Change measure duration

• Sep 24, 2017 - 08:01

Hi,

Is there a way to change the measure duration for a score at once? I didn't find an alternative to changing each measure individually in the Measure Properties dialog box.

regards,
Jos

Comments

• Sep 24, 2017 - 11:33

Do you mean that for some historical reason, even though the actual time signature is 2/1, you want it displayed with a "cut time" (2/2) symbol? In this case you will be fighting Musescore all the way if you set the time signature to 2/2 and then change every bar. (I don't know the details but...) I think you need to look for a custom 2/1 time signature symbol, for which you copy the 2/2 symbol. Then MS expects each bar to be as you wish it.

Can you give us historical references?

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• Sep 24, 2017 - 12:48

Set the time signature to what you want to actually be possible to insert in the measures. Right click the time signature and in time signature properties change the displayed time signature to what you want to see in it.

A better way might be to use a custom time signature andset the display when you make the time signature. (shift-t bring up the custom time signature box).

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• Sep 24, 2017 - 18:23

Indeed, I'm not understanding the rationale behind lying to the musicians who will be playing this score - why go out of your way to have the time signature not reflect the actual music?

But FWIW, if you really have some special reason to do this, you can do so quite easily. Enter the time signature as 2/1 but then right click it, Time Signature Properties, and choose the cut time symbol under "Appearance". That is, it is done the opposite of how you are trying to do it: first set the correct time signature, then lie about how it looks. As opposed to first setting the wrong time signature than lying about how it behaves.

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• Sep 24, 2017 - 21:37

Sorry, I certainly didn't mean to offend. I just wasn't sure why you would want to create this notation, as it seems misleading to the musicians reading it. Now I see you re just copying what someone else has done.
Could be the person who typeset your example was using a program in which this was the only way to achieve the desired effect. Or he might have been copying a historical source that used an older style of notation. I'm not sure either of these are good reasons for continuing to do this in your own version, though. Generally, it is best to stick to with modern standards, because that is what musicians today will be accustomed to. And that means notating the music in your example as 4/2.

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• Sep 24, 2017 - 22:18

This is definitely an unusual way to notate the score. Perhaps the typesetter didn't want to use 4/2 time signature. To make my previous comment more precise for anyone else running across this, I would use a custom time signature of 4/2 with a displayed time signature of cut time. That is definitely the least amount of work.

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• Sep 25, 2017 - 11:17

There's an interesting description in Gardner Read's book (p. 156). It seems that "C" does not stand for "Common" (and the vertical crossed one does not stand for "cut" either!) Ancient monks thought that triple time was "perfect", by allusion to the Trinity, and represented it with a circle. The "less perfect" duple/quadruple time was shown by a circle with a bit missing, which eventually turned into a "C". But he says that "C" has also been used ("at times") to represent 4/2 and 8/8. He does not explicitly give other "readings" for the "cut" symbol, but there surely were. So this is historically based.

But I think it is just making things harder for performers to use a symbol contrary to its modern meaning. After all, you are not reproducing the different clefs (C clef for SAT, probably), so replace the time signature with 2/1, then add a footnote to the score.

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