Force Create Multi-measure Rest with Non-empty Measures

• Sep 17, 2024 - 02:29

Default software behavior seems to be to break a multi-measure rest in a part if a measure is anything other than completely empty in that part.

I'll provide a specific example:

Screenshot from 2024-09-16 20-52-47.png

There's no need to break the multi-measure rest as this particular player has no need to know of the rit/a tempo.

Possible Solution:
1. Keep tempo marks (e.g. Allegro, quarter=34, etc.) in the tempo palette with the current behavior
2. Create a new palette called "Tempo Alterations" or somesuch. Move everything in the current tempo palette from "accel" on down to the new palette and don't have them affect multi-measure rest creation.

While a user can get around this issue by adding the rit/a tempo as staff text in any affected staves, it won't play back and it won't have the extender line as the current implementation does. Nor will they appear in the standard location atop the score if that instrument is resting.

I realize there are folks who prefer the current implementation - it's something I've seen in movie scoring, for instance - but an option for those of us who don't would be wonderful, thanks!

OR...is there a way to transfer an existing element between palettes, and would that change its behavior?

V/R

K

Attachment Size
Screenshot from 2024-09-16 20-52-47.png 11.68 KB

Comments

Except there often is a need for tacet performers to know that sort of thing (at the very least it helps confirm you've counted correctly), so I wouldn't necessarily recommend you do leave it entirely off such parts unless you're desperately short of real estate. But I can see a case for putting the "rall." over the multi-rest (right justified), and likewise the "a tempo" (left justified) rather than giving them their own measures. If MuseScore doesn't even support adding any sort of text directive to a multi-measure rest I'd agree that's a feature worth considering.

In reply to by Dylan Nicholson1

To your first point - I agree there's sometimes a need, and would break the rest accordingly for the reasons you point out and notate the tempo changes. But this isn't one of those times...the entire rest is only 4 bars!

My main point is that I as the editor should have control over what my final product looks like, and not have to conform to the preferences of others, barring extreme programmatic difficulty (which the MuseScore team routinely overcomes...great job, folks). Being able to force multi-measure rests in the presence of a non-empty measure is something which comes in handy from time to time, and was implemented in Finale years ago. I think our programmers would do well to implement it in 5.0 when it comes.

However, I'm certainly on board with your last line! To my knowledge that's not implemented.

In reply to by K Frank Soper

I looked at a few orchestral parts and I suspect you're right that in most cases gradual tempo markings like "rall." and "accel." are typically not included in parts when there are no notes to play (or cue notes shown).
And there's no straightforward way I can think of where you can just select all gradual tempo markings that are over empty measures in a part and hide them all (which should then cause the correct multi-measure display, once that's fixed), so I'd say that's worth requesting as a feature, though I'm not sure how it should be best specified (my vote would be it's a property of a gradual tempo change: "hide for multi-measure rests", so that you can set it as a default if you like).

"While a user can get around this issue by adding the rit/a tempo as staff text in any affected staves," - in fact, general elements that are hidden only in parts still cause multi-measure rests to be broken, but there seems to be some special case for "staff text" elements that occur only in the last measure of series of empty ones. So if you did that "rit. . ." marking as "staff text" and it was in the 2nd last measure of an empty series, then hid it in a part, the multi-measure rest would still be broken.

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