Voice 1 in 4/4 and Voice 2 in 3/4 - Both in the Same Measure?

• Aug 27, 2018 - 03:59

In the attached file, the second voice behaves as if it only in 3/4 time, allowing no other notes to be added after the dotted half-note.
Only if the dotted half-note in Voice 2 is deleted, can Voice 2 can have 4/4's worth of notes inserted.
Why?

Attachment Size
Bad Voice 2 Note.mscz 3.07 KB

Comments

• Aug 27, 2018 - 04:49

This is because you (or someone) deleted the voice 2 rest on beat 4. To restore the rest so you can enter another note you can, NOT in note input mode, select the dotted half and press 7 to make it a whole note then 6. to return it to a dotted 1/2 note followed by a 1/4 rest.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 04:59

Thanks, Mike.
Is that how MuseScore is supposed to work for Note input in Voice 2 and above?
That is, if you delete a note and also the rest for a note in Voice 2, 3, or 4, then note Input cannot occur where the deleted rest used to be, unless a previous Voice 2, 3, or 4 note is expanded in time and then reduced to "restore" the deleted Rest?

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 05:37

You might call it a bit presumptuous, but MuseScore believes you know what you're doing when you delete a rest. There are other ways to restore the rest such as exchanging voices 1 & 2 twice (or another voice and 1 for other voices). This is one way to take advantage of the fact that voice 1 must always have the correct number of beats for the time signature.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 07:17

Mike,
Thanks for providing the additional method of exchanging voices. That restores the rest very easily, and without having to disturb the notes already entered.
This measure is part of a larger XML file imported from SmartScore XP, following the recognition of a scanned PDF.
In this case, the presumption to which you refer would be incorrect because the rest wasn't deleted - it was just not present in the XML import.
So I suppose it might be better to call it a missing rest, and as such, it could present an issue for others who import XML files into MuseScore.
Do you happen to know if the behavior of missing higher voice rests is documented in Marc's Handbook, or elsewhere?
-Tom

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 14:47

Regardless of the origin of the score, there is no rest on beat 4 in voice 2. Most XML imports have seemingly random rests deleted. The fact that the rest is deleted rather than made invisible is the fault of SmartScore, not MuseScore since it has no internal PDF import capability. If you import a PDF, you can count on needing to clean it up and make corrections. PDF music import is a relatively new, undeveloped technology and I've not seen any PDF tool that is perfect. It's faster but by no means more accurate that a human inputting the score.

I don't understand in your snippet why the voice 1 beat 4 rest is invisible while the voice 2 rest is deleted. The time signature is 4/4 but the measure will print as 3/4.

The MuseScore handbook lacks explicit information telling you that you must have a rest before you can replace it with a note in other than verse 1. I guess that needs to be fixed. I know this from experience because I know many of the capabilities of MuseScore. As far as which method to fix it I chose to tell you first is because I usually use keyboard and I gave you a method that will use only the keyboard with shortcuts predefined in MuseScore. Both methods restore the measure to the state you needed it to be without making any permanent changes to the measure. Both methods disturb the notes already entered and exchanging voice disturbs more notes, but both have the desired end result.

I've never read Marc's book so I couldn't tell you anything about what it says.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 17:34

My book talks abut rests in multiple voices and recommends hiding over deleting and mentions the problem with "holes" as being the reason. I don't go into more detail on how to solve those problems. Probably I should....

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 13:09

I was unaware of the potential problems caused by deleting rests. I've got no problem with simply hiding rests, but with busy multi-voice scores, the visual clutter of shaded invisible elements can still be a distraction. I have made it a habit of exporting a PDF of larger works so I could proofread my scores before sending them to the printers. Is there a quick way of viewing a score with hidden elements truly invisible?

Regards,
Tom

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 14:58

It's a bug. To hide several dots at once. Select measures or partial measures with only dots you want hidden, right click a dot, choose select>all similar items in range selection and press V to make them invisible. Note that the dots don't care if they are on notes or rests, so avoid notes where you don't want dots made invisible.

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 15:12

When you select a group of measures, change the selector to only a singe voice leaving everything else untouched, press V and are left with nothing but a bunch of dots, that is a bug. A dot is a part of a note or a rest and should be made invisible with the associated note or rest, but this does not happen.

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 15:34

v toggles almost everything but the dots as far as I can tell.

The only other artifact I can think of is a tie to the first note of a measure that comes from the previous system. Select the entire measure and press V. I'm not sure it's best to call that a bug though since it belongs to the previous, still visible, system as well.

Any other artifacts should be items that were previously invisible. Since v toggles visibility, invisible items should be made visible at the same time visible items are made invisible.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 17:32

FWIW, I'm not crazy about the way MuseScore allows you to delete rests thus leaving "holes". Makes it hard to figure out how to enter music, also occasionally leads to bugs where we don't account for the holes properly. I'd rather see the rests simply be made invisible, as we now do in voice 1. But I've been a minority voice on this. I guess I can see why some value the ability to create these holes. But I do think if we provide the option to shoot yourself in the foot this way, we have a responsibility to also provide a decent first-aid kit :-). Not sure what that would look like, but yeah, dealing with holes should make more sense than it does.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 17:46

Thanks, Marc & Mike.
Again, the issue pertains not only to deleted rests in upper voices, but to XML imports where the rests are missing, so the user never saw them in the first place.
In either case the simplest fix, I believe, is to do as Mike suggests: swap voices twice to restore the missing rests. Swapping twice restores all the swapped notes to their original state, and adds back any missing upper voice rests.
If you can add a few sentences to this effect in any Help text or documentation, it might avoid confusion by other users who run into the "deleted or missing upper voice rest" problem.
And although you might be able to change MuseScore to only hide and not delete upper voices rests when editing scores, would that would resolve this issue of XML files that are imported with missing rests?
-Tom

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 18:02

Not in itself, good point. But if we did change the behavior of delete to not allow holes, we'd presumably also change the import to not create them that way either. Basically, I think the policy should be "no holes allowed". but as I mentioned, I seem to be a minority voice here.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 18:41

There are times when deleting rests makes more sense and times when hiding them makes more sense in my opinion. I can't point to a specific this one makes more sense but that one doesn't, but I do the one that seems to make the most sense to me in the context of the music. It probably depends upon what affect it has on notes in other voices. Giving the user the ability to make his own choice is always better in my opinion. We see a large number of people in the forums who are frustrated they can't delete rests in voice 1!

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 18:49

Given the complexities involved with these sort of "holes" though, I suspect you can see why we don't allow them in voice 1. On the other hand, in builds of "master" that will eventually become MuseScore 3, it is currently the case that selecting a note or rest and hitting Ctrl+Delete will actually remove it completely, thus shortening the measure (as opposed to leaving content in other voices alone). I'm not sure how I feel about that, but anyhow, the way things are now is not necessarily how they will always be.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 19:03

I don't think measure duration should not be so easily altered. Pressing ctrl+delete to shorten the measure is far too easy and will lead to further problems and confusion for users. Making it too easy to shorten a measure was my point about people complaining they can't delete rests in voice 1. It makes no sense.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 20:32

I encounter a similar problem with shorter or longer measures being imported from XML files, and having no visual indication other the occasional "extra" rest appearing at the end of certain measures.
I have learned to use Measure Properties and step through imported songs from beginning to end while watching for changes in Nominal and Actual values in the Measure Duration box.
I think what may be disturbing is changes to measure duration can be made and not be obvious to the user.
I suppose some users might like being able to easily "shorten" measures, but if something visual were there to remind them of such changes, it could save a lot of frustration later on.
How about having a non-printing ending bar-line in a some color, like red, to show measures whose Nominal and Actual Durations are not the same?

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 18:58

FWIW, there is (in "master" builds) a visual indication of measures with altered durations - a symbol showing above the measure much like how line breaks are displayed. But it's only helpful if you know what the symbol means.

As I recall this change to the "delete" behavior was one of the very first things done when "master" branch split off from the 2.x branch several years ago - maybe even before the "smart layout" code. I recall people expresisng concern at the time and Werner explaining why he did it and it making just enough sense for me not to argue the matter further. I'm sure it's still possible to revisit this though.

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 19:07

Well, any visual indication is better than none. The composer expects that what they see is how the notes should be played. A symbol indicating altered durations would make my workflow faster because I wouldn't have to use Measure Properties to step through entire compositions, measure by measure, to check measure durations when importing XML files.
What would have been the argument against such an unobtrusive symbol?

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 19:34

There is no argument against the symbol. The possible quarrel is just with how easy it is to accidentally create these measures in master, and the feeling that users might do this and not know what they've done leading to lots of the same question over and over in the forum. But realistically, how often does someone select a partial measure then hit Ctrl+Delete? Maybe not often enough to be a concern.

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 19:41

That may be true, but for users like me, who import XML files that may already have missing rests, the concern remains. The visual indicator would be an aid to both of us, and I hope it gets implemented whether or not Ctrl-Delete is enabled.
For my own interest, what sorts of compositions are served by using Ctrl-Delete on partial measures, as you describe?

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• Aug 28, 2018 - 20:24

Right, and again, no one is complaining about the visual indications. There are already implemented, they work well from what I can tell, I can't imagine any reason they'd ever be removed. The only question is whether we continue to support the ability to create such measures so easily.

As for what sort of use cases tis helps with, I don't have a good answer for you. A quick way of creating a pickup or correspondingly shortened final measure, I guess. But many of the other things that come to mind are better served with the "split" command, since you'd want a balancing partial measure right afterwards (eg, mid-measure repeats, measures split across systems). Ways of making measures longer would probably be more generally useful - to do unmeasured music, cadenzas, or ornamental passages, for example. Here, you can use the "join" command, but it's kind of an awkward way of thinking about it. You really just want to lengthen a measure, not combine it with the next one, and having to insert a dummy measure just to join with seems unnecessarily indirect. Currently "master" builds allow you to insert notes using a keyboard command Ctrl+Shift+letter, thus lengthening the measure.

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• Aug 27, 2018 - 20:41

Hello Jojo,
Thank you for making this addition to the Handbook.
May I suggest adding a few words, so the whole thing reads like this:
"Note: If you do delete a rest in a higher voice (2-4), you will need to restore it before you can enter a note on that beat in that voice. The easiest way to fix such a measure is to exchange that Voice with Voice 1 twice, using Edit/Voices/Exchange Voice 1-2, etc. If you are importing XML files with multiple voices, you may also find that higher voices (those above Voice 1) are missing rests. Exchanging that voice with Voice 1 and then exchanging it back will restore the missing rests."
-Tom

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