Adjusting measure's width
Just starting out..
I tried everything, searched the online help to no avail.
When I create a new score with a treble clef 32 bars long the program gives me a page with very small measure width. All 32 bars are squeezed into two lines: 17 bars on the first line and 15 on the next line.
However there is a separate 'My First Score' blank that puts for bars on a line. The whole page is neatly filled out with 32 bars on 8 lines.
How do I increase the measure width to get similar bar's layout?
Comments
OK - found it.
It's in regional menue that I translate as 'Layout'. But you dont' have to go there.
Just select all narrow measures with the Shift key and a mouse click as usually and then while holding Shift use the right 'curly brace', } to increase the width of all the measures at once.
So much to learn...
In reply to OK - found it. It's in by Johnny Piettro
Another unexpected problem!
Once I began to enter notes into the measures the measure widths began increasing automatically!
Now where I had 4 measures on 1 line I have only 2 wide measures.
This drives me mad...
In reply to Another unexpected by Johnny Piettro
Yeah, the measures move around as you input notes. It's usually best to wait to adjust measure width until you are otherwise done with the score.
The stretch key } adjusts the spacing in the measure so it is wider. Using this is not normally necessary. Once you start entering notes, the width of the measure will automatically grow to accommodate the notes and rests. You have increased this spacing using the } key. As you enter the notes, you will probably have some staves with 4 bars, some with 5 and some with 3 and so on according to how much space the notes and rests use. It fix what you have done, use the Layout menu and reset stretch (with no measures selected) and the default stretch will be restored. It is advisable to wait until the score is entered to adjust measures per line and so forth.
In reply to The stretch key } adjusts the by mike320
Thank you for a quick response. I get it.
However what you say contradicts to how 'My First Score' blank works. It initially comes with 4 bars per line and their width isn't changed when the notes are entered.
How is it set up that way?
In reply to Thank you for a quick by Johnny Piettro
My first score has line breaks entered every 4 measures. They can be found in the breaks and spacers palette. If you create a score from scratch or one of the default templates, there are no line breaks. If you cant see the blue line breaks above the top staff, then use the view menu and check show unprintable.
In reply to My first score has line by mike320
Thanks a lot for a lesson! Learning from you bit by bit.
Hope you frequent this foum :)
In reply to Thanks a lot for a lesson! by Johnny Piettro
I spend quite a bit of time here. You obviously have read a bit of the handbook or you wouldn't have said some of the things you did, and that's a big help. If anything is unclear, don't hesitate to ask. There are several people who are on the forum a lot and we are all more than happy to help.
In reply to I spend quite a bit of time by mike320
Great! Take care!
In reply to I spend quite a bit of time by mike320
Hello Mike,
I'm again in trouble. I did what you suggested - I added line breaks every 4 measures on a new page appended to the 'My First Score' blank. So visually the new page was exactly identical to the first page.
However once I began entering notes the measures began expanding and the line breaks kept jumping donw from their "would be fixed" locations on the right.
What have I done wrong?
I'd like my second page behave in absolutely the same manner as the first page which is fixed 32 measures 4 measures per line and and that arrangement doesn't change.
I added page breaks to every last bar of my 32-bar long pages to keep everything fixed but as I noted above line breaks don't work as expected.
In reply to Hello Mike,… by Johnny Piettro
Not sure that I fixed it but it looks so.
My mistake was that I thought that I first needed to adjust the measures' width and then to apply the line breaks to freeze the visual layout.
It appears that with the '}' measure width adjustment I set the "stretchability" (I probably need to get the English version Menu because our regional one misleads me) to a high level and when the notes are entered the program apparently keeps expanding the overstretched measures until some of them go away.
I feel now that MuseScore is equipped with some exsessive functionality that I probably don't need but I have to get used to it because I see no alternative.
So, in the end I decreased the stretching parameter to '0' and the measure are now kept 4 to the line.
I hope I fixed it but if not - I'll let you know.
In reply to Hello Mike,… by Johnny Piettro
As was mentioned before, you should refrain from mucking about with manual overrides to spacing and so forth (eg, stretch) until you are done entering notes. Otherwise the adjustments you make may well turn out to be counterproductive or even harmful. Focus first on entering notes, and then worry about the visual appearance - things go much more smoothly if you follow that advice. If you've already been playing with stretch prematurely, best to use Layout / Reset Stretch to set thing back to normal before proceeding further.
That said, sure, you can start by adding line breaks every four bars if you really like. Add as many bars as you like, then use Edit / Tools / Add/Remove Line Breaks to add the breaks at regular intervals.
However, adding breaks every four bars only ensures no more than four bars will fit on a line. It's just like in a word processor, hitting Enter somewhere will make sure no more words are placed on that line. But it won't allow more bars -
or words - to fit on a line than your current font, page, and spacing settings allow for.
There is no difference between your first and second page in that respect. It might happen to be true that nowhere on the first page did you fill up your measures with so many notes that four of them physically won't fit, but you might have done that somewhere on the second page. It's possible that by applying less stretch to the measures in question, you might be able to force them to fit on a line. But it's also possible you would need smaller staff size or larger pages. Hard to say without seeing the score - feel free to attach it here.
In reply to As was mentioned before, you… by Marc Sabatella
Mark - as I said above, I set the stretch to '0.0' and it works so far. I can't explain it to you but I normally like when my score layout is more or less fixed.
At the moment I work with mostly 8th notes values and actually at the very moment with a flow of strict 8th in the upper voice.
When MuseScore keeps moving the measures back and forth it distracts me a lot.
By the way, I remember your 'Improvisation Primer' from a long time ago. ;-) You were sort of a pioneer on the subject then.
Isn't a "typical" Bebop score mostly a flow 8th notes? (It is! Unless it's 16ths mixed in.)
By the way, mine is not Bebop! It's a 'normalized' "Baroque".
In reply to Mark - as I said above, I… by Johnny Piettro
Setting to 0.0 isn't recommended; it will produce very bad results should you end up wishing to change line breaks later. But indeed, for now, as long as the line breaks remain exactly where they are, it will not be harmful.
Better, though, to do the Reset Stretch as I mentioned, and then only reduce stretch where and by as much as necessary. if the goal is to have four measures of eighth notes on a line, this shouldn't be a problem. if there are many measure with sixteenths as well, or if these are a ton of accidentals also taking up space, then a slight reduction in either stretch of staff size might be called for. Probably better to reduce staff size than stretch if there is more than a little of this - otherwise the page looks too cluttered from spacing being too tight.
Nice to be remembered for my Primer!
In reply to Setting to 0.0 isn't… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks Marc - I'll keep this thread for reference on the subject of stretching. So much to learn. For now as they say 'if it ain't broken don't fix it'. So far so good. Sorry for the 'k' first time above :)