How to change order of voice input
For my barbershop score, I would like to input the melody line first and the bass line second, since these are the easiest to determine. From MuseScore perspective, these are the 2nd and 4th voice in terms of stem orientation. MuseScore seems to insist on getting the highest voice first and the lowest voice fourth (for stem orientation). When I found a way to defeat this, I was left with unwanted rests that I could not delete. Must I enter top tenor first?
Comments
If you are trying to enter all 4 voices on a single line, then keep in mind voice 1 and 3 have stems up the others are stem down. Voice 1 notes are impossible to delete, but can be made invisible by selecting it and pressing V.
I suspect you are entering the tenor and bass on a separate clef. If this is the case use only voices 1&2 on both staffs. Do not get voices on a staff confused with sung voices, they are quite different. Always start using voices 1 & 2 on every staff, then add other voices if more rhythms are needed. More than 2 voices on a staff mostly happens with keyboard music.
In reply to If you are trying to enter… by mike320
Thanks Mike. I was trying to call baritone and bass voices 3 and 4 on the base clef. I will correct that. But I still have a problem with entering the melody first because Mews score seems to interpret the first one entered as voice one and wants to turn those stems up. When I tried 2 simply reverse voices 1 and 2 I was left with unwanted rests which I could not delete.
In reply to Thanks Mike. I was trying to… by alrobnett
You will presumably enter notes into voice 1 of each staff at some point so everyone know what to sing. What you can do initially is only enter the notes in voice 1 for the Tenor and Bass. When you are ready to enter notes for the other voices, select the measures with notes and use Edit->Voices->Exchange Voices 1-2 to create the rests you will end up replacing with the higher notes. Before the voice exchange, the stems will be up and down as is common practice. Once you exchange the voices all of the Tenor and Bass notes will have their stems down.
In reply to You will presumably enter… by mike320
Thanks again. Your suggestion sounds very much like something that I tried. I entered lead first, then tenor. After reversing voices. I was left with rests that I could not delete. Is there some trick to deleting unwanted rests?
In reply to You will presumably enter… by mike320
Specifically, I could highlight the extraneous rests, but could not delete them.
In reply to Specifically, I could… by alrobnett
There should be no extraneous rests if you used voices 1 and 2 for the two singers. Each person needs to know when he rests. If you mean you still have nothing but rests in voice 1 (they will be blue when selected), then you have not done it correctly. The voice buttons at the top are color coded according to the color they are when selected. Using this you can determine which voice you are using and what exchanges you will need to make to put the notes only in voices 1 & 2. Rests in all voices but 1 can be deleted.
You can enter voices in any order you like, but you do need to select the correct voice first. And soprano should be voice 1, and alto voice 2, since the default is for odd voices have stems up and even voices have stems down. So if you wish to enter alto before soprano, that's fine, simply select voice 2 before you start entering notes.
if you've accidentally entered notes into the wrong voices, use Edit / Voices / Exchange to fix it. Rests in voice 1 cannot be deleted - they need to be there in order for the rhythms to add up to the proper number of beats. So leave those, but you are free to delete the voice 2 rests if you are confident the rules of music notation allow those specific rests to be deleted without causing confusion. Some are legal to delete, others are not, but MuseScore will allow you to delete them all, so be careful you don't delete ones that are musically necessary. It's often better to hide them than delete them.
If that doesn't completely answer your questions, please attach your score and we can help you better.