Writing parts with multiple voices
Maybe I'm the only person round here who finds it's very difficult to write using more than one voice part per stave in MuseScore - but yes - I have read the manual several times over, and I have now discovered that forcing the Pan feature off stops the page from slithering around the screen - until it gets unset again.
I find it hard to believe it's just me though. I really would like to just ABSOLUTELY LOCK each voice part which is not being entered, so that ONLY the voice part I'm trying to enter gets changed.
Or something like that.
I noticed these problems well over a year ago (probably 18 months at least) when I was trying to copy recorder music, and I thought I'd get better at this with more familiarity, but it hasn't happened!
I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get this kind of thing to work.
Things like the auto stem direction which is supposed to work when a second voice is added seem quite erratic - sometimes that works - sometimes not.
Any useful help or tips about this would be appreciated - or otherwise should I suggest new features to avoid or mitigate against the problems I'm finding?
Comments
I'm entering closed score SATB score (2 staves, treble and bass clef) all the time, Soprano and Tenor in voice 1 (and with stem up), Alto and Bass in voice 2 (and with stem down).
Never had any problems doing this, not in the past 11 years...
So you'd need to describe exactly what you do, what you expect to happen and what happens instead
In reply to I'm entering closed score… by Jojo-Schmitz
This always seems to be the case. Someone has developed an arcane method which works for them, and I can't do it. That makes me wrong!
It has never worked sensibly for me. I will have to consider carefully what I do which differs from what you or others do.
I find this hard to explain, and all that seems to happen is that people who can make it work seem happy to carry on. I really do want to lock the parts so that if I'm working on voice 2 only those notes get changed.
I doubt whether MuseScore has a dynamic key or mouse tracker so that I could actually try to show you the key presses or mouse movements I'm actually doing which cause me so many difficulties.
In reply to This always seems to be the… by dave2020X
There's no locking indeed. Not for staves nor voices.
But see https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/voices#instructions, make sure to understand a follow those steps
In reply to This always seems to be the… by dave2020X
"Arcane": understood by few; mysterious or secret. Hardly appropriate I think.
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/voices#instructions
Nothing mysterious or secret at all! And it is understood by many.
So, please describe the difficulty you are having and then those who are in on the "secret" can pass on the not-so-black art to you.
My tips for what they are worth:
1) don't use the mouse. Use the keyboard shortcuts.
2) if you are entering music which is always in two voices, enter all of voice 1 then return to the start and enter voice 2
3) if you are entering music which switches between single and multiple voices frequently (e.g. a piano score) do it measure by measure i.e. enter a full measure of voice 1, return to the start of the measure and enter voice 2 where (or if) needed and then voice 3 etc. Then move on to the next measure.
4) be systematic, don't enter a bit here and a bit there and then a bit in between.
In reply to "Arcane": understood by few;… by SteveBlower
I do violate your rule 1 all the time ;-)
In reply to I do violate your rule 1 all… by Jojo-Schmitz
Just a tip, not a rule (I break it myself sometimes).
In reply to This always seems to be the… by dave2020X
As always, if you attach your actual score and describe the steps you are following precisely, we can understand and assist better. But for the record, MuseScore never ever changes voices without your explicit instruction, and nothing you do in one voice ever affects any other. So, voice 2 is rleady locked the money you select it in note input mode. Probably once you post the steps you are following it will be easy enough to point out where you are changing voices. Videos are far less useful to us. Plain simple text instructions - click this, press this, etc - that take only a minute or to type up.
In reply to As always, if you attach… by Marc Sabatella
In this particular case I will refer to this score by J Moses - someone I follow and am in contact with - https://musescore.com/jmoses/2021-03-25-daily-challenge
I like to see if I can figure things out with scores like this, so sometimes I try to re-input them - if they are print only. I have had permission to make some modifications etc. to some of his scores. Not that I'm intending to do that - but I simply want to see what his working is, and how things are going.
I tried inputting this one yesterday and after about 20 minutes I'd only got a few bars in, so I gave up in disgust. That was trying to input as a piano score.
Today I repeated the process - but it took maybe 20 minutes max to do it, but I followed a completely different process. First I created a new empty score for Wind Quartet. Then I deleted the clarinet part. Then I added a cello part. Then I entered the whole of the top line ("flute") as crotchets - minims were replaced by two crotchets. I didn't bother with quavers. I repeated this with the "oboe" part for the second voice. Then I went back and converted all the appropriate double crotchets to minims -press 6 on the first of them. Then I dealt with the quavers - select the first note, press 4, then patch in the next note. I did use the mouse for that once or twice.
So that gets the top two lines of the harmony. Then select the whole of the top two lines, and use Implode. This puts the two parts into the top line - "flute".
Essentially the same process is then repeated for the LH/bass clef notes - using the bassoon and cello lines.
Finally add in another instrument - piano, and copy the "flute" and the "bassoon" line to the treble and bass lines respectively.
This approach seems so much more reliable than trying to work with voices directly on piano staves.
Obviously at the end of this the wind instruments can be deleted - or just save the file and create a new one which only has the four parts on two staves as required.
I think part of the problem I have experienced might be due to MS switching in and out of Note Input mode. This might happen if I enter a note incorrectly, then use a CMD-Z to remove the note - and it just gets to be a total mess.
I have also tried to enter notes using the "chord" notation in piano mode - e.g F then Shift A, A then Shift C etc. for the first few notes of the piece shown - though that gets trickier in bar 2. Then there doesn't seem to be an easy and consistent way to split the chords into parts.
Trying to switch between voices can also lead to problems - I'm not sure why.
I don't now usually have such problems with my own music, as I don't normally write four part music in the "obvious" way for a four part stave - treble + bass - piano RH,LH.
In reply to I this particular case I… by dave2020X
That one (as well as most close score SATB ones) seems relativly easy:
To me that's the fastest and easiest method
In reply to I this particular case I… by dave2020X
If the parts are truly completely independent, and you're not a pianist or guitarist or choir singer so you don't find it natural to read and write multiple voices on a single staff, then indeed, entering them on separate and then imploding can be a quick way to get the job done. But this will only work for those simple cases where it really is two completely independent parts. At least as often, music will go back and forth between a single voice and two, sometimes even three, from measure to measure or even within a single measure. So you definitely need to be able to enter notes in multiple voices directly at times.
So again, if you are having some sort of problem entering notes in multiple voices directly, then in order to advise, we would need you to post the exact steps you are following, so we can show you where you are going wrong and what to do instead.
BTW, just as with voices, MuseScore never leaves note input mode without your explicit instruction to do so. Undo doesn't exit note input mode - unless, of course, you try to undo past the point of the notes you actually entered. Like, if the last thing you did before entering note input mode was adding a dynamic marking, then you go into note input mode to enter some notes, then you hit Undo enough times to undo every single note you entered, the next undo will remove the dynamic marking and you'll be back in normal mode.
BTW, the piece you show two voices oper staff throughout, completely consistently, no exceptions. There is not a single "chord" (in the MuseScore sense) in the entire piece - it's all multiple voices. So no use of Shift+letter name will ever produce anything like what you see. You need multiple voices for every single measure, even the first - assuming you actually want to reproduce that measure, not some other measure that sounds the same but is notated differently.
Entering the second measure is trivially simple:
1) select the (presumably empty) measure
2) N to enter note input mode (you will be in voice 1)
3) enter the voice 1 notes: 5 C 4 C B 6 A
4) move cursor back to beginning of measure (Ctrl+Left)
5) switch to voice 2 (Ctrl+Alt+2 or click the toolabr button)
6) enter the voice 2 notes: 5 A E 6 F
In a piece like this, I'd be more inclined to enter the whole thing, or at least maybe several bars at a time, in voice 2, then go back and enter voice 2, rather than one measure both voice, then the next both voices, etc. Too much switching voices and moving the cursor around for my taste.
Do note that in my example, reversing steps 4 & 5 won't work. After switching the voice 2, the cursor can only move within voice 2, and since there is nothing in voice 2 yet, the cursor won't be able to go anywhere in that voice. In this case, rather than do nothing, it will indeed switch to a voice that has notes, since you di ask it to move the cursor, and that's the only way to do it. So maybe that's the mistake you've been making - trying to move the cursor in a voice that has no notes.
In reply to If the parts are truly… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks. We seem to be getting somewhere now. I did notice that over the years other people have been asking very similar things, so I don't think it's just me.
I have now a related - but not quite the same thing - to show. This time I'll do it with an example.
Attached are five files. The first file simply has some notes on a piano stave. The LH part has been constructed by inputting notes, and using the Shift+letter code to get each two note "chord".
Suppose I want to renotate the LH part as two separate voice parts.
In this example I first create anothe stave - for cello - shown in the second file.
Then I explode the LH line and the cello line now fills in, as shown in the third file.
At this point I've now got a Voice 1 in the LH piano part, and a Voice 1 in the cello part.
Now I'd like to copy the cello part back to the LH piano part, but this time as Voice 2.
I can't see how to do this step. Is there a plugin or an instruction for that?
This would work for some parts if the copy or implode could work with Voices, but otherwise it would
just put things back as they were originally.
Where this method might fail is if the voice parts cross over - though maybe there is also a command/plugin/shortcut to swap voice parts which could be used to patch things up at that stage. In this example let's assume that the voice parts do not cross - so the parts should be simple enough.
Actually I have found I can do that, but I've had to use another cello line.
The result is shown in the file Sample test final. I can't quite remember the steps - so will have to check again, but essentially the LH line is split into two separate lines - using Explode. Then the line to become Voice 2 has a voice change by selecting the number 2 for the voice - which puts a line of rests above that. Then the Voice 1 line is copied from the line above into the Voice 1. Once the end result has been obtained the result is then copied back to the LH piano line.
A bit of experimentation might be required as sometimes copying voices doesn't seem to work quite as I'd expected, but you can see that finally I managed to get this done.
In reply to Thanks. We seem to be… by dave2020X
First, it's not clear what your goal is here: why you are choosing to take this very roundabout path to achieve the result you want. So it would if you explained the context in more detail. If I wanted to get the result you describe, I wouldn't mess with any of this, I'd just enter what I wanted in the first place.
But for the sake of argument, let's say you have some special reason to do it this way. To combine music on two staves onto one stave in two voices, simply use Tools / Implode. It accomplishes exactly that result, no messing with copy & paste or yet more staves required.
So, if I'm understanding the desired result, after adding the cello, simply explode the piano LH, then implode. Done, about 5 seconds total.
FWIW, though, copy and paste is possible too - you just need to be sure you are copying the voice you want. So, use "Tools / Voices / Exchange Voice 1-2' to move the cello music into voice 2, select it, use the Selection Filter to exclude voice 1 from the selection, copy, re-enable voice 1 in the selection filter, select the piano LH, paste. There are other ways to do this as well without the selection filter - for instance, copy the other direction, copy piano LH to cello. Probably you made the mistake of trying to copy cell to piano LH directly, but that fails because the cello part has rests in voice 1 than overwrites the notes in the piano LH.
Again, though, this is a very roundabout way of entering multivoice music. Much simpler to just enter it directly, as I demonstrated previously.
In reply to First, it's not clear what… by Marc Sabatella
I'm going to have to reiterate - sorry - I may be doing something very wrong - but I don't know what it is.
The reason for doing it this way is because it works. All my attempts to do a direct note entry have been far more problematic. If I knew why I'd change what I do - but I have met this problem so many times that this way is far more reliable for me. I think it was you who explained the explode and implode in one of the recent cafe sessions, and that - even with a few limitations - is just so much easier than messing around with something which - for reasons I don't fully understand - often just does not work.
In reply to I'm going to have to… by dave2020X
Did you try following the instructions I gave above? Did they not work as easily as I said? I would hope that by following that step by step, you might better understand what you had been doing wrong that made things seem problematic. But I promise it really is exactly as I easy as I am saying.
Anyhow, even if you prefer taking the scenic route and adding more steps to the process, Implode works as I described as well, so if you have the extra time to kill, feel free to spend it that way :-). Same results either way, it's just slower because it's more steps.
In reply to Did you try following the… by Marc Sabatella
I'll look at it yet again. If it works it might be marginally quicker, but if it fails then my way will be quicker. It is really rather fast. I don't mind more steps if the outcome is assured.
In reply to I'll look at it yet again… by dave2020X
It definitely works. It will be only marginally quicker if your music really is cleanly separated into voices where there are always two voices throughout. It becomes much quicker and easier in the much more common cases when writing piano or guitar music where voices appear and disappear throughout the piece measure by measure or beat by beat. It would be almost impossible to enter most piano music the way you describe.
FWIW, I've decided to make multiple voices the topic of this week's MuseScore Café - live on Wednesday at 12:30 Eastern, 16:30 GMT. I'll be demonstrating the use of multiple voices and answering whatever questions come up in the live chat.
See https://youtu.be/wAaKPLwQnIo to join us!