Automatic distribution of measures by line
Hi,
In my score Musecore can put the 7 first measures on one line.
There is a "logical" line break after the 8th measure (I mean, musically it makes sense to have a break between measure 8 and 9 for this score).
So I've added a line break after the 8th measure.
If I stop there, the result is ugly: there is a line of 7 measures then a line with one measure (and then the score continues).
Of course, in this specific case, a simple manual "fix" is to add also a line break after the 4th measure.
The question is, is there a way to let MuseScore balances automatically the measure in the available space from line break to line break (as Lilypond does e.g.).
Comments
There is nothing that work quite the way you say, but there are more direct ways to get the results you want. If you are thinking you really only want 3-4 measures per system and your current settings allow for 7, you should really just consider increasing the spacing value in Style / General / Measure, or the staff space size in Layout / Page Settings, to get the looser spacing you desire without constantly adjusting things manually. Which is to say, with the right settings for these parameters, you might happen to get exactly what you want with no line breaks, or at least you'd be a lot closer.
In reply to There is nothing that work by Marc Sabatella
Ok thanks, that will help for the current score, but it stays a manual process.
Having MuseScore doing a balance of the number of measures between line breaks as Lilypond does would really be useful.
An example of Lylipond nice work is that (but I know you know that ;-) ) when 7 measures fills one line with default spaces, and the 8th measure before the line break is not too big, Lilypond will slightly reduce the default spaces of this line to fit the 8 measures in 1 line, instead of making two lines with 4 measures each and lot of white space.
Fred
In reply to Ok thanks, that will help for by frfancha
This seems to raise a question: Does Lilypond have some power that allows it to accurately "see" musical phrases? Or is it just that it can squeeze 8 measures into a line where Musescore refuses to push the notes close enough to each other to allow space for all 8 measures (with default parameters that is)?
Or does Lilypond "know" that 8 measures is always a good bet (though far from safe) when it comes to phrases?
Asking this in a different way: Does Lilypond arrange music in ways that make more sense generally or does it just accommodate your wishes in this case?
In reply to This seems to raise a by azumbrunn
Lilypond doesn't guess anything. The break after the 8th measure is manually entered.
And "8" is just an example.
Since nobody seems to have mentioned it, I will:
You can probably also get the eighth measure onto the same line as the first seven by reducing those measures' stretch. Select the eight-measure range and press { a few times, and you'll see what I mean.
In reply to Since nobody seems to have by Isaac Weiss
Thanks, I've tried that and just pressing { once did the job for my first phrase! Great!
For another musical phrase, I've tried the same (pressing { several times) but there were to many notes to enter in one line. So I would like to come back to default stretch for this part, what is the easiest way to reset stretch to the default?
Finally I still think that an automatic balance of measure between manual line breaks would be very useful. For my first phrase, arranged by '}', changing just one note breaks the nice alignment.
In reply to Thanks, I've tried that and by frfancha
{ is the quickest way to reduce stretch, but stretch controls can also be found under the Layout menu, and in Measure Properties. In the latter, set stretch to 1.0; from the Layout menu, it's "Reset Stretch."