What Musescore needs

• May 15, 2015 - 01:27

Musescore needs to better work on pick up measure features. I had one piece that required a 3 beat pickup on a 4/4 time. Muse score didn't have the end measure equal 1 beat.

Also, the scoring templates are rather limited. I could not find a TTBB closed score or had the option to choose the instruments in a closed score.

Also, there should be a way to change the staff format. If I were arranging a pice for SATB/TTBB and all of a sudden, the score becaomes a bit complicated to the point where I need to spread out the score, and then later compress or close it again, I would very well appreciate that feature, It saves paper and space than having to make the entire score open.

Also, something Musescore should have for the people that need it is; The feature to show cue notes on a hymnal-like score. I had one piece of music of my own creating that had a few quarter rests in it that I was converting into a hymnal-like score. I would like to put cue notes that I would like the piano to play during the rest. That, I did not have.

And one other thing, I wish most of the items in the palette would be easier to use and worked on quite a bit. Most of the items appeared rather grey and pixlated.


Comments

If you wish to use the convention that is common in certain styles of music where the last measure of a piece is shortened to compensate for a pickup, you can do this easily via Measure Properties.

You are also welcome to create and templates you like and save them to your templates folder. If you think TTBB is common enough that is deserves to be in the small set of templates that is shipped by default, feel free to submit your tempaltes for consideration and make a case for why you feel it should be included.

I don't understand what you mean about "change the staff format". But if you post the score you are having problems and describe in more detail what you want to do, I'm sure sure someone will be able to show you how to do whatever it is you are wanting.

Cue notes are quite possible as well. Just copy the notes in, then use the Inspector to set them to small, and turn off the playback.

Not sure what you mean about about palette items. Double clicking is already easy, is it not> And what do you mean about grey and pixelated? Can you post a screenshot?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I think I know what "change the staff format" means: the ability to go back and forth in the same score between systems where two voice parts share a staff (e.g., in a TTBB choral arrangement, TT on one staff and BB on another) and systems where each part has its own staff. The idea being to save space by notating the voice parts on only 2 staves per system except where the music becomes too complex to notate multiple voice parts on a single staff.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

In some cases, perhaps. But if I understand what you're suggesting, this would mean having one or more parts bouncing between staves. This might well satisfy the OP's need in a choral score, but imagine that it's an orchestral score. Wouldn't this solution prevent the correct extraction of parts?

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

With "hide empty stave" you can collapse staves that are not being used at all for a given system, but you cannot combine staves which is what I think the OP is asking. ("Hide empty staves" should help though, and it shouldn't break part extraction).

It is possible to manually combine parts using staff text instrument labels and different voices for each part. This way you could correctly notate S,A,T1+T2,B1+B2 and then expand to T1,T2,B1,B2 so that 1st and 2nd tenors and bases only share a staff when the sopranos and altos are singing. However, this *would* break part extraction and it also *would* prevent individual volume control for each part via the mixer (useful for learning a part).

The solution to both problems would be to have a new "Expanded" (or "Master") score view where all of the parts are written out on separate staves. You then pick which parts to show, which to combine, and which to not show at all in the "Normal" (or "Collapsed", or "Printing") score view. (This would solve https://musescore.org/en/node/42301 and https://musescore.org/en/node/42301)

In reply to by shoogle

Oh, So can you elaborate on the manually combine parts? Also, I would like to be able to hide empty staves, but also be able to show different portions of the staves that are being used while keeping the portions not being used hidden.

In reply to by Elwin

As Marc said, write the parts in different voices on the same staff. E.g. 1st Tenor in Voice 1 and 2nd Tenor in Voice 2. See the Voices handbook entry for instructions.

If you have already written the parts out separately you can use the "Implode" tool to merge them onto a single staff. This will put them in separate voices automatically.

If you want to label the stave for both voices then click on the first shared note and hit Ctrl+T to insert staff text. You could change the text style to "Instrument Change" from the Inspector (press F8) to get the correct look. (Note that labelling "1st & 2nd Tenor" is unnecessary because it is implied already by the label "Tenor". But if the Tenors and Bases share a staff then you *must* label it "Tenors & Bases".)

(FYI, you don't need to click "reply" to everyone. People in the thread get a notification email when a new message is posted regardless of whether it was a reply to them or just a new comment.)

In reply to by Elwin

Yes, it is possibe to separate the parts if you change your mind later - MuseScore provides a robust set of tools for selecting, filtering the selection, copying and pasting, etc. Details will depend on exactly what you are doing. When you get to the point of having an actual score where you have specific questions on how to do some specific thing, just post it with as complete a description of what exactly you are trying to do as you can, and someone will surely be able to show you how to do it. Specific questions based on specific scores are a lot easier to answer meaningfully.

As for replying, I think the point is, you posted a lot of individual replies with one sentence each when you could have just posted one reply with everything you wanted to say.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

How could you do the measure properties thing? I was just wondering because if I needed a one beat pickup measure, the last measure would only last 3 beats. I was confuse when the last measure didn't last only one beat for a three beat pick up. Also, I did appreciate the SATB closed score feature, It's just that, If the piece became too complicated, then I would like to be able to expand it into the 4-staff feature. Actually, I realized that it could be done using the hide empty staves, but how could I get a part of the staff to be hidden but be able to show another part later? Also, If I actually do that, how do I indicate that two parts would be on the same staff? Now don't get me wrong, I actually do like musescore, I needed a free software that was similar to finale, but not expensive.

In reply to by Elwin

If you want to change the length of the last measure, just change its properties too. You can change properties for any measure you like.

Hide empty staves does exactly what you describe. If you are only using two staves for a portion of the piece, then only those two will show for that portion. If a different portion of the piece uses four, then all four show for that portion. it's the same way Finale and most other programs work.

Not sure what you mean "how do I indicate that two parts would be on the same staff'? Just put the parts there in separate voices. But if you mean, you later want to generate separate parts from this score, this is what I was saying can't be done. If you have T1 & T2 on the same staff, there is not way to automatically have separate generated parts. Finale doesn't do that either - at least, it didn't last time I used it a few years ago. but nor would be that be a standard way of publishing scores & parts.

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