Large four piece string quartet
Hi everyone, I'm a fairly new MuseScore user. To test it and find out how it really works, I decided to input the entire first string quartet by Carl Nielsen.
Now, the question I have is whether this is best done with one big file containing all four movements, or four files. What would be your choice for it?
Here are the sizes of the four movements:
I: 232 measures
II: 130 measures
III: 151 measures
IV: 323 measures
I'm almost done with the second movement, and MuseScore is now a lot slower when I modify something. It takes more than 2 seconds from me pressing a note key before it pops up on the screen. (Intel i7 based laptop with 16 gigs memory, not a slow machine at all.)
I'm using the continuous view, as the page view has annoyed me a bit (although this was probably because of things I later figured out how to do properly).
The input is not unusable yet, though. Even though it takes over 2 seconds for something to appear on screen, if I just input several notes at the same time, it doesn't slow down much more than that. So for example, if I enter 5 notes using the keyboard it's only slightly more than entering 1 note. So what I do is to enter a series of notes and just check them occasionally.
So there are two things that could influence the decision on whether to split this into four files or keep them in one:
1) What is the proper way to do this - or at least the intended way?
2) It's possible that when I get further, it will actually become unusably slow
What do you think?
Comments
After writing this, I did try and switch to the page view instead of continuous view, and that's much much faster. There's not a lot of lag on this after I enter a note. So I will probably have to drop using the continuous view, which is a shame, because I prefer it. But at least I have a better and faster input.
In reply to After writing this, I did… by bothorsen
I have found that an entire string quartet as you are entering can be entered in one file in page view in version 3.0.5. I normally use continuous view and therefore use version 2.3.2 for my large files because version 3 slows down so much so fast and there is no easy way to combine scores in version 3.
What I do with a string quartet is make the width of the system a little less than what is on the screen by adjusting the scaling in Format->Page settings. I then press Return after the cello is entered on the system. This helps me keep the score and source lined up and prevents the score from jumping when there is a tie to the next measure. To help clarify, I normally have one or two measures empty at the end of a system when I press return to create the new system.
HTH.
It's possible that when I get further, it will actually become unusably slow
Yes it will, so you can split into 4 files; and don't generate parts until all elements are entered into the main score.
Using page view is quicker.
You can 'fake' a continuous view by changing your paper size to fit a single system per page.
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/page-settings#page-size
The pages should scroll horizontally (with 'Scroll Pages' set to 'Horizontally' in the 'Canvas' tab of Edit -> Preferences....)
See:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/preferences#canvas
So, sort of like continuous view, though with faster response time.
I would use four files and make backup copies ( not just autosave or saving with the same name) as you change things. You may wish to add instruments at a later date and it might get to a point where things slow down.