Collapse voices into single-voice chords
There have been many requests for expanded voice editing features. One operation that I haven't been able to perform, but don't see mentioned as a request, is a way to collapse a multi-voice staff into a single voice. I have been using the multi-voice capabilities while doing transcriptions, using different noteheads for each voice to aid in working with the parts. At the end of the process, I want to combine all those voices. However I don't see a way to make this happen. The converse feature (splitting chords into separate voices) would also be useful.
Comments
Would this help??
http://musescore.org/en/project/plode
In reply to Would this by ChurchOrganist
Try this:
Save as XML
Open in Notepad
exchange "&voice&2&/voice&" with "&voice&1&/voice&"
"&" sign above are "<" and ">" symbols which turn wonky (just seach for "voice" in notepad)
Save
Open in MuseScore
Agreed, this would be nice. There is sort of a workaround; whether it is worth the trouble depends on how much music you needy the to process.
1. Create two scratch staves (or however many voices you have)
2. Copy the staffyou wish to collapse to the both of the scratch staves
3. On each scatch' delete all but one voice (right click a note, select, more, similar elements on same staff / same voice)
4. Use the voice exchange to get everything in voice 1
5. Run the "implode" plguin (which you will need to install if you haven't already)
6. Copy results back to original location
The implode plugin has limitations - it doesn't handle ties, for instance, and it's up to you to Make sure the parts really can be combined (ie, have the same rhythm). And this method loses text and other marking not preserved on copy and paste. But it could occasionally be useful.
Thank you both. I have been lax at utilizing plugins, sorry.
I will confess to remaining suspicious of plugins; the core system has enough little glitches that I've been reluctant to add other sources of potential errors.
However 'implode' is certainly a partial solution. It lets me get the job done, modulo a certain amount of nuisance work. (Why does it need separate staves? Why not work from discrete voices on one staff? Oh well. Better than having no tool at all.)
I should add, though, that implode doesn't help me do what I really need to do. I'm working through the multi-voice score one note at a time, deciding how to realize each voice note in the final arrangement. Ideally I would grab the F# or whatever and change it from Voice 3 to Voice 1, adding it to whatever chord was already there, often dealing with duration and fingering issues at the same time. To use 'implode' I must make all these decisions in advance, and then in one batch operation create the finished product (or combine all the raw voices, and then deal with the mess that results which will have numerous overlapping notes). It's like the difference between using a WYSIWYG editor and creating a script of editing commands. But at least I don't have to rekey EVERY note.
In reply to Yes, thanks! by spinality
Can you not use Select>More>Elements in Same Voice to take some of the grunt out of this?
Not that I'm saying we shouldn't have better selection methods - I firmly believe we should, but as a workaround till the dev team can get on to this.
What I would like to see is the same facility that there is in Finale to temporarily hide all voices except the one selected, which then means you can select just that voice for editing of parameters etc.
Would that be possible within the current architecture of version 2.0?
In reply to Can you not use by ChurchOrganist
Not sure I see what this does for me. Unless you're just referring to the process of manipulating the multi-voice material in a new document on set of blank staves -- then duplicating the material and using 'elements in same voice' lets me delete the portions being removed from each staff. This doesn't give me a process for moving through each measure and shifting notes into voice 1. But perhaps I misunderstand the suggestion.
In reply to Yes, thanks! by spinality
It would be possible adapt the "Implode" to work with voices. I didn't write it that way because I saw the main usage being for people combining (instrumental, mostly) parts that were written on separate staves onto a single staff. It hadn't occured to there would be some occasions where you'd have parts already on staff but in separate voices that you wanted combined. But the principle should be exaclty the same, and it would be a very trivial change to the plugin to get that to happen. It shouldn't even affect the current usage, since the kind of music this plugin would more normally be used for would almost invariably use only a single voice.
If you've got any programming experience, you might give this a shot - should just be a matter of adding a "for" loop to the code that processes each staff, so it actually processes each voice of the staff.
Otherwise, I'll try to get this sometime soon.
Sorry that I missed the point on implode. Yes, I had read the 'identical rhythms' caveat -- but I thought that possibly might just mean that the measures had to match in terms of their internal time signatures.
To explain my application: I am transcribing multipart music for guitar. At the end of the process, I will have a score that is primarily notated in a single voice, with chords created at appropriate points to represent the additional voices. In some cases I will create additional voices, when these need to be shown as distinct threads of notes and rests; but in many cases, it is clearer to abandon the original rhythmic pattern of notes and rests, and just show the chords on the appropriate beats with respect to the main voice. This is normal guitar notation practice (some other instruments as well).
The issue is thus that the material from the original multipart scores needs to be overlaid at the correct rhythmic positions in a final (single) voice, replacing the rests or adding chords in the material that was originally there. Then, working through the result, I can identify any elements that do need to be presented as a distinct voice.
Example: Suppose I take the two voices from "La Ci Darem La Mano" and want to realize them for guitar solo. I could do this with two separate voices on a single staff, but that would look unusual; normally all those extra rests would be omitted, and the result would just comprise a single melodic element with passing chords as needed to convey the additional voice. I would later add in a bass line as a distinct voice, but this would be a separate process.
Sorry if I'm belaboring this but hopefully you get the idea. None of this is critical of 'implode' -- I was picturing it as operating like a 'paste selection into one voice' operation, which would repeatedly take each voice and paste it as an overlay on the same framework, rather than replacing what was there.
In reply to Sorry I misunderstood by spinality
Seeong an actual example would still help, but it sounds like you are saying that one part is the main part, the other parts are mostly empty but just thicken the main part for certaon chords? In other words, the other parts are all *subsets* of the main part? If so, that should work just fine as long as the main part is first.
In reply to Seeong an actual example by Marc Sabatella
You've described what the end product will be. However the source parts often have the melodic elements scattered across the different voices.
As an example, consider this page: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/14140/110…. A logical starting point for me doing an arrangement is to conflate the two voice parts into a single melody. I might also like to overlay the piano part. This would give me a single dense voice with notes and chords filling each measure. I would then work through the material measure by measure, deleting unwanted notes and shifting certain notes into one or two secondary voices.
This is more or less what I do mentally while working through the material. It would save time if I could conflate the material automatically. There's still a fair amount of editing/adjustment to do -- obviously this is not an automated way to create arrangements, just a way to shorten the notation process.
Hope this is clear. I realize this is probably not a normal use for the various tools; still, I have to do this a lot, because non-contrapuntal guitar music is often rendered as just one or two voices with intermixed chordal elements.
In reply to Yes, but... by spinality
In the example, you linked, there don't even need to be different voices, though, do there? Aren't both of those parts just a single voice, presumably entered as voice 1 (or easily moved into voice 1)? So it appears you are talking about a case of two different staves, both of which contain only a single voice, but at no point do they ever have a note at the same time. You are wanting the parts merged. Is that correct, then? This is *very* different from what I originally understood you to be asking about.
Yu can of course currently merge those parts with ordinary copy and paste - just select a range of notes in one part and paster it over the corresponding range of rests in the other. But you'd have to do it piecemeal. If the plugin framework were extended to allow notes to be created, then this would be a pretty easy plugin to write.
As for the piano part, presumably you realize this is totally impossible to combine into the same voice as the two vocal parts, since the rhythms are different. So I'm not sure what you are saying there.
In reply to In the example, you linked, by Marc Sabatella
Sorry, that was just one example that highlighted an aspect of my situation. I should have pointed out that, later in the duet, both voices sing at the same time in harmony, and that's the more interesting part of the problem. This page was sort of an edge case, where the parts are strictly alternating, but that is not the normal situation; it just clearly illustrated how two voices might not share a rhythmic pattern, but could be usefully combined.
(Here's an approach I could perhaps use. Create a single voice consisting of single note on a high or low ledger line, repeating as continuous eighth or sixteenth notes measure after measure. Then, merge in the other voices, for which presumably there would always be a corresponding eighth or sixteenth note. Then, delete all those repeated notes, and use whatever material is left.)
I appreciate your comments and apologize for not being clear about what I'm after. I should restate that I am dealing with a variety of situations all related to the arrangement process, where I'm drawing material from multiple separate voices, and combining it to create a new main voice with chords, plus additional voices. The new melody, chords, and extra voices don't directly translate back to the source voices. There's a judgment call made with each source note -- deciding what to do with it. I prefer to do as much of this analysis as possible while actually editing in MS; though of course I can do it on paper instead. But that goes against my nerdish soul, having been designing UIs for three decades.
In reply to Sorry, I left some details to your imagination by spinality
Ok, I think what I'm hearing is that it is a combination of both - some places where the different parts have the same rhythms but different notes, other places where they are trading. So the bottom line is that they never have different rhythms at the same time, meaning they *can* theoretically be combined into a single voice. But neither Implode (the solution where the parts have same rhythms but diffeent notes nor copy and paste (the solution where the parts are trading) will work for the whole piece.
Definitely a pretty specialized application, but I can certainly see how it would come up occasionally, in vocal duets especially. I do hope to some day see the plugin framework expanded to allow creation of notes, and then there would be no reason the Implode plugin couldn't be extended to handle this. And again, it really wouldn't interfere with the primary purpose of the plugin.
In reply to Ok, I think what I'm hearing by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for your attention as I describe this process. I should make two additional points, just to beat this dead horse a little more:
a) You say "they never have different rhythms at the same time" -- but the source material often WILL have such elements. The arranger must then decide how to make these conflicts go away via a dynamic process. The ideal automated tool I would like to use to support this process would ignore (or perhaps: flag) such metrical differences -- perhaps by reducing everything to a lowest-common denominator (e.g. all eighth notes), or by allowing notes from each voice to last as long as possible, until they conflict with a note from a different voice.
b) You describe this as a 'specialized application' and that is true when looking at it as a process to automate via a plugin. But if you step back and look at the target musical activity (creating an arrangement that merges source material), rather than this specific notation/transcription process, then I think this is a less-unusual need. When composing or arranging within a MS session, in the context of a work-in-progress (this is how I use MS), it is often desirable to shift material from voice to voice, merge voices into chords, split chords into voices, etc. My concrete example of combining voice parts was intended as an extreme, focused case; but I encounter related issues in other situations as I work or rework material.
The key here to me is: I try to use MS as a composition/arrangement workbench, as opposed to regarding it purely as a notation/engraving tool. (An analogy would be the creation of a book using online outlining and other organization tools in a word processor, rather than using pencil, paper, and notecards to create the first rough structure.) I find that much of what I need is present in MS; but that richer tools would be welcome that support complex select/copy/paste/delete/revoice operations.
Thanks for the dialogue; I hope this has been useful. I at least have a clearer idea of what capabilities seem important.
In reply to Thanks for following this by spinality
If the sources have different rhythms at the same time, then they should not be combined into one voice. I mean, sure, an intelligent human musician might come with a way of altering the music to make it work, but this most definitely not the sort of thing one could reasonably expect to see automated. Compared to the case where you never have two different rhythms at once, which is comparable in complexity to, oh, say, changing font in a text selection, asking a program to alter the music so that it can work in one voice is like asking it to take a text selection representing a joke and make it "funnier". As a research project, maybe, but as a basic feature for a notation program, no, that just doesn't make sense.
So yes, this sort of thing is indeed common as a musical activity - but again, a musical activity in which human musicians would engage their own ingenuity. The program can help automate the automatable stuff, and sure, there is room for improvement there, but there is no getting around he need for you to consider how you want make these sort of re-arrangements of the music. I think you will have to get in the habit of thinking ahead a bit more about how you enter your music and how you eventually hope to see it represented. If the rhythms are different, why not simply use separate voices? Again, that's what they are for.
So I'd still encourage you to give further thought to what is actually automatable that cannot currently be automated, and separate that out from dreams of what might eventually become possible with some sort of sufficiently advanced AI techniques.
In reply to If the sources have different by Marc Sabatella
I completely agree that this process cannot be automated in the sense of producing a musically acceptable result, and I have no desire for AI solutions. I agree that the human needs to make these decisions.
However, once I have made those decisions off-line (and I'd rather make these decisions on-line), I would then have to enter or transfer the notes. It would save me time if I could easily a) point to this half note Bb played by the trumpet, b) drag it up to the new 'combined' voice, c) chop it down to an eighth note, and d) merge that D-Eb that was played by the flute.
I'm talking purely about the mechanical process of getting the notes on the page. When working from complex source material, it would save me notation time if I have a mechanical tool that lets me overlay the various parts, avoiding the need to do a lot of entry via pointing-and-clicking.
So I totally agree these decisions are the musician's problem; but I think that the notation tool can make it easier to move the notes around. A simple way to facilitate this might be to have a tool that chops every note down to a uniform short duration, e.g. an eighth note, so that there would be no rhythmic conflicts.
In reply to Perhaps you misunderstand my goal? by spinality
Just to clarify, here is an example of successful use of implode with voices that don't share the same rhythm. The goal was to save editing time. I started with two distinct parts plus a target voice consisting of repeated eight notes on a high ledger line. I then used implode to combine these, overlaying the voices of interest on the eighth notes.
It was then the work of a moment to delete the high notes, adjust the obvious timing issues, and make decisions about the less-obvious timing matters (for example, adding a second voice to handle a set of triplets). Obviously most arrangements involve more complex decisions; but by eliminating the busy-work of manually entering the additional voices, I have saved time and avoided many possible errors.
So I will use this technique in future. If we get a plugin interface that allows creation of new notes, perhaps the creation and deletion of the drone notes can be eliminated.
I hope this is of interest. Implode and this technique have already saved me a couple of hours of work.
In reply to Example of successful use of implode for my needs by spinality
That's pretty clever, and definitely food for thought!
In reply to That's pretty clever, and by Marc Sabatella
Sorry I had such a hard time getting the basic goal across, which I trust you can see isn't as goofy as wanting MS to figure out my arrangement for me! But anytime I am compelled to re-enter anything using a computer (text, notes, formatting, declarations, constants...) I rebel against the idea of a human doing something that a computer does so much better and faster (and that I will inevitably screw up). This is why rich select/copy/paste/delete/transform tools seem so important to me, regardless of the problem space. As you know, aggressive creative laziness (where a programmer will spend a week to automate a manual process that takes an hour) is the source of many great tools. :)
SOLVED!!!! Found a completely working solution to your problem. Note that this is way to do it on your own until the MuseScore developers can get a fully graphical, proper tool to do this "implode" feature.
Your problem will be solved with batch operation in less than 2 min, trust me!! (yes this is true. I'm not lying, no weird things to it, straight and to the point)
Problem - Someone wants to combine 2 voices into 1 voice that has chords
Solution - follow the below directions carefully. They seem long, but they are not. They are just very detailed to ensure you will not be confused. The solution will take 2-3 minutes. Trust me
1. Open up the song you are trying to modify as normal with MuseScore
2. Click "File" or something like that and I recommend saving it on the desktop. This file will only be used temporarily for the merging process
4. Change the file save type to MusicXML (*.xml) and click save
5. Go to the folder where you saved it and right click it (or control-click or click with 2 fingers) then go to Open With2" without the quotation marks
9. On the upper right corner of the TextEdit window (to the right of the text box) there should be a checkbox labeled "Replace" Click it so it turns blue and checked
10. In the NEW text box that appears under the original one (labeled "Replace") "type 2" again without the quotation marks. Note that the 1 changed to a 2 from the original text box to the new one
11. After that's been typed, click the button labeled "All" which is to the right of the new text box. The one you should click will be in between the "Replace" and "Done" buttons
12. Info step - you can skip this one. Now, all the text that used to be "1" has been replaced with "2" which will trick the MuseScore app into thinking that those 2 voices you used to have are really the same voice with multiple notes/chords, which is what you want to happen
13. Save the edited file by hitting Command
In reply to SOLVED!!!! Found a completely by Capt Inc 37
I think the MuseScore forums have a character limit, so I had to split up my post into multiple comments. Both step 13s are the same, except the second one has more detail. Continue on below with the next reply/comment
In reply to SOLVED!!!! Found a completely by Capt Inc 37
It won't let me post anymore, idk why. Anyways next steps are summed up here. U need to convert the edited XML file back into a MuseScore .mscz file using the File
In reply to It won't let me post anymore, by Capt Inc 37
Ignore this
In reply to It won't let me post anymore, by Capt Inc 37
Omg
In reply to SOLVED!!!! Found a completely by Capt Inc 37
Not sure what your trying to do, but if you're trying to edit the first comment from today, you made that impossible when you replied to it. Once a comment has been replied to, it cannot be edited to prevent nonsensical replies because the original post was changed.
In reply to Not sure what your trying to by mike320
Ahh gotcha. Makes sense
In reply to Ahh gotcha. Makes sense by Capt Inc 37
Just reply to it and state your corrections.
In reply to SOLVED!!!! Found a completely by Capt Inc 37
Thanks for posting this. You might also like to know, however, that there is actually a much easier way to combine voices into one: Edit / Tools / Implode. That didn't exist back in 2012 when this thread was started, but it's been an option for the last couple of years now.
In reply to Thanks for posting this. You by Marc Sabatella
Gee thx lol. Wish I had come across this a little earlier, but that's alright lol.
Ignore this
Ignore this
Well I had problems doing that. Whenever I tried to post a new reply to my original comment, MuseScore would cut off whatever I was trying to say at a certain point. At first it was 1-2 sentences, then 1 sentence, and eventually I could only post 3 words in a reply. That's why there are so many "ignore this" posts. Anyways after that I quit trying lol and made the last reply I did. Idk why that was happening.