Voicing

• Nov 22, 2011 - 21:11

I'm having trouble with voices. For example, in first measure --
Upper notes: a quarter note followed by two eighth notes.
Lower notes: a quarter note followed by another quarter note.
The program does not allow me to align the lower quarter note below the upper eighth note.
Can anyone help me with this?

New user Roco


Comments

In reply to by xavierjazz

Thanks xavierjazz.
To answer your question - Yes, I did read the section on voices. It was the first thing I tried.

I will try to get a picture for you but meanwhile, let me re-phrase my problem. I think it is quite straightforward but perhaps i did not describe it well.
The program is not letting me align a second-voice quarter note with first-voice eighth note that is already in place.

Roco

In reply to by xavierjazz

Thanks xavierjazz

I'm not sure I understand your question -- "but it the value before the notes you want aligned the same?"
The score starts off with a quarter note in both voices.
The next note in upper voice (B) is an eighth note. The next note in the lower voice (D) is a quarter note.
I cannot place the lower note (the D) directly under the upper note (the B).

I'll try to send you a picture of the score.

Attachment Size
Bouree.JPG 65.55 KB

In reply to by roco

Did you post the right score? There are no multiple voices anywhere here - it's just one voice oer staff. Did you create your score with two staves? That should happen by default if you use Piano as the instrument in the New Score Wizard. How did you create the score? I'm now guessing you actually have only one staff, and you've added a whole bunch of measures or a line break to make it extend onto two lines, but it's only one staff.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks Marc,

I believe what I sent you was the original piano score, which has two staves. What I am trying to do is place all the notes (both treble and bass clef notes, i.e.piano RH and LH notes) on a single stave. The RH notes will form the first voice and the LH notes will form the second voice. For this, I am using the "lead sheet" template.

In fact, I have actually been able to do this. I coupled (aligned) the A, B, C in the RH part (as the first voice) with the C,B, A in the LH part (as the second voice).The problem cropped up only when I tried to couple the eighth note(B) in the RH part with the quarter note(D) in the LH part. (I'm referring now to the 4th notes of the score). I have not been able to do this. The notes will not line up properly and I think it may be because they are of different duration. Instead of lining up, the newly entered notes either go elsewhere in the measure (or the next measure) or jump up into the first voice and make unwelcome changes there.

What do you think? Have you encountered this problem?

Roco

In reply to by roco

I think you'll have to post the score as it it just before try to add the note, then post the exact sequence of steps you are trying. I can't think of any reason it shouldn't work if you are doing it correctly, so I can only assume you aren't doing it correctly, but without the score and a specific series of steps to follow (or perhaps, a screen capture video created with "screenr" or the like), so we can trace your steps and figure out where you might be going wrong.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Marc,
Per your request, I am attaching the score as far as I have been able to go with it. You also asked for the specific series of steps to follow.

I have given the specific steps (with their results) several times in my replies to others. It might help to read these other replies. I also gave specific steps in my last reply to you, which you may not have yet read. That reply was dated November 28 at 8:17pm.
Thanks for your help. roco

Attachment Size
Bouree_JS_Bach.mscz 2.9 KB

In reply to by roco

You are talking about the 2nd bar, aren't you?
I can't add another not to the 2nd voice either, but I can if I delete the 1st note of the 2nd voice first, then delete the resutling rest, then add the 1st note again, now I can continue adding the 2nd note and subsequent ones (in 2nd voice)

I did the first 3 bars for you, see attached.

I find it easier to enter these 2 voices into 2 staves first and merge them later. But that is most probably due to my lack of note reading capabilities and the different clefs...

Attachment Size
Bouree_JS_Bach[1].mscz 3.08 KB

In reply to by roco

Well, what you gave wasn't a specific series of steps, but rather, the results you tried to accomplish. By specific series of steps, I mean something like "first click the first complete measure, then press N to go to note entry mode, then click the voice 2 button, then press 5, then press A, then press 4, then press D" - that way we would know exactly *how* you were trying to do what you describe wanting to do. Useful to keep in mind in the future.

But in this case, now that I see the score, I don't need to need to know the exact series of steps you tried to follow, because I can see the score is corrupt. The second complete measure appears to have too many beats, as the two quarter rests at the beginning of the measure don't belong there. So it is the corrupt score that is preventing you from getting the note onto beat 2 of the first complete measure.

Of course, that just begs the question, how did the score get corrupt? You didn't do anything wrong - nothing you do should ever corrupt a score - but rather, a bug in MuseScore is what would have that corrupted the score. However, something you did must have *triggered* the bug, so if you have any insight into what you might have done that led to the corrupt, I'm sure that would help the developers track down and fix the bug. Usually, though, when corruptions like this happen (and they do happen from time to time, unfortunately), we aren't aware of it until too late. I'm guessing it was the result of experimenting with how to use multiple voices, or perhaps it was something about how you created the pickup measure, where you might have tried something the program didn't *expect* you to try. But again, obviously, nothing you did should have resulted in a corrupt score, so it's definitely a bug.

Anyhow, the solution when corruptions like this happen is to delete the offending measure(s) entirely, insert new ones, and re-enter their contents. In this case, it's that first full measure that is corrupt. Sometimes, you can get away with copying and pasting the old contents into the new measures, if you avoid copying the corrupt part. In this case, voice 1 seem fine; the corrupt seems limited to voice 2. And unfortunately, there is no direct way to just copy and paste one voice. So you'd have to re-enter both voices in that measure after deleting the measure and inserting a new one in its place. If it's any consolation, had you been entering this on two staves as in the original and the corruption was just in one staff, you could have copied and pasted the contents of the good (top) staff and only had to re-enter the bad (bottom) staff.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Yes it is - if you select the first bar you will see that MuseScore selects both the rests in Bar two as well

I wish we could track down what causes this!

Every time it happens to me I have been concentrating on creating the music, and have no idea what I did just before the corruption appears.

In reply to by roco

When you say it is not letting you, what do you mean - what is it doing instead? Any note you enter in voice 2 should automatically aling with the corresponding note in voice 1; you shouldn't have to "do" anything. So I'm guessing you're not actually voice 2. Note you have to press the "2" while in note entry mode, not before entering mote entry mode. That's a pretty common mistake you might be making.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks Marc,

Question one - "what is it doing instead?" Instead of going into the lower voice it is adversely changing the already written upper voice.

Question two re the voice button - I am using the green voice button. I've tried pressing both ways, i.e. before and after going into note mode.

Roco

In reply to by roco

Based on your description of the 2nd note affecting the first note, you are not in the 2nd voice when you think you are.

Make sure the "note entry" cursor appears before you select the voice. The colour of the cursor will change.

then try to add the 2nd note.

Regards,

In reply to by mtherieau

First, let me give thanks to all of you for your helpful comments and suggestions. It has been interesting to read the many replies I have received. I worked my way through some of them with the results given below.

Just so we are all on the same track, I want to respond to “You are talking about the 2nd bar aren't you?” When I say “the first measure” I am referring to the first full measure. Before the first full measure there are only two pick-up notes in a partial measure. If you are numbering the measures, that partial bar would not be numbered.

Now, as to the rests that a number of you remarked on. They crept into the score while I was trying to place the 2nd voice notes. They just seemed to shift into the next measure by their own volition.

One suggestion took me to one of the prior threads;namely,  http://musescore.org/en/node/13517 [1] “which
suggests that if you are in note entry mode and still cannot switch to voice
2, then restart musescore and try again.”

I didn't actually restaret but I did go back to the beginning several times. And I did follow the instructions given there – with mixed results. First Ctl-I Ctl-2 did not work, then later it did work and I was able to enter the rest of the 2nd V. notes in measure one. But then I was unable to get back to V.1 to correct a note there. I don't know where the command (ctl-I ctl-2) came from but I figured if it got me into V. 2, it could get me back into V. 1 by substituting a 1 for the 2. I was wrong.
Fiddling with it, I did get back into the blue V1 by going through all four of the voices until I got back to voice one again.
I also noted that after I entered a couple of 1/8 notes I could not select a ¼ note.
Lots of stuff was happening, but suddenly it started working. And then it worked like magic! .

I wish I could tell you what I did to make it work. I think it just felt sorry for me. An interesting note: the writer who raised the question originally in that prior thread had a similar result. It suddenly started working for him too. He didn't know why either.

This might be an area the programmers might want to look into. And perhaps the instructions should be looked at because from some of the ideas I have received, I see that many of you are using work-arounds to get results.

Unless this continues to give me problems in this area, I consider the case closed. I'm sorry I cannot answer every one of you but I do certainly appreciate everyone's generous help.

roco

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