How to use different time signature for different voices in staff.

• Jun 29, 2016 - 09:36

Hi,

I am editing the 2^ piano concerto of Rachmaninov for two pianos, making a reduction for piano and horn and I am facing a problem I don't know how to solve.
I many occasions (e.g. starting from bar #5 of the second movement, see attached picture) there is a 4/4 time signature but the right hand of piano 1 has got 3 voices: one is the whole note, the other one is the tuples, and the third one is made of quarters interleaved with the tuples in a ternary (hidden) time signature concurrent with the 4/4 within the same bar duration (e.g. in the attached pictures I am speaking about the D# and D in the 5^ bar, or the C# and C in the 6^ bar, and so on, having the legs pointing downwards and superposed to the tuples).

How can I write that in Musescore?

I first thought of writing a third voice made of tuples in 4/4 and then hiding the (unnecessary) rests, but this way I have a problem for the notes like the second D in bar #5: it's really 1/4 long in a 3/4 time signature with total duration of the 4/4 time signature of the staff, since the musical accent would go in that place.

Do you have any idea to solve this?

Best regards,

Erik

Attachment Size
IMG_7539.PNG 235.72 KB

Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Hi, thank you!

I have already seen that link, however I could figure out how to apply that within an individual voice. As far as I understand the local time signature only apply to the entire staff: I cannot apply different time signatures to different voices within the same staff. Am I right, or not?

Do you have any suggestion how to do that? I ideally need different time signatures for different voices within the same staff.

Erik

You can fake it like this:

  1. Quaver (eighth-note) triplets in Voice 1.
  2. Semi-breve (whole-note) in Voice 2.
  3. Minim (half-note) triplets in Voice 3.

fake-ternary-time-signature-method.png

Then, to make it look right:

  1. Set triplet numbers to be invisible (select them and press 'V').
  2. Make the minim rest invisible.
  3. Either set the minim noteheads invisible or change the "head type" to crotchet via the Inspector.

fake-ternary-time-signature-result.png

I've attached the file I used to create the images.

Attachment Size
fake-ternary-time-signature.mscz 5.48 KB

In reply to by shoogle

That's exactly what I wanted! Great!
I particularly like the fact that Musescore can automatically merge the heads two notes, having same height, in different voices into a single once the head type has been changed as suggested.
Nice tutorial, and great software :)

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

Erik

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