How can I swap a notes between staves?

• Dec 13, 2017 - 09:27

Hi there,

I've checked through the forum but I couldn't find an answer to something that seems apparently an easy task. I need to swap a note part of a chord, from bass staff to violin staff but I can't find a simple way to do it, apart deleting fm bass staff and re-inserting it on violin staff. Thank you …

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http://www.danworks.it

Attachment Size
swap staff.jpg 30.03 KB

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 10:15

That is exactly what a picture of a score does not get across (and why we continue asking for sharing the real score), and you wrote about violin and bass.
In a piano staff you can use cross-staff notation, possibly (this applies onlky to whole chords, not just single notes out of a chord though, so you may need to move that note to a different voice first)
See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/voices#change-voice and https://musescore.org/en/handbook/cross-staff-notation

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 11:40

It's not difficult. If you want a single note moved to the other staff, change it's voice. You can select it, press ctrl+alt+2 then ctrl+shift+up arrow and it will change staves. The 2 can also be 3 or 4 if voice 2 is already used in the bottom staff.

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 12:07

That is correct but it isn't straightforward as a single command, is it?

On top of that once you have switched staff, the note (on my case) goes over the existing note on bass staff, so I also have to change the horizontal offset to make it readable, which is another series of mouse clicks. And to try to avoid that, if after the switch I change the moved note back to voice 1, MS sent it back to violin staff and add a voice 2 pause, which seems a bit weird to me. Please see the mov

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hzrn4twvvea30lu/MuseScoreScreenSnapz001.mov?d…

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 15:40

Mike, I'm always on a tight deadline so I rarely enter notes with a mouse, I play :)

Let say you're recording a piano composition you wrote. Once you end to record it, you want to print the score but the score isn't exactly displayed as expected, and many MANY notes need to be swapped fm one staff to another to make it properly readable therefore playable. The fact that you need to manually delete each notes in the wrong position and re-insert it on a the other staff, it would be maybe painless for you but it is a gargantuan pita for me.

In fact I do all the recording and swap within DP and once the notes are properly displayed I export it to MS to add all the bells n whistles that MS have and DP have not . All I wanted to know if there was a similar command within MS and I've learned that there isn't one, as simple as that.

I hope to see it as a feature on the new MS version

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 18:38

If you're on a tight deadline, you might consider switching to a more efficient entry method. Typing with a keyboard is normally the most efficient, along with entering notes in step time one staff at a time via MIDI. Relying on any sort of automatic parsing of MIDI is going to create exactly the sorts of issues you are seeing seeing here, plus many many more in trying to properly notate enharmonics, rhythms, use of multiple voices, etc.

In normal use - that is, when entering notes using the methods I mention - what you describe would not come up as an issue very often at all. Plus pretty much everything else would be more efficient as well.

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 20:50

Marc, I'm afraid we're getting a bit off topic abut lets talk about it anyway :)

For me, the fastest way to build a proper piano score is playing and record it. You're probably a MS power user (I'm not), but usually by the time you fill 8-10 bars with spot entry I've finished to record the whole piece. This is exactly what I do with DigitalPerformer. And there aren't any major probs with enharmonic - voicing - rhythm cos DP it handle it quite well. Then I perform the swap notes thing between staves before export it in XML format to Muse Score.

But please, lets go back to the original topic:
I've just asked if there was a feature similar to the one on DP and I've discovered that there isn't … as simple as that :)

So, if I may, I'd love to see this feature implemented on a future version of MS, to let me switch one or more notes at time between staves on a grand staff. It would be very nice for the score I personally create/play and for the score I receive fm other people made with other apps and then exported in XML.

best
http://www.danworks.it

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• Dec 13, 2017 - 22:08

This isn't off-topic at all. If we are to consider adding a new feature - and thus devoting development effort to something that could otherwise be devoted to something else - it is important to establish some context to understand the true value of the feature. If the goal is to improve efficiency, we want to make sure we are increasing efficiency by as much as possible for as many people as possible. And that means looking hard at what the actual benefits to any new feature are and if there are more effective ways of getting even greater gains. That could easily include our spending a few minutes helping you learn how to be much more efficient in your own workflow using the tools as they are.

I'm having trouble understanding your current workflow and what DP actually does for you. Might be instructive for you to record a typical file with DP (making no edits whatsoever) and export it to MusicXML so we can see what kind of music you are dealing with to start, then maybe have you export another version that shows what it looks like after spending some time editing in DP (and tell us how long you spent), then show us the sort of things you'd still want to be able to do in MuseScore and why it wouldn't make more sense to do these in DP first.

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• Dec 14, 2017 - 15:41

Alright Marc, fm the very beginning.

I’ve received a score for a concert I have to do with a big band. The conductor sent me the piano score and once I saw it I ask him if he could send me an XML so I could reduce the number of pages.

Part of the intro as I got it: check the attachment 7days_fmXML_edit

I see he wrote everything with flats probably cos all the brass on the big band, who knows, but for me reading it that way and watching and hearing the chords I was playing, it was a bit awkward. So, using the J-key I enharmonically changed to something easier fo me to read (i.e. B E instead Cb Fb), and all the flats changed to sharps.

While listening to the attached mp3, I’ve also realised that on bars 6, 7 & 8 there was a root note a ninth below the last note in the bass staff, therefore I’ve added the bass note and then TRIED to move the third note I couldn’t play comfortably with my left hand to the right hand. Until these attempts the score looked like this: check the attachment “7days_edit3”.

After 20 mins of RTFM and failed attempts, I just deleted the left hand/bass staff notes, re-inserted on violin staff and decided to write to the forum. Check the attachment “7days_edit4”, that is the correct version the way I wanted it.

============================

When yesterday I said “off topics” about the direction of the discussion, it’s because this scenario doesn’t have anything to do with my workflow. And it would be stupid from my side pretend to add a feature because “my workflow” … my ego isn’t that big :)

This score wasn’t a score I did, I imported it and for some reason I’ve found myself I couldn’t do what I was hoping to do in a quick way, as DP allows me to do.

NOTE: DP is a DAW so I don't want to compare apples and oranges. Even if it’s great that has a QuickScribe function and XML export feature which it’s a lifesaver for preparing orchestral mockup to transfer to MScore (nowadays) or Sibelius (in the past), it probably have less than 5% of the score features that a dedicated score app like MScore has.

For this reason it is bizarre - IMHO - that on MScore I can select a note and flip the beam, enharmonically change its property, offset its position vertically and horizontally, make the beam longer shorter, change midi velocity, add fingering, even deciding the font & style of a rehearsal mark etc etc etc. But I can’t move a note from bass staff to violin staff and vice versa … come on!

MScore would be a serious piece of software even if it would be a commercial app. It works pretty well and it allowed me to put down quite larger orchestral scores for a 60 orchestral players + 30 choir singers + 7 band musicians on tour we had last summer.

It even has bagpipe embellishment (…) which with due all respect seems to me a “niche feature” so, maybe we could also have a “switch staff” feature, which for me it is almost an everyday function whenever I work with piano scores, either made by me fm scratch or imported. I'd pay for that.

Obviously it’s only my humble opinion :)

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Attachment Size
7days_fmXML_edit.mscz 10.38 KB
7days_edit3.mscz 11.94 KB
7days_edit4.mscz 11.85 KB

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• Dec 14, 2017 - 18:16

OK, so if I understand the above correctly, DP is a red herring - you aren't using in your workflow. It's more about ordinary edits to scores created through other means.

To me what would make sense then is to use cut and paste to move the note, same as you would to move a note to a totally different staff or to another beat position. The only problem is that while you can cut the note from the current chord, pasting a note onto a chord replaces the entire chord rather than adding to the chord. For some use cases, this is exactly what would be wante,d but here indeed is a use case where you'd want it added.

Suggesting to me that one solution that fits your workflow without adversely affecting other use cases would be to have separate "paste with replace" and "paste without replace" commands. Right now our existing paste command is a bit inconsistent - some things get replaced (like notes) but others don't (like dynamics), which has also led to some confusion and requests to change behavior.

So that seems a possible way to go, then. Thoughts from others?

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• Dec 14, 2017 - 18:56

Even clearer … I'm a music producer arranger and engineer since the early eighties. DP is the DAW that allowed me to have a career and a life and it still does, but if I want to print a score in a "pro" way, with all the articulation, fingering, note-head etc, I need a dedicated score app. And after having sent to hell AVID (nomen-omen) which keep continuously asking for a sort of a "rent" to use Sibelius updated, or a ridiculous amount of money for a yearly minor update, I decided to check out other stuff. While I was wandering around the web I've encountered MuseScore, and I liked it.

Now, what you propose it is on DP and it's called MERGE. Whatever you have stored in the clipboard after a COPY or a CUT action, you can MERGE it anywhere without deleting what it's already in that place/position/bar/beat.

If it was me I would follow the Occam's Razor philosophy for this issue: "suppose there exist two solutions for a problem; the simpler one is usually better." But hey, I'm a musician not a programmer :)

Thanks for you time support availability and patience. Looking forward to a solution that will work for everyone.

best
http://www.danworks.it

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• Dec 14, 2017 - 21:03

Too bad. After following your further posts I realize that you cannot enter them correctly the first time. Perhaps at some point in the future there will be an easier way to move notes between staves. In the mean time, once you get used to the capabilities and limitations of MuseScore this process will become quicker for you. As with any new program, you learn how to use the features you have available. You did this with your DAW several years ago with or without realizing it. Some of the features of MuseScore took me longer to get used to than others, and moving a note to a different instrument now seems like a quick process to me. I have no investment in MuseScore except as a user like you. I hope you continue using it and learn to appreciate it more. If you ever run into something that seems to be too cumbersome to accomplish, there is often another way to do it easier. In this case feel free to make a new post here and a large group of fellow users will be more than willing to give free advice, tips and tricks.

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• Dec 15, 2017 - 08:37

Thanks Mike,

I'm not native English speaker so sometimes I have the impression of losing some nuance in the sentences, and/or above all, not express myself properly.

Just to avoid misunderstanding due to the language barrier, when you say "perhaps at some point in the future there will be an easier way to move notes between staves", I'd point out that we're talking about "between staves of the same instrument, in this case the piano".

I definitely don't want to switch notes between piccolo and tuba :)

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• Dec 15, 2017 - 13:06

For the sake of discussion, what would you expect in these cases if you would switch the staff of the red note? Should the note go to the same voice in the other staff ? What if there is already notes there, starting at the same place but with different rythm? What if there is a note already sounding but started earlier? or a note that will start while the note just switch will still sound?
Capture d'écran 2017-12-15 14.04.06.png

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merge.mscz 6.83 KB

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• Dec 15, 2017 - 15:50

FWIW, it's issues like this that make me think cut and paste is probably the better approach. No matter how we decide to handle the above cases, it's what you want sometimes but not other times. Explicit paste might be two extra clicks, but the result is unambiguous. And would also solve other problems if we generalized it as I suggested.

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• Dec 20, 2017 - 15:27

For the sake of discussion, another example:

1- opened DP, put a midi track in rec mode and started to play and record freely.
2- listen to it, throw away 90%, kept few bars, exported in XML format and imported on MScore.

On pic Original is how DP interpreted and exported my realtime recording. The red notes are the ones in the wrong staff that I want to swap. On pic Edited it's how I played it and how I want to be displayed it to be easily readable.

You'd ask me: why you don't just switch notes within DP and fuggetaboudit? :)

Because I'm using MScore as a "main score app", where I add pedal, rehearsal mark, slur, fingering and maybe before printing it I have a second thought about a particular passage here n there, where playing some notes with one hand or another does make the difference. At that point I can't go back top DP to swap notes between staves cos I'll lose all my editing made within MScore. Or yes … I could do that and then re-import only those bars but it will became a big pita.

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Attachment Size
Original.pdf 55.52 KB
Edited.pdf 50.97 KB

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• Dec 21, 2017 - 17:59

Would be useful if you could go to DP and try out the examples lasconic shows above and then report back how it handles all those different cases. Still, I would expect that this specific use case would be not sufficiently common enough for a dedicated command, and still prefer handling it via cut and paste - same as how we handle any other case where you have something in one place and wish to move it somewhere else.

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• Dec 27, 2017 - 09:18

Marc,

I don't know if in real life I would ever need to deal with something like that. Anyway, here's a movie that shows how DP handle this scenario. I couldn't perform the example on bar #3 cos for DP it doesn't make any sense as it is the very same midi event, the same way it is on a paper piano score: if we see a bar like that, either we play it with one hand or the or the other.

Here we go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n21u93q3kmo2xwr/swapDP.mov?dl=0

best

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• Dec 27, 2017 - 18:46

Understood that your particular use case might not require that, but that is precisely why it is important to look beyond any one particular use case and instead come up with more general solutions that address multiple use cases. Otherwise the interface becomes an enormously complex and unwieldy hodgepodge of unrelated features.

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