Can't add lines to voices other than voice 1
I don't consider this a true bug, but an inconsistency. I couldn't add a line to any voice except voice 1. However, after adding the line, I can move the line to another voice and the start and end handles will reposition themselves. This is in version 3.6.2.
Comments
Can you attach your score and describe the issue in more detail? I was able to attach a line to a note in voice 2 when I just tried it. But I'm also not sure what you mean about moving a line to another voice, I can't think of a way to do that.
In reply to Can you attach your score… by Marc Sabatella
Marc,
Thank you for your help. When I say "move" I mean I click on line element and drag it forward or backward. The start and end handles will move and reposition themselves to another note (in this case a voice 2 note).
Here is a small section from a larger score I am working on. Grab a line from the line palette and try to place it on the quarter notes (voice 2). However, you can drop it on the whole notes, then move it to the quarter notes, which if fine but just another step.
BTW: I can't add an arpeggio to any voice except voice 1, which is an old bug, but I would have thought it would have been fixed by now.
In reply to Marc, Thank you for your… by odelphi231
Drag and drop is indeed pretty limited (and slow), but the normal way of adding palette symbols - by selecting a note or range and then clicking the palette element - works fine. Arpeggios, however, can be added in any voice by either method - click or drag and drop. Only lines have the drag & drop limitation.
As for moving the line after adding it in voice 1, you are indeed changing the start position, but it remains in voice 1, FWIW. That's why I was confused.
In reply to Drag and drop is indeed… by Marc Sabatella
You are right. Clicking works, but drag and drop doesn't. That is what I meant by an inconsistency - not really a bug. Not sure what you mean by "it remains in voice 1". Are you saying the effect that the line has is only having an effect on the initial voice that you put the line on, not the voices that you move the line to? So, for instance, if you put a pedal line on voice 1, it doesn't have any effect on the other voice in the measure? If that is true, that is a problem. So if you have 2 voices in a measure, you need two pedal lines to get the damper pedal effect for all the notes in the measure?
I guess I wasn't clear about the arpeggio. You can't cross voices with an arpeggio, which is an old limitation(bug) but I thought it was being worked on to fix it.
In reply to You are right. Clicking… by odelphi231
What I mean is, every element belongs to a specific voice, and you can see the that by checking the color when you select it. Blue means voice 1, green voice 2, etc. Notes can obviously be entered in any voice, but this also applies to texts and some other elements - if you added them to a note that is in voice two, the element itself is added in voice 2, and will highlight in green. But not so for (most) lines. Regardless of which voice you have selected when adding them, they always get added in voice 1 and always remain there. You can move notes from voice to voice by pressing the voice buttons, and that/s what I thought you meant when you said you were moving the line to voice 2. But this doesn't work for lines or other objects.
Only exceptions I can think of to the general rule that lines always live in voice 1 are slurs and hairpins, these are added to the specific voices of the notes you attach them to. And then, a slur or hairpin added to notes in voice 2 will appear green.
In reply to What I mean is, every… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you for the explanation but it doesn't address my concern about pedal elements added to a measure. If you have multiple voices in a measure does the pedal line only affect the voice the pedal was added to. So, if a measure has notes in voice 1 and 2, the pedal will sustain the notes in voice 1 but the notes in voice 2 will be damped as soon as they are played? That is not good. On a real piano, doesn't matter what voices are being played together (Bach sometimes had 3 voices going on simultaneously), the damper pedal sustains all the notes, until you release the pedal. That is how I want Musescore to work with pedal elements (actually I want all elements to work that way).
In reply to Thank you for the… by odelphi231
The pedal applies to all voices in all staves of a single instrument - so both staves for a piano. Play the attached example and hear how the built up chord is sustained.
In reply to The pedal applies to all… by SteveBlower
Whew! Thanks. I was worried that my pedaling wasn't working on multiple voices. So I guess some elements do effect all voices. How does Musescore pick and choose what elements affect all voices and what elements don't?
In reply to Whew! Thanks. I was worried… by odelphi231
They affect pretty much what you would expect. Voltas and other jumps and repeats affect the whole score. Tempos affect the whole score (it would be chaos if they didn't!). Clefs affect the individual staves.
Instrument definitions (and their associated transpositions) affect individual instruments (parts). Articulations affect the individual notes (or chords) they are attached to - if they have any effect on playback at all that is. 8va affects the whole stave. Time signatures and key signatures are normally set identically for each stave but can be set differently if that is what you need.
Dynamics and hairpins offer a few subtleties. By default the affect the whole instrument, so both staves for a piano, but in the inspector you can change that to affect only one stave. If you like you can also set dynamics to affect the whole score by setting the dynamic range to "system". To set different dynamics for different voices you would need to tweak the velocities of the individual voices in the inspector. But how often do you see different dynamics notated for individual voices?
If in doubt, experiment!
In reply to Whew! Thanks. I was worried… by odelphi231
We try to make things do what one would expect by default. Pianos are physically incapable of applying damper pedal to some notes but not others, so MuseScore applies it to allow notes in the same way, just as any synthesizer does actually. Not sure what other elements you might be concerned with, but normally there is a pretty clear expected answer we try to follow by default, and provide overrides for where necessary (eg, for dynamics you can use the Inspector to set a given dynamic to a single staff rather than the whole instrument as it normally would, or use the note velocity settings to have different notes with different dynamics in different voices, even though normally a dynamic marking applies to all voices).