remove horizontal space at the beginning of a measure

• Oct 21, 2024 - 02:14

I often have long measures that I don't mind splitting over two systems. I prefer this over having abnormally stretched out measures to fill the system width. So, what I used to do in Finale is make two smaller measures out of a big measure and set the bar line to invisible. If the computer decides that the two smaller measures should be on one system, that's fine. But if it decides to break the two measures over two systems, that's fine, too. There is a little problem, though, because there is a default horizontal extra space added at the beginning of each measure. When the bar line is set to invisible, I end up with a gap between successive notes if the measures end up on one system. Is there a way to remove this default space at the beginning of a selected measure?

Alternatively, is there a way to tell Musescore to allow a measure to be broken over two systems in order to make the spacing of the score more uniform?

Comments

TheHutch

• Oct 21, 2024 - 20:30

Try this?

Select the not-visible barline and go to Properties tab / Appearance button and decrease the Leading space value. Setting it to -1.5 looks (to me!) about right. It will break correctly if it needs to break and look like there's nothing there when it doesn't need to break.

RJawad

• Oct 22, 2024 - 01:37

Thanks for help. I tried -1.5. I also tried -1.85, -2.1, and -2.5. It seems to change based on many factors. For example, a sharp at the beginning of the measure affects it. I think a flag at the end might affect it, too. So, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a perfect way to do it. If you alter the horizontal stretch of the whole piece afterwards, these manual spaces get messed up. But anyway, this gives me a way to tweak things, so it's still helpful.