New to Muse - How to Add Measures to the next line down
I cannot figure out how to add a new line to continue to add measures. Command B adds another measure but to the end of the line that you are on and will keep adding measure on the same line until the line gets pretty full with measures. But what if you only want 3, 4 or 5 measures per line...how can you drop down and create more measures on the next line down?
Comments
When there are measures to start the next line, select the last measure you want on the line and add a system break from the palette or press the return/enter key on the alphanumeric keyboard (not the numeric keypad).
Welcome to the MuseScore community. MuseScore is an amazingly versatile tool: I never cease to be surprised by its capabilities, especially considering its price tag! I have enjoyed using it.
MuseScore will automatically increase the width of measures as you add notes to them, so that by the time you have written your score, there will naturally be only 3, 4, or 5 measures per line, with MuseScore automatically "wrapping." You can specify how wide you want empty measures to be by setting the "Minimum measure width" field at Style/General/Measure.
But if for some reason you want to force the measure you are adding to a new line, you can select the preceding measure and click on the "System break" icon under "Breaks & Spaces" on the "Palettes" sidebar. The attached score has a System break on the third measure.
As mentioned, the default - which is the norm in published music - is to fit as many measures on a line as possible. But if you have some special reason to want fewer - leadsheets, for example, or music for children - adding a system break as described above is indeed the way to go. I would just add you can also add these the same way you would in a word processor - simply press "Enter" after entering the last note you want on a line.
In reply to As mentioned, the default -… by Marc Sabatella
The problem, however, with using system breaks as the method of effecting fewer measures on a line is that as MuseScore automatically adjusts measure widths to accommodate additional notes or formatting changes, the measure you want to be the last measure on a line changes accordingly. If for example you decide you only want four measures in a line and so put a system break on every fourth measure, a situation may arise in which MuseScore has increased measure widths to where it wraps after three measures on a particular line, leaving the fourth measure on the next line by itself. If you for some reason you want the line to end on that specific measure itself, then the system break is indeed the way to go. If, however, the objective is to simply limit the maximum number of measures on any given line to, for example, four measures, then a better route is to increase the "Minimum measure width" setting to one-fourth the width of the line.
Thank you, Marc, for the hint about simply pressing {Enter} - that makes inserting system breaks delightfully simple!
In reply to The problem, however, with… by Glenn Blank
Well, no one ever said breaks were the way to fit more measures on a line. It's the way to fit fewer. Just like in a word processor. If you want more, then you need to make things smaller and/or more tightly spaced - again, just like a word processor. It's been suggested that we add a way of automatically doing "something" to force more measures to fit on a line, and it's not out of the question, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable, because how would I control whether MuseScore chooses to make the staff smaller, to decrease the minimum note distance, to decrease the "stretch" applied, etc. I'd personally rather choose this for myself.
Increasing minimum measure width is not something I'd recommend, and I don't see what advantage it would have here. I guess the idea is that it produces four measures on the lines that support it, but would allow for three elsewhere if that's all that fit? I'm not sure I can imagine any real world scenario where I'd want that. This very much defeats the main reason for trying to enforce four measures per line in the first place, which is to make the systems line up naturally with the musical phrases.
In reply to Well, no one ever said… by Marc Sabatella
I was not suggesting a way to fit more measures on a line, but fewer - but without ending up with the anomally of a single-measure line that forced line breaks might result in. Increasing the minimum measure width accomplishes exactly that - by keeping empty measures or measures with fewer notes at a sufficient width to prevent a line with, say, 10 measures.
But I think I was reading the original question differently than you. I read it as not asking for a specific number of measures per line but simply fewer measures than MuseScore was putting in each line - like within a range of 3 to 5 measures. But if the intent was to have exactly 4 (for example) measure in each line, no more and no less, then, yes, system breaks are the way to go. I wasn't envisioning a scenario that would call for that - but wanting each line to correspond with with a musical phrase certainly is such a scenario.
In reply to I was not suggesting a way… by Glenn Blank
If the goal is just to have fewer measures per system in general, not caring exactly where the breaks are, then none of these are right answer - instead, the relevant setting is Style / General / Measure / Spacing. This is the main spacing setting from which the Stretch commands under the Layout menu either increase or decrease, so another common method is to select all then increase stretch. As I mentioned, while increasing minimum width might produce a similar result as a side effect, it's the wrong tool for the job, and will potentially result in incorrect / inconsistent spacing by conventional standards of music engraving.
If the goal is to have exactly four measures per system - which is indeed a common need for the use cases I mentioned - the best way to do that is to set breaks every four, which enforces the maximum of four, then decrease the spacing or stretch as necessary to make sure you do get four on each system. Reducing spacing only gets you so far, though, it may also be necessary to reduce overall staff size or minimum note distance.
There are also some in-between cases, where we want four measures per line in general but need some lines to be different for specific reasons - eg, we want the pickup plus four more, or we want to squeeze the first and second ending both on the same line, or maybe one section of the song is 10 measures instead of 8, etc. So running "add/remove line breaks" piecemeal in sections, or adding breaks manually, is then the way to go.
Then there is the very common case where we don't care at all about breaks for the most part, but then we eyeball the score and realize it would look nicer if some particular system had one more or one fewer measure. Here, manual breaks and/or the stretch commands are the answer, and it will be best to work the score top to bottom as each change to one system will have a ripple effect on subsequent systems.
Lots of different cases to consider, but in pretty much all of them, it's breaks and spacing/stretch that are the two main tools one should be turning to.