Moving all highlighted notes down at once

• Jul 1, 2014 - 19:58

Hi. I'm very new to Musescore and composition in general. I have been working on a piece for harpsichord, viola and oboe, and have come up with a section of notes (not sure what the official term is) for one instrument. When I copy it and paste it into another instrument things get a little wacky. Is there away to move all the blue highlighted notes down so they fit inside the top and bottom lines?

Please see attach picture.

I'm running Musescore 1.3 on a mac pro.

Thanks,

David

Attachment Size
Muse Score 001.png 235.43 KB

Comments

• Jul 1, 2014 - 20:07

[Ctrl] DownArrow will drop your selection by an octave in pitch.

When you copy "notes" you are in fact, copying pitches. When you paste your selection to a different instrument those pitches get applied to that instrument's stave at the same pitch. If the destination instrument normally plays significantly higher or lower than the source instrument then the notes will look very high or very low as notated on the stave.

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• Jul 1, 2014 - 21:55

Generally, posting the actual score is more useful than merely a picture of it. I can see the stem directions are incorrect in your example, but without access to the score, I can't say why.

But as mentioned, different instruments have different ranges, use different clefs, and may need to be transposed into different keys. MuseScore handles all of this for you. So unless you are an expert and know that you wish to override what MuseScore is doing, you shouldn't mess with it. Right now, the viola part is identical to the oboe part. The notes appear above the staff because the viola uses a different clef than the oboe, but the notes are the same. if you move the notes down, they might fit on the staff, but they will no longer be the same notes as the oboe part.

You're probably best of finding a book on music, specifically one that deals with clefs, how different instruments work, etc, before getting to deep into this.

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• Jul 2, 2014 - 02:20

I should have prefaced with a clearer picture. I have not taken music since grade 5 and I'll I remember from it was the Peer Gynt suite, making a version of Under the Boardwalk on the xylophone, and the teacher saying that the notes work together to create music. I'm also possibly tone-deaf depending on who you talk too.

I haven't finished the piece yet, but am more than willing to post the score here. I appreciate your advice. I didn't know that stem direction mattered. I figured that it was right because the program did it. Since you're here I would love to know how I ended up making the smiley faced notes on page 3. There cool and work for what I want but I have no clue how to reproduce them.

Is there any specific books that you recommend?

Cheers,

David

Attachment Size
Musings_on_a_harpsichord_#_01.pdf 405.92 KB

Reply

• Jul 2, 2014 - 05:07

Again, the actual score is more useful than just a picture of it. We won't be able to guess why the stem directions got messed on on the copy without seeing the actual score (MSCZ file). If you started by importing a MusicXML file, that might explain it - the stem directions would be locked in by the MusicXML file, and preserved even when copying to a different clef. You'd have to reset the stem directions to default.

Not sure what you mean about "smiley faced notes". Are you referring to the place in measure 56 where the oboe has two notes at the same time, an A & a B? That's called a chord. See Note entry in the Hanbook to see how to enter chords, and just about everything else about note entry.

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• Jul 2, 2014 - 14:56

Scores created in nightly builds cannot be opened in 1.3, so I'm guessing you used MusicXML export / import to transfer your work. If you, them yes, that would explain why the stems are wrong in the passage you pasted. Had the original notes been entered nornally, their stem direction would be set to "auto" and MuseScore figures the direction automatically. And if you then copy and paste to a different clef, MuseScore recalculates the stem directions for the new clef. But when reading a MusicXML file, the contents of the MusicXML determines the stem direction, and this remains hard- coded when you copy and paste.

To fix it, right click a note, "Select All Similar", then right click a note again, "Note Properties", and reset stem direction to auto. It looks like you moved the pasted notes down an octave and corrected stem directions manually, so there won't be an obvious change when you do this, but it will prevent further problems.

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