How to get rid of grand staves, can't scroll to bottom of score, maybe one of two other things.

• Feb 10, 2019 - 00:08

I'm still really new with MuseScore. So far, I've used it to import a MIDI file that no other piece of scoring software I have access to could handle, but MuseScore handled it with aplomb. Saved me a huge amount of work.

Currently I'm at it again. I've managed to import a Concerto in 12 parts that I scanned from a pdf with another application. The music has problems and I'm gonna either edit it to fix it, or I'll discard it and key the score in manually. I'm probably gonna have to do the latter, but I haven't given up yet with this pdf to MIDI conversion just yet.

One thing the converter did was assign grand staves to all instruments. I managed to delete the bottom staff to only one -- clarinet -- but I haven't been able to do it with any of the other instruments. I deleted the clarinet's extra staff just by right clicking on it and then clicking on "delete." I have looked all through the menus and everywhere I know to look and I cannot find any command anywhere that allows me to specify whether or not I want an instrument to use the grand staff or just a single one. There's gotta be a command for this somewhere. Care to tell me where it's hiding?

Also, this same piece of music, I can't scroll to the bottom of the page. It won't let me get below about halfway through the staff of the ninth instrument. I'm counting instruments here and not staves. If I'm counting staves, it's 14. I tried zooming out and that didn't help. I tried dragging things around with the mouse and, well, that dragged the composition around on the screen, but I still couldn't get below the 14th staff. There are still three instruments below the point where it won't go any further.

And lastly (for now) I've noticed three different colorations to note heads. There's the normal black color, a drab sort of green color and a bright red color. Well, there's also blue, the color they turn when I click on them. The colorations appear to be randomly distributed in the music and I haven't yet been able to figure out how to get their colors to go away. Any suggestions?

Comments

• Feb 10, 2019 - 03:43

It's easier to help if you attach your score. As it is, I can suggest that when you first import the MIDI file, pay attention to the import panel which gives options for things like staff assignment. To remove (or add) staves later, use Edit / Instruments.

As for scrolling down, how are you trying, and what is preventing you? One possible guess is that you simply have too many staves to fit on the page given your current settings for paper and staff size. See Format / Page Settings and choose either smaller staves or larger paper.

The color are range warnings, telling you the notes are too high or low for the instruments selected. They are on screen only and don't print.

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• Feb 10, 2019 - 15:38

Hi Marc, thanks for your reply. Is this import panel that frame that appears at the bottom of the page, showing instrument assignments, etc.? I didn't really know what to do with it, so I left it alone. Thanks, I was able to remove the extra staves using Edit/Instruments.

I guess where I was having trouble with the Musescore interface is I've been picturing it as just pages in computer memory, not representations of physical pages. Because I tried zooming out and it didn't help. But after heeding your advice, I selected a slightly narrower spacing and now all twelve staves fit.

But your last comment isn't jiving with what's being displayed. For example, french horns, which have a range from G1 to F5 are showning green colored notes at F#4, and guitar, which has a range from E2 to B5 is showing red from C5 to B5. There are a few other areas where I think you're right -- the music is showing "out of range" conditions but this is because the software that interpreted the pdf set an incorrect clef. This is quite common in this scan, unfortunately, and is going to require considerable edit. Another potential problem I see is that each page can have possibly a different number of staves, since only those staves that contain musical data are shown on any given page. And it doesn't look like Musescore has picked up on this dropping in and out, which means I'm gonna get to move large amounts of music around. I think this is the reason why there are switches in clef seen scattered about because the switches in clef are actually switches in instruments. I'm gonna have to give everything a closer look.

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• Feb 10, 2019 - 16:22

Green is there to help composers who would not be completely familiar with the instrument. That's the notes that are "playable" but "difficult" (unplayable are red). It doesn't have any influence on the print result of your score so you can ignore it if you don't need it.

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• Feb 10, 2019 - 17:29

Thanks for the clarification. Since this is a score of an existing work that has already been recorded with some success, I'm not overly concerned about note colors, as long as they don't restrict what I try to do. My goal with this piece is to import it into my DAW and then play around with instrument assignments, to see how I can change the sounds in the piece without -- hopefully -- changing its quality. E.g., what would the guitar part sound like if I selected vibes instead? Or perhaps a cool sounding synth? That sort of thing.

I've done this with a few Bach tunes, and it worked out pretty well, I think. This one is Heitor Villa Lobos' Guitar Concerto, a piece I've always loved and one I think can possibly be enhanced by the judicious selection of alternate instrumentation.

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