overlapping rest and note
A piano part 4/4 measure contains mostly eighth-note triplets. The triplet on beat two starts with a triplet-eighth-rest. On the same beat there's a half note, requiring a second voice. The rest and the half note overlap. See attached screen shot and score.
I realize that I can move the rest manually, and so it's not a huge problem. But notes and rests generally are not allowed to overlap.
I see that a number of note overlap problems were fixed shortly before v1.0, so perhaps overlaps with rests were overlooked at that time.
Edward
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| half-note-and-rest.png | 27.12 KB |
| Zueignung.mscz | 7.23 KB |
Comments
As you can move the rest, I'm not sure that I fully understand the problem. Perhaps you could specify why you see this as something being wrong with MuseScore? Thanks!
Is it this?
#9336: rests should adjust position for multiple voices
In reply to Is it this? #9336: rests by chen lung
It looks to me as if the rest has to be made invisible.
In reply to Is it this? #9336: rests by chen lung
chen lung: Thanks for the link; I had not found that. Yes, I'm almost certain it's the same issue. The example given there is actually much more compelling than mine. Good to see it's already being addressed.
Xavierjazz: making the rest invisible would be potentially confusing. It would be less clear that the two following notes are part of a triplet. Also, this pattern (triplet with a rest for the first beat) recurs throughout the piece (21 times in 29 measures by a quick count) and is always notated with the rest, so omitting the rest would be confusing for this reason too.
In the oldest score I've looked at (one that's out of copyright, though I forget from which site), the rest is aligned with the lower Bb, below the staff. The other copy I've seen is transposed down a third and this measure is placed in the bass clef, so there's no conflict. But that gives an idea of what is done in standard notation.
rj45: right and wrong are relative. Yes, I can move the rest. Yes, I can write the entire piece on staff paper, as I learned to do 40-some years ago. But standard notation practice never allows a note and a rest to overlap like this. The question is, how much of the job does MuseScore aim to do? In this case, it's producing not just a less than optimal notation, but an incorrect notation. Is the aim to be just an aid, or to lay out the music as close to print quality as possible? My impression is that the aim is the latter, to be a high quality notation tool. Reporting this doesn't mean I think it's bad, just that I think it can be improved. Having been programming for about 45 years, I know very well that programmers value the suggestions of users who can formulate them and are willing to convey them, traits which are much less common than one might expect.
Also, if I position the rest manually and then transpose -- which I'm likely to do, because the original key is pretty high for my voice -- then I'll probably need to remember to move the rest again.
Edward
In reply to chen lung: Thanks for the by paleolith
I do see the point you're getting at. You're saying that moving the rest is not really hard so it's fine if you have to deal with it, but that the software should know that you just don't overlap things like that, it shouldn't be done. I agree that it is a bit of an issue-in the instance of multiple voices, the rest ought to be where the rest of the voice is on the staff.
In reply to Aha. by rj45
Yes, that's it exactly.
And more generally, MS should know that most things don't overlap, period. I've noted several other overlap problems but have figured I'd check out the latest build before posting about them, and I haven't gotten around to it. (April 15 is coming on fast.) Hairpins smack on top of lyrics and other things, slurs cutting stems, barred stems invading the adjacent staff, notes in different voices but only one step apart not flipped ... nothing impossible to deal with manually, nothing in fact that's not a whole lot easier due to having software to get me that far. I can readily understand that placing slurs would be one of the most difficult tasks. Some of these may well already be improved.
But as I say, I'll hold off posting about those ... or at least you can ignore what slipped ...
Edward
In reply to that's it by paleolith
You might want to see this - I call for better automatic positioning.
In reply to You might want to see this - by chen lung
Thanks for the link. I've added a comment over there.
Edward
In reply to Is it this? #9336: rests by chen lung
I posted this to the linked bug item, but since that's marked as closed, I'm posting here too.
I just checked this with the latest build (4104?). While the current implementation is certainly an improvement, especially with respect to identifying rests vs voices, it does not resolve the problem to the extent of being able to automatically format a score legibly (which I realize is a more difficult problem). In the example I attach, voice 1 has a G on the treble clef and thus overlaps the rest in voice 2. Though I don't have a tested algorithm handy to resolve this, I have two suggestions:
1) Allow the user to manually link a rest to the following note, with a vertical offset.
2) Automatically detect the conflict, and raise or lower the rest (in the vertical direction of the next note in the voice) until the conflict is resolved.
I know that neither of these would resolve all conflicts, but I think they would come a lot closer. Both could be used simultaneously, with a manual link overriding automatic adjustment.
Edward