Start playback at iteration n
I have a lead-sheet, 99% of which repeats 5 times; then there is a jump (via a volta) to an ending sequence. In order to test the proper operation of the score with respect to the repeats, I'd like to begin playback in the nth iteration (e.g, the 5th).
I see that I can turn off the play of repeats, but that doesn't demonstrate that the correct number of repetitions will be played, nor that the ending sequence will be properly substituted for the repeating sequence.
Thank you.
Comments
I would also like this feature. One way to do it would be to turn the current "play repeats" button into a ToolButtonMenu. The default option would be to ignore repeat markings altogether, but clicking the menu would allow you to choose to which repeats to play.
In reply to I would also like this by shoogle
Thanks, Shoogle. That would work fine for me. My wife uses Sibelius, which provides a slider to position the start cursor to any desired point in the piece (which is defined as the virtual piece, meaning that repeats count and that positioning the start cursor to the middle of a piece consisting of a section repeated 5 times would land you in the middle of repeat 3). Moving the cursor using said slider also updates status information (hours/minutes/seconds into the piece, bar number, and beat number).
That's a nice feature, too. :)
In reply to Thanks, Shoogle. That would by manonash
If I understand correctly, you can find something similar in MuseScore's Play Panel, under the View menu.
In reply to If I understand correctly, by Isaac Weiss
I completely missed that! Yes, it's very helpful, and thanks for calling my attention to it. It still falls just a bit short of what I'm looking for, though: see my reply below to Mark Sabatella's comment.
FWIW, I find the most effective way to test this kind of thing is by cranking the tempo up to 800bpm or so :-)
In reply to FWIW, I find the most by Marc Sabatella
I've been doing that; but in the piece I'm testing even cranking the tempo to the max supported still leaves a much longer process than I'd like. There are five repeats (each a complete song verse) before the ending sequence.
What worked best for me in the end was to save a copy of the piece, gut the copy to something vastly shorter than the original by deleting measures in the middle (but leaving the starting, repeat, and ending measures intact), and then test that altered version. That helped me find a solution quickly.
The reason it wasn't working correctly was that I had used the mouse to stretch the volta across multiple measures. That is apparently treated as a cosmetic operation only, and doesn't actually cause the volta functionally to span the multiple measure. This is documented in the section on voltas, albeit a bit obscurely. It's also a bit of a problem that neither the volta properties nor any other part of the interface that I can find tell you what range of measures the volta actually governs.
In reply to I've been doing that; but in by manonash
Click the volta, look at the status bar - it tells you that information. Or, double click on the volta and the dotted lines on the handles will show you.
In reply to Click the volta, look at the by Marc Sabatella
>> status bar <<
Ah, so it does. Good! (And thanks!)
>> double-click <<
That doesn't really do it. To see, add a one-measure volta, then double-click it and drag the left end with the mouse to extend the volta visually to cover another measure or two to the left. Then click away, then double-click. Nothing on the volta itself will show you the measure to which the left anchor is connected, until you start dragging said anchor. The right anchor, yes.
In reply to >> status bar << Ah, so it by manonash
Well, sure, you also have to click the particular anchor you are curious about. But it does work. Basically, though, it's almost never going to make a difference in practice. The vast majority of the time the voltas will be exactly where they appear to be, so there would be no need for additional feedback. It's only in the very first learning stages of the program where users are likely to make errors like. And since the lines appear while you are making the error of dragging and this feedback is still not enough to clue people in that they are doing something incorrectly, it's extremely doubtful that they will think to double click again later or that that seeing those same lines they already saw while dragging will somehow make a difference this time.
In reply to Well, sure, you also have to by Marc Sabatella
>> Well, sure, you also have to click the particular anchor you are curious about.
Only if it's the left one.
>> And since the lines appear while you are making the error of dragging and this feedback is still not enough to clue people in that they are doing something incorrectly,
If you put that together with the non-ability to drag the anchor itself (once it has made itself visible), yeah, it get pretty confusing.
The other factor that got into the mix for me (which I imagine is pretty common) was that the voltas I was trying to introduce were at the end of the piece, so that determining whether they were operating property was a very time-consuming operation. Eventually I figured out that I needed to make a test version of the score that was gutted of measures not essential to the test. That's probably because I have some background in software testing. For the user who didn't, that might not occur to them for a while. Nothing much to be done about that, except to see if the configuration of the volta can be made a bit more intuitive. I think we've already agreed on a couple of changes that would do that.
In reply to >> Well, sure, you also have by manonash
To be clear: the anchor line appears for the "active" handle - meaning the one that will be affected by cursor keys. When you initially double click, the default is to make the end handle active, because that's by far the more common handle to want to adjust. It's much less common to want to djust the start handle, but if you wish to, you can click on it (or use Tab/Shift+Tab). This changes the active handle, and then the line will appear there (and disappear from the end handle, since it is no longer active).
In reply to To be clear: the anchor line by Marc Sabatella
Ok, good to know, thanks.
In reply to >> status bar << Ah, so it by manonash
When you have a box selected, don't move it with the mouse - use shift and L/R arrows.