Horizontal spacing in bar

• Jan 19, 2011 - 11:45

Hi everybody, I tried to search on this forum about this topic but I couldn't find any solution.

I know that note positioning and the space between them in a bar should follow notes length, but I prefer spacing between notes to be based more on graphical width to be more readable and pleasant... In the attachment you can see what I mean: the "minima" at the end of the bar takes most of the space, while the quaver just before it's really too close.

I know that I can manually move the notes but I'd prefer Musescore not to follow note length for positioning by default. Is there a way to change this behaviour?

Thanks in advance,
Guido.

Attachment Size
Schermata.png 1.64 KB

Comments

• Jan 19, 2011 - 14:23

You can find note spacing settings in Style -> Edit General Style -> Measure. You probably want to tweak measure margins and note min. distance.

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• Jan 19, 2011 - 17:39

I'd be careful about messing with spacing too much unless you are producing music for only you to ever read. It's tough to predict what others will find readable, so one has to assume that the best practices of music engraving for the last several centuries are not completely wrong. Which isn't to say that MuseScore always nails this. But I'd say in the example you posted, the problem isn't the *relative* spacing of the notes - the half note really should get quite a lot more space than the eighth. That's how written music has been produced for centuries, that's what most people expect to see, and that actually helps one in sightreading.

But the problem with the example posted - and I'd argue pretty much all music produced with default settings in MuseScore - is that the overall "stretch" setting is too narrow. Change the global stretch setting to something a bit larger and you get music that I think you'll like better. It will still have proportional spacing, but more of it everywhere.

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• Jun 23, 2022 - 19:52

To be clear - by score, we mean, the actual MSCZ file. It's hard to diagnose problem just from pictures. But there are a few things I can see that look problematic. For one thing, it seems you've increase the distance between staff lines, which is causing everything else to look too small in comparison. Assuming your goal was not to create a special experimental notation that uses different proportional from normal, the better way to make your music bigger is with Format / Page Settings, the "staff space" setting there causes everything to scale accordingly.

As it is, it seems the difference between your two systems likely has to do with the different stem directions, which subtle affects the spacing. But again, first you should fix the scaling, because that's throwing everything off - sizes of noteheads, distance between notes, etc. If you continue to have problems after that, then attach the score representing your best attempt and we should be able to advise further.

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• Jan 19, 2011 - 22:11

Thanks molnam, I didn't see that parameter... Playing a little bit with it I had better results!

Marc, please don't make a "holy war" out of my question! I don't want to discuss centuries of music notation. When you write music by hand you have much more control, and you can "adjust" things to either fit the rules and your personal taste... In a situation like that I would give the last note more space anyway, but not that much.
I just wanted to know if there was an option to instruct musescore to give note length a little less importance in note spacing, that's all.

Anyway, thank you guys for your help.

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