Large Scores Formatting
I'm 95% sure that MuseScore isn't made to deal with large scores as well as it can with, say quintets or chamber groups. There're four things that I'm unsure of and need help with.
There's a large piece that I'm working on that has 5(?) movements. There're a total of 46 instruments currently, but not all of them play in every movement. For example, Mvt. III has more of a jazzy feel, so there're saxes in that movement, but no others. There's too many instruments to fit all on the page at once without making the paper way too large. I want to be able to do something like hide all empty staves, but show the all of them on the first page, but per movement. So, for example, in Mvt. III, the first page has all of the instruments that play for that movement alone, so there aren't strings shown, but on the first page of Mvt. IV, the strings are all on page one, but not the saxes. Is there a way to do this all in one file without making a separate file for each movement?
What size should I make the physical paper for the score? I don't know how big the paper is that scores are generally printed on. Mvt. V has a lot more instruments playing in it, almost a full orchestra plays at some point (Strings, choir, brass, woodwinds (whose parts can probably be condensed), and some percussion and keyboards)
In lots of scores, like the one in this picture, the part names (clarinet and bassoon) are joined together, but the part numbers are separate (I & II, III). How do you do something like this in MuseScore?
Lastly, when I choose to hide empty staves, an instrument like a piano or an organ, which has multiple staves, loses its name on a page where only one of its staves has music in a certain section.
Comments
first approach:
(Lastly) Enter a note Voice 2 , make it invisible (press 'V') and mute by Inspector.
Layout/Page settings, set to A3.
In the US, large orchestra scores are commonly printed on 11x17 ("tabloid" format) paper, although publishing houses often use custom paper sizes. Presumably it is similar in Europe. Should be enough to fit all instruments if you reduce staff size. You might consider having two versions of the score though - one with very small staff size that you use for the first page of each movement only, and only with a staff size that works more generally, if all the rest of the pages have much fewer than 46 staves.
I'd suggest using hide empty staves and then planting invisible / silent notes on the staves you don't want hidden. But probably you do want separately files for each movement, as you'll find MsueScore gets very slow with super large scores.
In reply to In the US, large orchestra… by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc, can you be more specific about what makes MuseScore slow? Is it the number of instruments, number of bars, number of notes, number of "visible" items, etc. ?
I've started a pretty large orchestral score but even with mostly empty bars it's becoming sluggish to the point that I'm considering spending money on software that doesn't slow down (if that exists in the first place).
In reply to Hi Marc, can you be more… by Kees de Visser
What slows it down is the number of measures and number of instruments. Notes entered into measures doe affect the speed. If the measures are empty, they affect the speed less than if they have notes. More notations slows it down more than less notation, so for example a bunch of staccato marks will help slow down the process. If you have a multiple movement piece as you do, it is best to enter each movement in its own file. If you have a movement that exceeds 150-200 measure with over about 25 instruments you will see a massive slowdown that almost makes MuseScore unusable. All the numbers are rough estimates and also depends on you computer. I transcribe large orchestral scores and see all that you have discussed, so I speak from experience.
What I do when input slows down too much is select 20-30 empty measures in the score and use Save Selection under the file menu. I use this new file to enter the score to include slurs, dynamics, acidentals and any staff text. Then I cut and paste this into the main file. It is less than ideal if there are multiple time or key changes since they cannot be copied. It does mean duplicating these, but it is much faster than waiting for each note to register. I then enter the system information such as tempo changes into the main score. It's slow, but this is mostly what is necessary at this point.
Whether you enter one instrument at a time or one page at a time is strictly a matter of what the score looks like. If there are slurs that connect every measure to the previous, you will want to pick several consecutive instruments to enter at a time. If there are few pages connected by slurs, then a page at a time is easier (in my opinion).
In reply to What slows it down is the… by mike320
Thank you both, that is very helpful information. I'll give it a try !
In reply to Hi Marc, can you be more… by Kees de Visser
I'd summarize it as in the play/movie Amadeus: "too many notes". Basically, the time to lay out a score is proportional to the number of things in it: notes, rests, barlines, dynamics, etc. Empty bars still have rests etc, but of course they have only only rest per bar so it should be better than if the bars were filled with notes. It takes time to calculate the proper position, size, and shape of everything. Ideally, we'd only do it for that which actually changes, but currently we lay out the entire score on every edit. That's already changing for 3.0 - we will detect what needs lay out and only do that. So most edits will be much faster.