reading the manual… by Mraco_o
Under the Edit tab we have Instruments as that is where one erm... edits the instruments. The Edit>Instruments dialogue allow you to add instruments remove instruments, add extra staves for instruments, change the staff type used for insturments, change instrument's visibility. It seems fairly logical to me. I think it would be rather less logical to have a separate Add>Instrument command that only did one thing and the rest of the things one wants to do with instruments somewhere else.
In reply to Under the Edit tab we have… by SteveBlower
I see, I guess I might have had problems because the thought I had in Mind was "I want to ADD an instrument".
I still think that "Edit" sounds like a weird placement for the Instrument option.
There aren't any genius other locations that I can suggest, it's just that in my mind, "Edit" is the place where you can find the options to, well, perform actions that aid editing the document. If there's an option to edit your instruments, it shouldn't be in this category.
If you look at the edit-menu, It's full of conventional options. Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+F, Settings, etc. All of them standart options.
Except for Instrument (I).
In reply to I see, I guess I might have… by Mraco_o
I always press i for it so I never even noticed which menu its in. I would have expected to find it in the View menu.
In reply to I see, I guess I might have… by Mraco_o
You edit the list of instruments for the score, delete, add, reorder. Under Add you wouldn't expect delete and reorder.
Doesn't make sense in the View menu either.
In reply to You edit the list of… by Jojo-Schmitz
MuseScore being a complex and domain specific piece of software, it is quite natural that some menu items don't have a perfectly obvious place for everybody.
It could help if MuseScore would have a "Quick command" popup in which you could type to filter a list of all existing commands.
Each command would have more than one name in that list:
Example typing 'add' would show 'add instrument' (and many more), 'delete' would show 'delete instrument', but both lines would go to the same instruments dialog.
In reply to MuseScore being a complex… by frfancha
That quick command sounds like a great idea!
Not sure if this is exactly what you meant, but I was really hoping for a search bar for functionalities of unknown position.
In regards to #5 & 6 I do want to point out that doing something right the first time is always easier. If you enter a series of notes and one note a few before the previous needs its duration changed some people might want only the measure to be moved and I've hear people say that more than the measure should move. I for one am quite used to the current behavior. I have to decide if it's easier for me to reenter what follows the note or if I should use cut and paste to move the following notes. On beat 1 of a 12/8 measure I might cut and paste, on beat 3 of a 4 beat measure I'll probably reenter the notes. I think the desire would rarely be for the entire score to move since barlines define downbeats. Where should the moving end?
Intuitive to one person is stupid to another (don't think I'm calling you stupid I just can't think of a better opposite of intuitive). The developers of MuseScore had to make a decision on what happens when you shorten or lengthen a note so the made it keep everything not affected by that note stay in place. No matter what they decided, some people weren't going to be happy.
If you immediately discover you've written the wrong duration of a note there are shortcuts to help with this. If you make a series for notes twice as long or half as long there are also tools to help with this. In the case of a single note earlier in the measure, you need to learn to be more accurate. I still struggle with my accuracy after using the program for more than 5 years.
In regards to #3, you add instruments in the instruments dialog. Press i to see it.
In reply to In regards to #5 & 6 I do… by mike320
For #5 & #6 it is just when one is still busy to write the melody, by far the easiest way to correct small rhythm errors is to have a pure full insert mode like Dorico has.
Once the score is nearly in place that insert mode becomes more or less useless, but in the initial input phase it would be a blessing to have it (as an option, not as default).
In reply to In regards to #5 & 6 I do… by mike320
Thank you for your reply.
> If you enter a series of notes and one note a few before the previous needs its duration changed some people might want only the measure to be moved and I've hear people say that more than the measure should move.
> The developers of MuseScore had to make a decision on what happens when you shorten or lengthen a note so the made it keep everything not affected by that note stay in place. No matter what they decided, some people weren't going to be happy.
Sounds like a set of input-systems / modes could be useful. Users could just toggle the one they prefer. Of course, that would mean a lot of work for developers.
> If you immediately discover you've written the wrong duration of a note there are shortcuts to help with this. If you make a series for notes twice as long or half as long there are also tools to help with this. In the case of a single note earlier in the measure, you need to learn to be more accurate. I still struggle with my accuracy after using the program for more than 5 years.
Honestly, this really sounds like a indicator to me that efficient systems for correcting notes should be designed and implemented.
This might be a crude comparison, but imagine working on a Word-Processor like MS Word or LibreOffice. You make a typo and it's REALLY difficult to correct the word after finishing the sentence as you only have the Alternate Insert Mode Cursor available to you. (see bottom picture) You realize, the best way to handle those situations is to
1. rewrite the whole sentence, starting from the typo
2. cut (CTRL + X) the whole sentence, starting from the typo, correct the word, then reinsert the rest of the sentence
3. Just don't make any typos.
Any word-processor like this would be considered unusable. We might want to improve that correction-mechanism and strive for similar "correctibility" as can be seen in other software.
In reply to Thank you for your reply. >… by Mraco_o
"Sounds like a set of input modes could be useful"
Like this https://musescore.org/en/handbook/note-input-modes you mean?
In reply to "Sounds like a set of input… by SteveBlower
No, like Dorico has.
In reply to No, like Dorico has. by frfancha
For those of us who do not use Dorico, can you explain what Dorico does that MuseScore doesn't. A quick look at Dorico's online help seemed to show two input modes that correspond to MuseScore's Step-time and Insert modes. There didn't seem to be anything like Repitch or Rhythm or Real-time modes. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.
In reply to "Sounds like a set of input… by SteveBlower
Kind of, yes. There's just a few problems with them like
1. the insert-mode doesn't visually show the user whether the new note will be inserted before or after the highlighted note.
2. the insert-mode can create impossible combinations (like 3 full notes within a measure) I know that the plus indicates a longer measure but an additional mode that moves notes into the next measure would be handy.
It really will save you time and frustration if you read the whole user manual. It doesn't actually take that long and you will find that some of your questions are already answered. Also you will have a much better idea of how everything fits together and you should retain enough to be able to say to yourself, "Ah, I know there's something about that in the manual. I'll look it up."
It's four clicks now....
a. enter note input mode
b. select eight note
c. click on the dotted eight
d. click on the next 16th note.
or....
a. select the dotted 8th
b. remove the dot.
c. enter note input mode
d. place an 8th note on the 16th rest. OK that's 5, but still easy.
I'm not sure what you mean by breaks.
In reply to It's four clicks now.... a… by bobjp
You actually just blew my mind. I guess I might just need a lot of practice and eventually I'll get used to doing things and how overwriting things works (which is what you do in step d. in both your examples.)
However, I might create a new bug report due to step (a.) in example 2. I actually tried this before, but I couldn't remove the dot because I tried to select the DOT and press [del]. Which usually works. It just doesn't work if the measure is completely full.
Oh, and by breaks I meant pauses/rests.
Ty for your help!
In reply to You actually just blew my… by Mraco_o
To clarify:
In step (a.) in example 2 the instruction is "select the dotted 8th." It is the note head that should be selected not the dot.
In step (b) "remove the dot" is done by toggling the dot off from the note input tool bar or by using the keyboard shortcut "." or by using the "reduce duration dotted" shortcut Shift+Q.
The dot is selectable so that it can be moved or made invisible. It can't be deleted - perhaps it could be made to work that way but it has never occurred to me to try delete to remove a dot.
In reply to To clarify: In step (a.) in… by SteveBlower
Thanks, Steve. Yes, un-toggle the dot.
I don't recall ever having to go back and change a rhythm the way the OP specified. The second method is what I tried first. But as I thought about it, the first method is much easier and more like a word processor.
In reply to Thanks, Steve. Yes, un… by bobjp
I thought further clarification was needed as the OP said "... I couldn't remove the dot because I tried to select the DOT and press [del]. Which usually works. It just doesn't work if the measure is completely full."
I was surprised by "which usually works". As far as I know in MuseScore it never works.
In reply to I thought further… by SteveBlower
This is really weird... I just retried it and it didn't work... However, I'm certain that at some point it did work. I managed to remove the dots without knowing of that toggle-button for the first two hours somehow.
In reply to This is really weird... I… by Mraco_o
The normal way to change a dotted note into a non-dotted one - or, indeed, to make any duration change, including eighth to half or whole to sixteenth - is to simply select the note then click the desired duration (or use the corresponding shortcut).
And indeed, deleting a dot is not a supported way of doing anything.
In general, coming at MuseScore expecting it to work like DAW software rather than notation software will be frustrating. It will work more like other notation software, but even then, they all work differently, and everyone has different experiences in life and thus different notions of what is "intuitive". So definitely, time spent checking the documentation is well spent. But also, rather than thinking of learning MuseScore as a way to learn notation, try thinking of that the other way around. Once you understand music notation better, MuseScore also will start to make more sense :-)
In reply to The normal way to change a… by Marc Sabatella
I'll do my best! :)