Section break and repeat bar-lines
If there be two different sections in one Musescore file, and let each section be encompassed by repeating barlines, then the final measure of the first section with an end-repeat barline and a section-break--instead of immediately repeating--introduces a gap of silence prior to repeating.
After the repetition a new section is entered, and if a section break isn't utilized, then any repeat barlines or jumps will refer back to the previous section: this is undesired, but also undesired is the silence. Obviously an extra measure can be used after the end repeat barline and then have the section break applied to this measure, but then there's a blank measure showing. Is there anything I'm over-looking so as to have a section break applied, yet have it not provide a silence gap before repeating and still allow a silence gap after the repetition has occurred?
Thanks for any future response.
Comments
I believe this has been reported before.
Ah, found it: #32696: Section break causes pause before repeats and jumps during playback
In reply to I believe this has been by Jojo-Schmitz
Thanks for linking the report. Still a problem after a few years, eh?
Editing a section break's pause time into 0.0 seconds will rid the problem of silence before a repeat, but it is a trade-off in that there will be no silent transition into the next section.
This may seem ridiculous, but if it is absolutely necessary for there to be no gap in the repeat but a pause afterward, you can add an extra measure and attach a section break to it, make it have a 0 second pause, and then turn on "hide empty staves" (the gap will be the duration of whatever your bpm/time signature is). If you have staves you don't want to be hidden even though they're empty, you can still do this by adding an extra instrument and attaching the section break to it one measure after the repeat bar line, and then make your main instrument's staff properties have "never hide" checked on but still hide empty staves in the style->general->score settings.
Digging a little deeper, I tried using the empty last measure workaround, so that the section break is forced to occur AFTER the repeat bar. Then I deleted the empty measure, hoping the section break would be retained and still be AFTER the repeat bar. Alas, this deleted the section break, indicating that the section break is part of the measure (or split measure) before it. Note that the section break example in the handbook does not end with a repeat bar.
None of this matters very much for printed music, but users who are using Musescore playback as a partner in music minus one practice (and adding an initial measure of metronome only) are impaired by this bug.
A more nasty problem is a section that ends in the middle of the score, as when the music has, for example, AABBA form. A section break would have to be in the middle of the score! No way to avoid playing it without some additional logic in the Musescore software. I will look for workarounds and share whatever works.
I used the empty measure to separate the repeat bar from the section break. Also, I figgered out how to jump from the middle of a section to the next section using coda logic. It seems that the "To Coda" command causes the player to search forward for the next coda symbol, and if none is found, start searching from the beginning of the score. See the attached file to see how I am doing it. The only problem is major metronome disruption at the beginning of the 6/8 section. This is sure to wreck any play-along attempt.
Next big leap forward will be when we have a way to change text, including font, font size, font attributes, and insertion of foreign characters (apologies to any French speakers out there).