Staves and bars margins/spacing

• Jul 7, 2024 - 01:08

Hi all, I don't think this question has been asked on this forum, specifically. Or at least not to my knowledge. Although I have been trying to follow some of the previous tips I have found here and there on this forum as well as on the web, I am still puzzled.
I have an old score at hand, and I am almost done re-writing it all. I would also love to try to match the same spacing between notes and the width of the bars used. I know, it's not functional - maybe - but that is the goal I wish to achieve.
I have been trying to impose a break every certain number of bars, but the problem I have then is: certain bars are way too stretched.
Any suggestions or helpful tips? Many thanks. Here attached one screenshot from the Musescore sheet and one from the original sheet.

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Capture.PNG 144.46 KB

Comments

• Jul 7, 2024 - 02:07
  1. In the same palette as you found the system break item you can find “keep measures on same system”.
  2. Drag notes left-to-right with the mouse to change individual spacing.
    Maybe next time attach a score :-)

(Note: I see that there are no braces on the grand staff; you can get these from the “brackets and braces” palette. Or whatever it’s called. I don’t know if you want it but IMHO it looks rather ugly without a brace.)

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• Jul 7, 2024 - 16:30

Thank you for your prompt reply!

  1. I don't seem to be able to find it, or I simply don't have it in the section you mentioned it (attached picture, there are no further option in the "more" section and I am running a free version of Musescore, not sure if it makes a difference at all);
  2. I will give it a try; also, I will try to attach a score as soon as I have figured it out, it was my ever first message on the forum, I didn't know what was custom, ahah!

About the braces, I agree with you, it's rather ugly, I don't know what has happened there, I had them at the very beginning. As I worked my way through the piano part, I then added the Voice stave and it's around that time that they disappear (I can't swear exactly when, but that is roughly what I remember. Deffo had them at the beginning though).

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BreaksnSpacers.PNG 4.71 KB

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• Jul 7, 2024 - 23:05

Yeah, so, after I have re-read your message I realised I might have a different version of MS. And that was the case. I got my hands on MS4 now, and I managed to noticed some new interesting additions.
As per my issue, I have managed to page the score roughly the way I wanted (at least when it comes to number of bars per line).
I however, don't seem to be able to pus the first bar's left margin away from the page's margin (basically creating more spacing between the page's margin and the beginning of the first stave). I thought it would be easier, but I don't seem to be able to do it after fidgeting for hours on end.

Oh, as you can see, I also managed to add the brackets!

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Reply

• Jul 7, 2024 - 02:25

The first line of the original is indented, so measures are less stretched out than MuseScore's first line.
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/systems-and-horizontal-spacing#Crea…

Also, in the MuseScore sheet, you can select measures 14 to 20 and decrease stretch to fit on one line.
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/systems-and-horizontal-spacing#layo…

Other thoughts:
Be sure the page size is the same for both scores. (Wider paper allows for notes to be more stretched out (given the same margin settings).

If notes look bigger in the original (and the spaces in the staff are wider in the original), you can increase scaling in MuseScore..
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/score-size-and-spacing#scaling

Reply

• Jul 7, 2024 - 23:12

Thank you a lot from your prompt reply as well.
I have managed to read through the first link you sent me, and it has proven to be useful when it comes of spacing. By itself alone the spacing tool was not effective, at least not until I have forced a specific number of bars to be within a single line using the system tool.

I don't exactly know what you mean when you talk about the page size (in theory, generally, I understand it, bigger page, more space, etc.) specifically, but I tried to explore settings regarding the size of objects on a score. Honestly, maybe it's because I am not well navigated with the software as of yet, but it looks extremely time-demanding, ahah!

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