Multiple time signatures

• Nov 30, 2021 - 13:57

Is there a way to specify a multiple time signature on a single staff?

The example I'm thinking of, (shown here), has the first measure marked as 2/2 and 3/2, meaning any given measure may be either 2/2 or 3/2. Individual measures, (except the first), do not show the time signatures at all.

Thanks!

IMG_2493.jpg


Comments

It is not natively supported.

What I do in such a situation is write the first time signature as normal (here the 2/2) and then add the other as symbols from the Master Palette. In addition I give the first chord a bit of Leading Segment Space to make room for those symbols.
I do not add time signatures to the remaining measures, but adjust their actual duration by any of the available methods (join/split/insert mode/timewise delete).

Attachment Size
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In reply to by Swimszoots

This is an issue with MS which has plagued me for years--perhaps I should prepare and post a tutorial on it? (Or will that be unnecessary come next March?)

One tip--when drawing symbols from the Master Palette, make sure they're in the same font your using in the score (it's not automatic), otherwise they will look funny.

On the other hand: "For the measure durations, I figured I could add the time signatures as necessary and make them invisible. I'm not sure if there are any disadvantages of doing it that way, but it seems to work." Not necessary--much easier to right-click on the measure, select "Measure Properties," and adjust the Actual Duration for that measure accordingly.

In reply to by Swimszoots

> "I'm not sure if there are any disadvantages of doing it that way,"
I believe they have a tiny influence on horizontal layout of your score. And for me the "disadvantage" is as much in that adding time signatures and hiding them is additional effort/hassle which using the shortcuts for inserting notes during note entry mode (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+note) as is compared to removing time (Ctrl/Cmd+Del)

In reply to by jeetee

Yep, and now that you guys have pointed out an easier way, it's the way to go. As just an occasional user of MuseScore, I find the fantastic depth of functionality comes with a lot to learn.

But even with that, I give the folks that designed the note editor big props for creating a UI that stays out of your way so that someone who became fluent in the editor commands could manually create scores pretty quickly.

In reply to by Swimszoots

There's a new kind of feature I've wanted to also add & it looks something like this which is to have those newer kinds of notes added. This is the 7th Movement from Te Deum D-Dur H 146, not only are there 2 Different Time Signatures (3/2 & 2/2) but there's some Crazy notation like in the Soprano part it starts w/ a Whole note & then there's what looks like a Dotted Eighth note w/ a Half Note Head followed by what looks like a 16th Note w/ a Half Note Head.

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