I am a complete novice and I throw myself on your mercy.
Hello, everyone. I'm using MuseScore for the first time. I HAVE gone through some of the support materials and done a search of the site before asking this, but that doesn't mean I haven't missed something obvious, so I apologize in advance.
So here is my problem. I took a pdf of a piece of music and brought it into MuseScore in order to make a midi file. The pdf process was a little off, but I figured it would still be easier than going through and entering everything by hand. The problem is that now that I have the score, it seems like it's nearly impossible to edit it. I can't delete rests that were placed incorrectly. I can't change the duration of a note, and can't collapse multiple tiny rests into a single rest. I can't pull notes from one measure over to the one where they are supposed to go.
In short, the program seems unwilling to allow me to make the changes I need to make, and I'm too ignorant to understand what I'm doing wrong. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Lil
Comments
Hi. Depending on the result of the PDF importer, it could be a lot easier and faster to start from scratch. In particular, you might want to check the timing of each measure. If the timing is wrong, or if MuseScore tells that the file is corrupted, it will probably take you more time to fix it than to enter it by hand.
Lasconic's comment about PDF import also applies to XML import: sometimes an "irregular" bar is such a mess after import that it's easier to enter the notes from scratch.
But it is easier than you may think to change rests by breaking up a whole-bar rest or collapsing mulitple fractional rests. See the image below where I need to change the existing rests in bar 14 into quaver rests:
![musescore_rests_01.png]( "musescore_rests_01.png")
If I select the first rest, then click on a quaver note-value on the menu bar, the rest can be gradually broken down into smaller values. Then note entry is easy, using letters on the keyboard.
![musescore_rests_02.png]( "musescore_rests_02.png")
The same applies to collapsing fractional rests into a longer value: select the first rest in the bar, then choose the required note value on the menu bar. For a 6/8 time signature, you'll also need to add a dot sometimes.
It would be helpful if you could attach the actual PDF and/or MSCZ file that's giving you problems, but based on my own experience, I can guess that a big part of the reason you "can't change the duration of a note, and can't collapse multiple tiny rests into a single rest" is that the notes have been placed in different Voices . If some of the notes or rests turn green when you select them instead of blue, and especially if there are some rests that are grayed out (see https://musescore.org/en/search/handbook/invisible), this is probably the case.