How do I write old music with no bars?
Hey guys,
I know there's a couple of work-arounds for music with no bars - using insane time signatures like 100/1, making the barlines invisible and stuff like that. However, this brings a range of new problems:
If I use insane signatures, the program wants to show the entire bar in one system and the notes end up being written on top of each other.
If I make the barlines invisible, that somehow includes all repetition signs - how? Why? And I cannot exclude them from the invisibility.
Any help would be much appreciated. I work with version 4.4.4 currently (the constant updates are beyond annoying, especially if it's a work PC you don't have admin right on, so you have to ask somebody to come in for every single update. So that's why I haven't updated it yet).
Comments
Start by using Mensurstrich aka bar lines between the staves: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/mensural-notation-and-mensurstrich#… . Once you have the spacing and line lengths to your liking, you can join all the bars on each line to form a single bar: select them, then go to Tools→Measures→Join selected measures.
In reply to Start by using Mensurstrich… by Brer Fox
Thank you for your reply! Sadly, I don't need a Mensurstrich. They were used in art music, I'm working with songs which didn't use any meter at all. Which means no barlines whatsoever. It's working fine, but it remains impossible to add visible repetition signs.
In reply to Thank you for your reply!… by JoanneAugust
The reason I suggested Mensurstrich to start with was so that you would have some control over the line lengths on the page, but without having any notes tied over bar lines. There is an option to dot over the bar line. “Insane signatures” such as 100/1 of course won’t work, but if you lay it out with Mensurstrich first you have a much better idea of what would be more sensible, e.g. 53/4. If you want a repetition sign after, say 10 bars, then join ten bars to form one long one with a repetition bar line at the end - and so on.
For visible repetition signs, try this: instead of using the “invisible barlines option, select all the barlines (select one, then “all similar”) and press “v” to hide them. Then go to your repetition signs and unhide them by selecting and pressing “v” again.
This is the method I use, anyway, to produce unmetered music such as plainchant in MS3. Mensurstrich is a modern aid for modern choirs who can’t sing from original parts, which don’t have barlines , but I have found it a useful tool in some circumstances.