Changing staff spacing
How can I change spacing between just two staves?
Style->Edit->page->stave distance does change spacing between all staves, but I want to change spacing between two staves.
Staff spacer works as I want, but the effect doesn't affect whole score.
I'm using musescore 0.9.5
Comments
Putting a spacer between all the staves you want to space?
In reply to Putting a spacer between all by [DELETED] 5
Yeah, I could do that. But i wish there's some easier way to do it. For 10 minute piece, it's quite time consuming process...
In reply to takes a lot of time... by ghert
Go to Style>Edit General Style>Page and experiment with Staff distance and System distance. I'm not sure of the difference, but someone will hopefully explain.
Regards,
In reply to Go to by xavierjazz
I guess staff distance is the distance between the staves of a given system. So it's not useful for a one staff score.
System distance is the distance between the systems.
In reply to I guess staff distance is the by [DELETED] 5
Wouldn't it be a lot easier if you could just drag staves vertically to change their spacing? Then you could actually see what you were doing instead of having to guess over and over.
In reply to Wouldn't it be a lot easier by Andy Fielding
One by one ? When you have 3 staves maybe but not with 100. You can move one staff vertically by using a spacer. See Break or spacer
In reply to One by one ? When you have 3 by [DELETED] 5
I could imagine dragging one staff and having the changes you made to it apply globally to the spacing parameter. Seems like finale does something like this.
Overall, though, I don't tend to play with spacing that much once I've set up a template the I like.
In Musescore 2.0
Style -> General -> Page ->Min. system distance
It worked :D
In reply to In Musescore 2.0 Style -> by mangaostar
Style - general - page - grand staff distance worked for me. Nothing else I tried made any difference.
In reply to Style - general - page -… by Marty Hirsch
That's because you were presumably trying to change the distance between the staves of a grand staff - eg, top and bottom staves for piano. Had you been attempting to change distance between staves for different instruments eg, the flute and oboe staves for a wind quintet - then you would have found that only "staff distance" had the desired effect. Or, if you were trying to change the distance between systems - one set of parallel staves for all instruments and the next set - then you'd have found that the two system distance settings were what you needed. Different tools for different jobs.
God.. im no the only one haha having the same issue :(! hope you find the answer.. im trying to manage a way to do it..
In reply to God.. im no the only one… by Alan Smith Estay
If you want to change the distance only between two instruments, you can adjust an extra distance above the staff in "staff properties" (right click on the staff) or dragging a staff by holding shift: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/staff-properties
In reply to God.. im no the only one… by Alan Smith Estay
The original question was about increasing distance between two staves within a system, but doing this throughout the score. it was suggested that drgging would be good. This was actually implemented several years ago. Then people complained it was too easy to do accidentally, so it got changed to Shift+drag, and that is how it can be done currently. Or you can go to Staff Properties as mentioned.
If your actual issue is something else, please start a new thread and explain in more detail what you are having trouble with, and ideally, attach your score to help us understand.
In reply to The original question was… by Marc Sabatella
Heh, talk about timing!
For some weird reason, I want to increase the spaces between my SATB in the systems, and of course I tried the direction mentioned here (Style→General→Page→Staff Distance). But when I change the figure, I only get the desired effect (in this case more spacing) between the altos and tenors - that's it. Sop/Alto and Tenor/Bass remains the same! So I have a "gap" between the top 2 and bottom 2 voices (I understand my piano reduction grand staff is done separately). Why is it only separating those two, and not all four, voice staves? Otherwise I'll have to muck with the spacers from the palette? Why in the world would this only do it for those two? Did something creep into my system to make Musescore think the S and B voices should have the exact same properties (and therefore respond equally to this global command?).
Wut's happening?? I very much need that global ability!
In reply to Heh, talk about timing!… by mikeaustin
Hard to say for sure without seeing your score - you can attach it via the "Choose a file" button below where you type your reply). But my best guess is, your top two staves and your bottom two staves were each created as a "grand staff" - one instrument with two staves rather than two instruments with one staff each. To affect the distance within the grand staff, you need, naturally enough, "Grand staff distance".
For the record, it would be better to set up your SATB scores as four instruments of one staff each, not two instruments of two staves. If you use the SATB template, this happens automatically.
In reply to Hard to say for sure without… by Marc Sabatella
Well I did use the SATB/Piano template, that's why this is puzzling me. And I have another piece, that when I try to use this feature, it adjusts only the space between the bass and the piano grand staff! But yes, I did absolutely use the provided template, didn't construct the parts one by one.
Here's an example like you suggested, pulled from one page - the entire piece has this separation in between the alto and tenor (which of course is what I want, only... uh... between each of the other voices, too). I think the standard is 2.5, I put about 7.0 just to exaggerate and show the difference, and how it only shows up between those two staves.
For some reason, this command is not working as expected in either of my choral pieces - and I used the SATB/piano template for each (didn't copy from one to the other... started both cold (with blank template).
Sumpin' ain't kosher, is it possible that if I accidentally made any changes to the staves (i.e. accidentally dragged a voice name but just used cmd-Z to undo), it affected it? I'm using Mac version, my computer is iMac running latest OS version (10.13.5). Duh....
In reply to Well I did use the SATB… by mikeaustin
Update: Well I did manage to solve my overall problem (needing to use more of the "white space" on the page) by scaling up the notation, so now it takes up a lot more room and is easier to read. So although I solved the problem that made me go to staff spacing in the first place, I still am curious as to why that command isn't working right for me. I'll set up a new template down the line and try it out early in the process just to see if it works then.
Maybe something I accidentally tweaked with in both pieces did something to affect global spacing. Don't know, but I'll keep checking here, thanks for the help so far!
In reply to Update: Well I did manage to… by mikeaustin
BTW, to use up more "white space" the usual thing would be to increase the max system distance.
In reply to BTW, to use up more "white… by Marc Sabatella
Yes, I understand that, but in this case I needed everything to be larger. After doing the Layout→Page Settings→Scaling, it got me the 2 systems on each page, but there was way too much white space around the margins. So rather than just separate the space between systems, I scaled it up to the max size doable before it was too big for the page (i.e. went to one system/page). That worked out perfectly, even without spacing between any staves or systems.
In reply to Well I did use the SATB… by mikeaustin
Again, posting the score (not a picture of it) would help us do more than guess. All I can say is it looks like things are exactly as I guessed previously - for whatever reason, your score has S & A as a single grand staff. Could also be something funny about your lyric settings. Normally you shouldn't need to add more space between staves, the lyrics should allocate this automatically. BTW, the default for staff distance is 7sp, not 2.5, leading me to think maybe you're playing with the wrong value entirely. The result shown in your picture woud also happen if you actually tried changing the "Extra distance above staff" in Staff Properties for the Tenor staff only, instead of changing the "Staff distance" in Style / General / Page.
In reply to Again, posting the score … by Marc Sabatella
Well, I'm sure I used the right field ("Staff Distance"), no question about that.
When I adjusted the system globally to fit 2 systems per page, the default went to 2.5sp. I don't know why. And then the staff distance command only worked with those 2 staves.
Just for the heck of it I opened a new template (again SATB/Pia.) and did the command there. All 4 SATB staves distanced properly. So after I manipulated the page settings to allow 2 systems per page, the staff distance field defaulted to 2.5sp. I don't know why. And after that, it didn't allow me to do the command globally (for all 4 staves). Again, not sure why. However, it did allow me to expand the size (make everything on the page larger and use up more marginal white space) with no problem.
I guess I just have to keep an eye on it. If worse comes to worst, there's the spacing feature in the palette, but I'll see what happens my next piece. For now as I've said my main problem is solved, although why this command didn't work globally for me is still kind of a mystery, since there was plenty of room to separate SATB staves on the page. Thanks for your input, though!
In reply to Well, I'm sure I used the… by mikeaustin
The "Staff distance" style setting never changes on its own. If it became 2.5sp, it has to be a result of you actually making that change. You say you "manipulate the page settings to allow 2 systems per page", what did you actually do? Were you dragging staves around on the page (with shift+drag) or what?
Again, if you attach your actual score, we can do better than guess and could likely have this sorted out in minutes rather than days...
In reply to The "Staff distance" style… by Marc Sabatella
Meh, thanks for the offer, but I actually did sort it out, in a way. In the end, I simply used the spacer function in the palette and that feature worked fine and gave me what I wanted. All in all it took maybe 4 minutes to do about 30 spacings - still far, far quicker than even writing about the other method I tried in the long run. I didn't do anything you mentioned except simply scaled the page larger (as is the most common way to do it) to adjust so I have 2 systems per page, that's it.
I decided that 1) since I absolutely did nothing directly to change these dimensions, 2) definitely did not enter stuff in the wrong fields, etc. and 3) that the problem exists in my 2 scores (the other score didn't work either, but it didn't need the spacing, so the point is moot for that one), but seemed to work when I opened a new, blank one of the same template (which I did, to test), and 3) I got it fixed anyway by the other method and this doesn't seem to be a more widespread problem, if it happens again, I'll put the score here for analysis. Obviously something happened, but it was inadvertently done, and like I said, I absolutely know what I consciously did and didn't do. So it had to have happened while I did something that was more indirect. Otherwise I never would have asked in the first place. Hopefully this won't happen again. If it does, I'll put the score up.