Rests over cue bars

• May 25, 2022 - 12:37

I can’t find in the handbook any reference to showing a rest (usually) over a cue bar – by which I mean a bar where the cue notes are shown but the soloist is resting. Can somebody point me to the appropriate part of the handbook or tell me how to put them in please?


Comments

In reply to by SteveBlower

Thanks, Steve, very helpful. After several false starts I managed to make the process work. The voice 2 kept defaulting back to 1 as I started to enter the cue notes, seemed to work better if I selected the voice 2, then the note input button then the length of note I wanted to enter. The rests in voice 1 moved up and down automatically as I entered the cue notes depending on their positions on the stave. Appearance looked better with the slurs below the cue notes even though they should have been above as that allowed the rests in Voice 1 to be more visible. I was already aware of the “small” option in the inspector.

In reply to by Wolfgang41

My preferred method is to enter the notes as normal (they will be in Voice 1 by default), make them small and then select the measures containing the cue notes and press [Ctrl] 1 to swap Voices 1 and 2. You don't need to create Voice 2 nots or rests as the swap takes care of it for you.

In reply to by underquark

I just tried that on a test blank and put in four crochets in a 4/4 bar, and when I swapped to voice 2 it added four crochet rests above. Similar with next bar when I put in eight quavers and the switch to voice 2 added eight quaver rests.

So how do I combine the rests in each bar into a semibreve rest?

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Just selecting the first rest and changing duration put the semibreve rest at the beginning of the bar but using your second suggestion by highlighting a rest and the pressing Ctrl+Shift+Del changed it to a centred semibreve rest, effectively in one step. Useful thanks.

In reply to by Wolfgang41

And how did you swap to Voice 2? Did you click on [2] on the note entry toolbar? That will, indeed, give you 4 crotchet rests. If you don't create a Voice 2 but just enter the notes they will be in the default Voice 1; no need to do anything fancy. Then use the menu Tools >Voices >Exchange Voice 1-2 or use the shortcut of [Ctrl] 1 then it swaps the notes into Voice 2 and gives you whole measure rests in Voice 1.

In reply to by underquark

When I had entered the voice 1 notes as you suggested I couldn’t get the Ctrl+1 to do anything, despite several tries with both the number on the top row of the keyboard or the number pad. So I used the [2] on the note entry bar and that gave me the multiple rests. Jojo-Schmitz has suggested a couple of ways to change the rest to a semibreve (see thread above) and they work.

Also your suggestion of Tools >Voices >Exchange Voice 1-2 works as well, giving me a semibreve rest immediately.

Thanks for your advice.

In reply to by Wolfgang41

It is not clear why, once you have started entering notes in voice 2, MuseScore would switch note entry to voice 1 unless you told it to. The procedure (starting out of note entry mode) should be

  1. Click on a note or rest in voice 1 within the bar where you want the cue to start.
  2. Press N to enter note entry mode (step time assumed)
  3. Press voice 2 button - the highlight should turn green and move to the start of the bar (assuming voice 2 is currently empty)
  4. Start entering rests/notes.

Anything you enter after step 4 should go into voice 2.

If you swap steps 2 and 3 as you seem to say you did, you will move any note you have clicked on in step 1 from voice 1 to voice 2. This is how the voice buttons work. In note entry mode they determine where the next note or rest will go. Outside note entry mode they will move pre-existing notes to the specified voice (providing there is a note with a matching duration available or to make a chord with the moved note or a rest with sufficient duration to allow it to be overwritten by the moved note).

Compare https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/voices#instructions with https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/voices#change-voice

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