Instrument's name is not updated when 'Choosing instruments'

• Oct 2, 2024 - 16:14

Hi,

I believe I found a bug (possibly two, see the need to do 1. and 2. below). It is about the names of instruments that one adds to the score, and it might not be very relevant to the function, but it's a bit annoying to me when working with large scores. The relevant docs are this: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/working-instruments.

I'll demonstrate it on an example. Let's say I'm building a score, I create a new one and select Flute and Clarinet as the first two instruments:
MS-create.png

And I create the score. In this example, the flute plays the oboe part, so I will add a note to its part name. I will do it in two separate places as these two also don't communicate (not sure if it's a bug).

  1. First in the main score:
    a) either by double-clicking the instrument:
    MS-rename_main_score.png

or
b) by clicking on the gear next to the instrument on the Instruments tab:

MS-rename_gear.png

I see nicely that the name and abbreviation changed in the score. This is, however, not enough. If I now open "Parts", I see that the name is still Flute and not Flute (Oboe). Also, if I'd open the part, I'd only see Flute as the instrument name, not Flute (Oboe), so
2. I need to change the name of the part in the Parts:
MS-parts.png

Now to the bug. Let's say that now I want to add a real flute, meaning another flute that will be playing the flute part. I go to Instruments -> Add -> Woodwinds -> Flute and I get this:
MS-add_flute.png

This already foreshadows the issue as the instrument is still called Flute. It didn't get the name of the part, but let's continue with it. Press Ok and let's open the same window again. What we see now is two flutes:
MS-two_flutes.png

but without a way of knowing which one is which. I understand that it's the instrument's name (which is still flute), but I'm reporting this inability to change its name. Specifically, I don't want the first flute to be called Flute 2 only because I started writing the 'oboe-flute' first and it took its name. This keeps accumulating when more flutes/oboes are added. The only way to fix it is to do it in the right order (or then replace the parts), which is difficult. Would it be possible to add a way to rename the instrument label? At least switch 1 and 2 within the same instrument.

Thanks.

Attachment Size
MS-create.png 95.99 KB
MS-rename_main_score.png 84.65 KB
MS-rename_gear.png 73.56 KB
MS-parts.png 144.65 KB
MS-add_flute.png 88.66 KB
MS-two_flutes.png 84.83 KB

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