Page layout

• Ott. 15, 2011 - 22:45

Hi,
Maybe it is often asked but I cannot find the answers.
My problem is that Musescore is very peculiar in changing the layout of a page. I want to control the number of systems on a page as well as the number of measures per system. (A system is defined as the number of measures in one set of bars spanning the width of a page: so in an arrangement for 21 instruments 1 system contains 21staffs).
However, in Musescore the page layout doesn't give me the possibility to do that. Say I have 3 systems on a page and I want to have 4 or 5 and I want each system to contain 4 or 5 measures I am at a loss how to achieve that. Sorry to refer to another program, Fiale, but there I have the function " Fit Measures" that let me fit the number of measures per system (so if I have 16 measures and I want each system to contain 4 measures, this function does that. Another function let me decide how many systems I have on a page.
Please help me out so I can get rif of FInale (and Windows!).
Joep

Commenti

• Ott. 16, 2011 - 00:19

Micharl,
Thanks for the reply. That solves one question, but only partly. As I want to have varying system lengths, I want systems with e.g. 3 measures or 2 (when a measure contains only 16th),or 8 ( when a system contains only 1/2 note measures (4/4 metrum) and I don't know how to achieve as this apparently goes for the whole score.
second, It will not put more systems on a page and I cannot scale the systems.For example when I have only 3 systems on a page I can by scaling to 80%s squeeze 4 or perhaps 5 systems on the same page without really reducing readability. I short, I would like to have more control on the layout of my music.
For clarification, I write compositions and arrangements for ensembles from 2-staff systems (piano only) up to >18 instruments (big band).
Joep

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• Ott. 16, 2011 - 07:14

To fit more meqsures on a system than the defautl, select th bars you want squeezed tighter and use Layout->Add Less Stretch. To break a system earlier than MuseScore wants to, just select the barline you wish to end with and hit Enter (double click the line break icon in the breaks&spacers palette.

Between that and the settings in the page general style, it is possible to get pretty much any arrangements of measures and systems you want. The process is different fm Finale, but there is very little you can't do.

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• Ott. 16, 2011 - 23:27

Marc,
Thanks for your answer. I wasn't on my machine today.
1. I still have problems with the fitting of systems on a page, although I can do more now. However, the stretching and unstretching is somewhat of a mystery to me as I can't understand the way it works. I have found I can change the setting for the - to me mysterious - unit "sp"(space??) under Preferences-> Score in the item scale which has profound effects on the page layout but I don't know if this value is used for all instances where the sp unit is used.
2. I miss the possibility to scale the systems on a page and I miss the possibility to determine the number of systems on a page. I also cannot understand that the layout for the pages. I have a short piece with 15 systems and each system has 3 staffs, which sets 4 systems on a page but the distance between the systems is not the same for all page. For page 1 I can understand as it has the title etc. but for page 4 the distance is much less than for page 2 and 3 and I cannot influence it .
3. A last question, I am used to write my chords on layer (=voice in Musescore) 4 which layer I then copy to the separate parts. For example I have a piece for rhythm section and 4 other instruments. I get 7 parts and I want to copy to each part the chords (it is one of the most frequent things I do when finalizing an arrangement of a composition). I haven't found out how to do that in Musescore as I can only exchange voices but not copy them or I haven't found out how.

Sorry for the vast number of questions but I need a score editor, preferably in Linux, which does the things I want.
Thanks in advance for the answers.
Joep

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• Ott. 17, 2011 - 02:02

Everything you say you want to do is doable. You kust need to make the correct settings.

Layout/Page Settings
Space - this is literally the size of the space between lines on a staff. The setting in Edit/Preferences only gives the default value for this; you have to change it here in Layout/Page Settings to actually affct the score. And yes, most things scale accordingly.

Style/Edit General Style/Page

Staff space - space between staves within a system.
System space - space between systems
Page fill threshold - if the page is fuller than this, sustem space is ignored, and everything is stretched put to fill the page. This setting would be why your last page is tigheter than the rest - the rest are being stretched to fill, but the last isn't.

Thes settings are all used very literally - a setting of 0 for staff or system space will make the staves touch, etc. If you already know - perhaps from using some other program - what size of a staff and what distance between them will give you what you want, then you can just enter those numbers directly. Or you can mcalculate, with no experimentation, what values will give you what you want. Or you can certainly use trial and error. But I find it's often more direct to simply think it through.

As for copying chords, I find it easiest to copy the contents of the staff to a blank staff, then select all and hot delete, which delees the notes but leaves the chords. Then you can copy and paste onto other staves.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 04:02

You might try asking some specific questions in a new thread here, and then others can try to answer them. That way, rather than having lots of peole trying to edit tophe handbook directly, you coild do it yourself, once your questions have been answered.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 16:28

Thanks for your work on MuseScore.

The most important specific question is: how do I get something to look good? What is the overall strategy? I fiddled all the settings on a particular score, and things still looked bad. In particular, there was way too much distance between staves, so I would change "system distance" and it would do nothing. Then all of a sudden, it would collapse and there would be collisions everywhere. I will try to post a specific case with specific settings.

Other questions include: How does note scaling work? Why is the default size so tiny? How does one get the notes to look bigger (which I've seen on the forums multiple times without an answer I understand)? It looks like you get the notes to look bigger by changing spacing. That is indirect, and I don't understand the mechanism. I think I'd prefer a "note size" setting.

Out of scope, I would suggest collision-avoidance is an area where some exciting advances could be made. When staves drop radically closer because I made a small change in system distance, and score text might collide with other staves, could MuseScore detect the collision and refuse to put the staves so close?

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 16:58

The "sudden effect" is due to the page threshold setting.

Scaling : The default is not tiny. 1.764mm is the default for most published work for piano. The space unit is the space between two lines of the staff, or a notehead if you prefer. When you increase the size of the space unit, you increase the space between two lines of the staff, you increase notehead, stems, clef, accidentals, everything. It's not only the note size, it's the whole music that become bigger on the paper.

Yes... Colision detection is a whole area of improvements ;) You can code? :)

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 17:04

Thank you for getting started on this bit of needed documentation! In the future, when asking questions, I think you are better off asking new questions in new threads. Butsince since these are already here:

Overall strategy is up to you, of course. I usually start by ball-parking a space/scaling setting if for some reason the default isn't to my liking. Note the templates I normally use are already designed to provide decent defaults, except for the Piano template, which is indeed too small for my tastes. Then I tweak it down just a little to see if that allows more systems to fit per page. If not, then I tweak it up to get as big as I can without losing a system. Sometimes I will also fiddle with system space, but not much, because the defaults normally look pretty good to me (both the system defaults and those used by all templates I use).

As for why changing system distance has no effect, read that post of mine you linked to again, and pay attention to the part about "page fill threshold". What is happening is that your page is full enough that MuseScore is stretching things out to fill the page, so your system space appears to be ignored. Turn down your page fill threshold (to 0 if you like) and you'll see the *real* effects of your system space settings. I think you'll find you've been setting system space *way* too small, and that's why it suddenly gets extremely tight once you fall below the page fill threshold.

Note scaling: not sure why you say the default is tiny, unless you are only using templates that set the size smaller than the default of 1.764. That default comes out virtually the exact same size as most printed music I own. The Piano template is, as I mention, smaller; not sure why. So are template for specific types of scores in which smaller print is the normal (and indeed, might be required to fit enough systems onto the page).

Anyhow, the way scaling works is extremely simple. The setting is called "space" because it is quite literally the size of a space - the distance between adjacent staff lines. And this size naturally determines the size of note heads as well, and everything else scales accordingly. If you prefer to think of this as a "note size" setting, feel free to do so, since that's *exactly* what it is. Not sure you are seeing that is causing you to think it is anything more complicated than that. Turn up the space setting, and the distance between staff lines gets bigger, so the notes get bigger too - simple as that.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 17:21

Thanks for your reply

> Turn up the space setting, and the distance between staff lines
> gets bigger, so the notes get bigger too - simple as that.

So it is hard to control note size independent of spacing between staves? That seems odd. It feels especially strange coming from Finale, where note/symbol/measure size is independent of where lines fall.

However, a couple of people have mentioned the default settings are not tiny as I experienced. Maybe I was using the "piano" template. I will go back and try the defaults again.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 18:39

You can set notes to "small" under note properties, and the size of "small" notes as a percentage of regular size can be controlled via style->edit general style->sizes. You can also set the size of grace notes here, so they can be larger or smaller than other "small" notes used for cues or whatever..

Aside from than that, no, there is no way to violate normal typesetting rules by making noteheads any size other than that determined by the space between staff lines. But nor would you ordinarily want to, aside from the ability to make certain notes "small". Of course, that means all your "small" notes are the same size, and I could certainly imagine special purpose non-standard modern notations that might require using notes of various different sizes to indicate something unique to that particular composition. So having the ability to override note size with more control than just normal and small would be a nice enhancement someday.

Measure size *is* independent of this, though. Well, the "stretch" factor, anyhow, as well as the various measure margins found under style->edit general style->measure. I never mess with those margin, but playing with the "stretch" factor key to controlling number of measures per line.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 17:23

> Turn down your page fill threshold (to 0 if you like) and
> you'll see the *real* effects of your system space settings.
> I think you'll find you've been setting system space *way*
> too small, and that's why it suddenly gets extremely tight
> once you fall below the page fill threshold.

This comment is very helpful. I will include it in the docs when I get back to it.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 09:26

Thank your for starting this! I made some cosmetic changes and added some information. I also removed some redundant information and I hope it's ok. I also remove a link to a feature request since it doesn't make sense in the handbook.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 16:29

All your changes make sense, except one. I don't think moving "breaks & spacer" to the top (as one of the first things to consider) is right. You don't really want to break lines or pages until the score is mostly settled, do you? One could change a global setting and everything will move around dramatically.

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• Feb. 20, 2012 - 16:54

Well, for me it's the way to do it. Putting page break first, because it's where musicians will have to turn page (assuming they are using papers and not a tablet ;). Then putting line break to accomodate the music flow. Play with scaling, add more less strech if line breaks doesn't work well (measure on a new line). When it's done, change the system, staff etc... distance to be sure my page break are respected.

I did a few transcriptions http://musescore.com/nicolas and it worked well this way.

Of course, I can imagine other use case when it will not work. For example if you are making a book, you will want the scaling to be the same along the book. So you will not change it and you will not change the margins in Layout -> Page settings.

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• Mar. 30, 2012 - 15:20

Could someone also explain what the menu Style/Edit Text Style is supposed to do?
And explain for example how one (in a close score SA/TB score) could have lyrics below 1st staff, but above the 2nd, without them colliding?

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• Mar. 30, 2012 - 15:35

Did you mean to start a new thread with this first question, or does it relate somehow to this discussion? They are not really connected. But the answer is, the settings in that dialog control the font and positioning that will be used for various types of text elements by default when you first create them. These settings currently do not affect already created text elements, although this will change in 2.0, where it will be possible to have text elements remember what style they were created with and update automatically when the style is changed, while also making it possible to break this association for any given element so the style settings are locked in. Even more than linked parts, I think the improvements in text handling are what I am looking forward to the most!

As for the second question, generally, I find MuseScore automatically moves staves around to make room for lyrics, not that I always want it to. You might want to start a new thread with a specific example.

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• Apr. 20, 2012 - 10:07

Hi,

This page seems to be very interesting... and I'd like to translate it into French... I was suprise to see the text
"TRANSLATORS: As this page is still to be finished, do not start translating it yet "

can / should we be able to translate it now ?

Lamardelmy,

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• Ott. 17, 2011 - 02:16

I use Stretch all the time to adjust the number of bars on a line

Just select the relevant bars and then use the curly brace keys { } to add or subtract Stretch to the selection. Adding stretch will cause the selected bars to widen, and eventually one will fall of the end onto the next line. Removing stretch will cause the bars to shrink and eventually allow a bar from the next line to appear on the previous one.

You have complete control over page layout via the Edit General Style>Page dialogue. It's not immediately obvious what everything does, but if you experiment you will find that you will be able to do most of the things you want. The only weakness currently is that all Page Layout settings are global - you can't adjust the layout for just one page like you can in Finale. I believe this is being addressed in version 2.0.

You can select the notes in a voice by right clicking a note and choosing More from the menu, however version 1.1 will not copy chords on their own. You have to copy the whole stave, and then use the Select>More dialogue to delete the bits you don't want. You would therefore need to adjust your workflow slightly by inserting the chords on the melody line, and then copying everything to the parts and deleting the notes before writing the parts themselves.

It maybe that one of the community regularly writing leadsheets for band work may have a workaround for this.

HTH
Michael

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• Mar. 19, 2012 - 17:28

I need to print out a score, and I'm using legal size (8.5x14) paper. When I go to .pdf the document for printing, it adds a huge top side margin that forces the bottom two instruments to be cut off. Is there any way to stop that from happening?

Thanks.

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• Apr. 8, 2012 - 20:43

You can increase space between systems a couple of clicks if you like, but more than that and you will bump in to the bottom margin you have set. You have the main Bottom Margin set to 20mm, and the Music Lower Margin set to 7sp. As soon as your bottom system crosses lower than than, it doesn't fit. if you don't want that much white space at the bottom of the page, you need to change your margin settings, but as of now, MuseScore is simply doing what it is asked.

Also, if you want the systems to fill the page, don't try to use spacers and guess - simply use the Page Fill facilty. you have disabled that right now by setting your threshold to 100%, meaning it won't ever cut in. Set it to something lower - say, 50% - and you'll see your systems fill the page. But again, not to the bottom of the paper - it will still honor the Bottom Margin and Music Lower Margin settings.

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• Apr. 8, 2012 - 20:31

Have you read the documentation and watched the tutorials that were referenced here? It really is not particularly diffiicult - it is just a matter of figuring out how big you want your staves and how much space you want between them. If you get those two things right, they fit - simple as that. MuseScore will fit as many systems between the margins you have specified as will fit.

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• Apr. 9, 2012 - 13:40

yes i read this http://musescore.org/en/handbook/layout-and-formatting.
And I do not state it is not working, it is just (too) much labour intensive imho.
Anyway:
-in heksenkring-onno-mk2: I do not seem to be able to fit tussenspel (the last 12 bars) on one staff. Selecting them and "add less stretch" is just not working.
-in heksenkring-onno-gt: when i added the spacer under the 4th system the page would fill out although I have the systemdistance set to 1.0sp.
And the spacer under "in-/uitro" can be dragged through the one underneath.
The last two barlines are funny.

Where am I going wrong?
Thanks in advance!

Allegato Dimensione
heksenkring-onno-mk2.mscz 3.96 KB
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• Apr. 9, 2012 - 14:49

"spacers don't mix and match to well with 'hide empty staves'"
that might explain why the spacer under "in-/uitro" can be dragged through the one underneath.

Anyone on why I do not seem to be able to fit tussenspel (the last 12 bars) on one staff? And why the last two barlines are "falling off" the staff?

Thanks!

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• Apr. 9, 2012 - 15:53

How is setting a couple of parameters in a dialog - once, upon creation of the score, and only if you aren't starting from a template that already has these set the way you like, "labor intensive"? There isnothing hard about it, but you are creating much extra work for yourself unnecessarily by using spacers to do manually what MuseScore would be happy to do for you if you would only set those parameters correctly. And indeed, had you not changed the Page Fill Threshold from the default, you wouldn't have to do *anything* to stretch those systems out more. All you would possibly need you do is change the music lower margin if you want less space at the bottom of the page. One in one dialog and you'd have exactly what you want. How could it possibly be *less* labor than that?

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• Apr. 9, 2012 - 17:24

True, adjusting parameters is easy to do, but not so easy to discover. But studying the documentation and experimenting does help, and once you get it, it becomes pretty simple. You mention the handbook page, but have you watched any of the video tutorials on layout? http://musescore.org/en/node/15668, http://www.musescoretips.com/2011/04/layout-and-formatting-basics-video/, and http://www.musescoretips.com/2012/04/musescore-tutorial-layout-and-form….

As I mentioned before, you have currently gone out of your way to disable page fill, thereby making it much harder on yourself. Set the threshold back to its default of 70% and you'll see your music stretched out much more pleasantly.

But temporarily setting the threshold to 100% is useful for getting the basic settings right. If the music doesn't look decent with the page fill turned off, your settings are off and should be fixed. Looking at your score as is, I'd say your distance between systems is still too small. It's too small everywhere, but most noticeably on the last four systems. I'd consider decreasing the amount of space *within* your top systems (staff distance) to maybe 6, then increase distance between systems to at least 7.

As for the barlines, as someone else already said, you have for some reason turned on the option to force four measures per page. First step is to turn that back off. There is just no way to fit four measures per page given your current staff size and note spacing settings.

Now, if you do these things, it won't fit on one page any more. That is, again, just impossible given your current settings. As someone else already said, you'll need to make the print smaller - the "space" setting in layout->page settings. That's assuming your piece is complete as is; if you are planning to add much more, there will be no way to avoid a second page if you expect anyone to be able to read it. Currently, though, a setting of 1.7 appears to be sufficient and is totally readable.

So, do the following:

- remove the useless staff spacers you placed within those last four systems
- turn off the setting (general style / system) where you forced four measures per system
- set page fill threshold back to its default of 70%

That gets those settings back to where they would have been had you not changed them. Now as far as the things you actually need to do beyond the defaults:

- set staff distance to 6 (smaller than the default)
- set system distance to 7 (smaller than the default, but larger than what you have)
- set "space" to 1.7 (smaller than the default)

The results should look just fine.

BTW, is there a reason you are using staff text instead of actual chordnames for your chord symbols? The way you are doing it won't export to MusicXML, won't transpose, won't allow you to easily enter flats or sharps, etc.

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• Apr. 12, 2012 - 14:39

Thank you!!
"is there a reason you are using staff text instead of actual chordnames for your chord symbols?"
yes, Musescore (for as far as I found out) only supports the "American/rock/jazz" way of calling chords.
So pretty many of the chords we are using (eg. dm2^6, f#\bm, f#m46) can not be written in the Chord tool.
Staff text works fine however and i do not transpose anyway.
Cheers

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• Apr. 12, 2012 - 14:54

I suppose the next question should be, why make your own chord symbols that probably no one else would be able to make sense out of (I would have no idea what most of those symbols you used meant) when there is probably a more standard way of representing the same chord. But actually, if I had my my way, it wouldn't matter - MuseScore would be extended so that anything you typed that *could* be recognized as a chord symbol would be. And I hope to try implementing such a parser myself some day. So instead, I'll just ask, what *do* you expect those chord symbols to mean, and is there some sort of established tradition for symbols like that? The only one that seem to make sense right out of the box is f#/bm, whoch I take to be an F# major triad superimposed over a B minor triad in other words, another name for what would more ordinarily be called "Bmi(ma9)".

And I would also suggest that you consider using the chord tool anyhow - even though the chords won't be recognized currently, nothing stops you from entering them. And if MuseScore is ever extended to be able to recognize them, that will only work if they have been entered as chrds rather than as text.

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• Apr. 12, 2012 - 17:19

If you tried to offend me, you did not succeed :)
I (no offence) do not care if you think the format we use makes sence or not. We find it a most workable format to write, rehearse and get repertoire on stage.
"there is probably a more standard way of representing the same chord"
probably so, but not that I know of.
"what *do* you expect those chord symbols to mean"
dm2^6 = d,e,f,a,b
f#\bm = f#,b,d (2nd inversion bm)
f#m46 = f#,a,b,c#,d
see atached :)
"I would also suggest that you consider using the chord tool anyhow"
the Chord tool does not allow for a lower case b (for minor chords)
"if MuseScore is ever extended to be able to recognize them, that will only work if they have been entered as chrds rather than as text."
that makes sence for sure, we find lowercase for minor more important though.
Cheers

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• Apr. 12, 2012 - 17:31

Interesting. I've never seen your chord conventions before; most players using chords would have to either relearn a lot, or translate your chords into something they could understand. There's no reason why you shouldn't use any convention you like, unless you might want other people, brought up on more widespread conventions, to be able to read your chords.

May I ask how a lower case b helps? For me, the m (or min) is a big clue! ;-)

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• Apr. 12, 2012 - 19:28

Actually, if my comments tweaked a nerve just enough to entice you to give some thought to a response in defense of what you are doing, but stopped short of offending, I'd say I hit my mark perfectly :-). In fact, the current system where MuseScore needs to have an exhaustive list of every possible chord it can recognize is pretty much guaranteed to hit limits, and we all run into situations where there are chords we wish to use that are not recognized. But even if I were to write a parser that could be more flexibile, it helps for me to have an understanding of the different things people might expect.

Unfortunately, your usage in non-standard enough that I can't really see any way for a parser to recognize your symbols without breaking how chords are ordinarily interpreted. For example, in standard usage, 6 *always* means the major sixth, even for minor chords. And when chords are written with slashes, it is always the opposite of how you have done so: the top portion comes above/before the slash, with the bottom portion after/below the slash. So I fear that even if/when MuseScore is extended to handle new combinations of symbols, it would interpret your symbols differently. Meaning, even if MuseScore were extended to allow lower case letters as chord roots for minor chords (which I think it should), there still would be no reason for you to switch to using the chordname system, since it is never likely to be understand that notation.

Anyhow, I don't know who "we" refers to in your comments, but assuming you have some group of musicians you have taught your system to (or learned it from) and you do not intend anone else to perform this music, then there is no particular reason to switch to standard chord nomenclature. But FWIW, the standard symbols for the chords you mention are Dmi69, Bmi/F#, and F#mib6add4. Only the last of these would not be recognized by the current parser, I believe, because of the add4. In most contexts, arrangers would either just leave out the add4 and expect that any pianist or guitarist would realize that the fourth is a fine color tone to add, or else, if the arranger really wants that specific voicing, they would simply write out the voicing. Chord symbols are not normally used to describe specific voicings but rather to describe the overall sound, leaving open the possibility of many possible interpretations. But if you have a language that works for you in which symbols do translate into specific combinations of notes and you have musicians who have learned to read that notation, that is of course fine.

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• Apr. 13, 2012 - 00:24

Mark, just out of interest, is it (in your experience) mainly in Jazz circles that mi is used rather than m to indicate minor? As in Ami rather than Am, and Ami7 rather than Am7? I have seen Am far more often than Ami, but I don't play Jazz. I don't really see why anyone would want to use the more long-winded version, particularly with Jazz chords which are often quite complex (and therefore take up a lot of room).

On the other hand, I see both AM7 and Amaj7 fairly frequently, with the latter slightly more common.

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• Apr. 13, 2012 - 00:56

I fnd some people use "mi", some "m", some "min", some "-". "mi" is the closest thing to a "standard", though, since it is what is used in the Brandt & Roemer handbook that is the only actual published work on the subject, by Chuck Sher for his very popular series of fakebooks and educational materials, and many if not most publishers of scores for big band and so forth.

The disadvantage of a single letter "m" is that there is really no way to be sure whether it is capital or not without seeing it in close proximity to other letters in the same font/size. I can't tell you how many charts I've seen where I see an Am7 with the "m" in a font / size where there is just no way to tell, with predictably inconsistent results as musicians just guess. Two letters is the minimum to avoid this ambiguity (unless you were to make up your own system of using "a" and "i" or something else). And two is better than three because as you say, chord symbols can get long enough as it is.

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• Apr. 13, 2012 - 09:20

"if my comments tweaked a nerve just enough to entice you to give some thought to a response in defense of what you are doing, but stopped short of offending, I'd say I hit my mark perfectly :-)" ...sorry my english is short, I do not understand what you mean.
"guaranteed to hit limits, and we all run into situations where there are chords we wish to use that are not recognized"
I do not care too much about recognition, it is the lower case b I am interested in. If MuseScore were extended to allow lower case letters as chord roots for minor chords I would likely switch to using the chord tool.

"in standard usage, 6 *always* means the major sixth, even for minor chords"
In blues-based music, yes. In tango? no! in flamenco? no! in the folk(ish) stuff we are playing? no! the m6 as in "minor with a minor 6th" is very comon.
If you would ever play a Piazzolla from sheet you will play the wrong chords if you stick to the "American/rock/jazz"format.

The format we use is not very hard to understand. The first letter is always the bass, followed by the chord and eventualy the aditions according to the respective key signature. More or less like figured bass but wihtout the need for an extra staff.

Dmi69 ...yes I know the "American/rock/jazz"format has the convention of leaving the key signature when a 6th is written in minor but since the 6th is a "bb" according to it we prefer ^6 if we want a "b", 9 usualy suggests a 7th as well so why not write 2 if you do not want the 7th?
Bmi/F# ...we just like the bas first.
F#mib6add4 ...since the lowered 6th is enharmonicaly the same as the 5th according to the key signature, b6 is funny since the key is written in natural(Aeolian)mode rather than Dorian.
"just leave out the add4 and expect that any pianist or guitarist would realize that the fourth is a fine color tone to add" ...that is a pretty bold assumption where i come from :)
...but... aparently jazz musicians get along fine with it. The French and Spanish use the D,R,M,F,S,L,T format, what is the fuzz about? Although (written)jazz music is more widespread than the others mentioned before, it would be a bit ignorant to concider their format to be a world standard, would not it?
Anyway, this whole "what is the best format" discussion is a worthless one since all formats are "best" for the music they are inteded for.
Cheers, have a good weekend!

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• Apr. 13, 2012 - 10:14

no, but this is basically it:
"The first letter is always the bass, followed by the chord and eventualy the aditions according to the respective key signature."
i do not think there is a standard or there are 85643(...and counting), even in Jazz notation (different fake and real books) one finds differences. Like m or - for minor Ma or ^(triangle) for major m7b5 or ø for halfdiminished and probably a lot more if one would search for them.
But, most of the time one will figure out what to play...

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• Apr. 13, 2012 - 16:03

What I meant in my previous comment was that no, I not intend to offend, but I did wish to make you think about it.

The advantages of having your chords be recognized may ot be immediately obvious, but you should not dismiss them too lightly. For one thing, being able to type "b" and "#" and have them automatically turned into flats and sharps when appropriate. Another is MusicXML output, which might not be important to you right now but may become someday. Same with the ability to transpose - and remember, that includes not only changing the actual key of the piece, but also just makng your music playable by instruments that require transposition, like most wind instrumsnts. Also consider that if some day MuseScore is extended to perform playback of chord symbols, that might be nice to be able to take advantage of.

Whether ornot these advantages outweight the disadvantage of having to learn the standard system only you can say, of course, but as I mentioned, it is not something you should take too lightly.

As for your system being difficult, I never said that. What I said was that it is too different from the standard system for a single program to be able to understand both. In the standard system, B/F# means a B chord with an F# in the bass, in yours it means the opposite. A program would have no way of knowing which was meant, and would have to assume you meant what the rest of the world means. And thus, it would be be impossible for it to correctly recognize your symbols.

As for why the standard symbols work the way they do, I cannot defend them, since I did not invent them. i don't know who decided 6 should always means the major sixth, but that is the way things have been done by everyone ellse in the world for decades, and I play with a wide variety varietyof musicians so it is i mportant for my chord symbols to be underatood not just by the small handful of people I have taught my system to, but any musician. Yes, there is disagreement about the beat abbreviations to use for ajor and minor, and a couple of orher small differences, but these do it get i the way of understanding chord symbols written by someone else. The system is the always the same; only the specific abbreviations and other unimportant details change. So while there might be mutilple ways of *writing* Cmi6, there is only one way of *reading* it. if you see that symbol, it *always* means the same thing in standard usage. This is not jazz versus other styles of music, or America versus other countries. It is, as I said, universal. Jazz, blues, pop, tango - it does not matter. A 6 by itself always means the major sixth. If you want a minor sixth, you write b6. i did not invent this system. But it is, once again, universally onown and understood, so it is the one I use.

So while there is a lot about the standard system I do not like, there is nothing that can be done about it. For that matter, there is a lot I don't like about how standard musical notations works (particularly with regard to rhythm, but I use it anyhow because it is universally understood. Similarly, there is a lot about the English language I don't like, but I use it anyhow if I want to be understood by fellow English-speakers.

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• Apr. 16, 2012 - 15:26

Whether you choose to believe it or not, these conventions really do exist and really are used worldwide by composers, arrangers, publishers, and musicians of all genres. Writing music the standard way really does work. So you really are limiting the audience for your music by not taking advantage of these standards. But that's your business, and since no longer has anything to do with the actual topic of this thread, there is no point in discussing it further here.

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• Apr. 9, 2012 - 17:59

I think by "labor intensive" the poster probably means "hard to understand".

Any non-WYSIWYG system is likely going to be harder to understand for most people. You change a setting, and it's not always clear what it did because it is a complicated model.

One can imagine a WYSIWYG interface for system staff spacing. In fact, Finale sort of has one-- dotted bounding boxes around each staff. That doesn't mean it's easy to implement. I'm just trying to explain why these troubles might be recurring.

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• Ago. 24, 2014 - 05:33

The chord symbols won't fit in the measures. It doesn't work without overlap and 3 or 4 chords in a bar doesn't work at all. How do you keep the chord symbols in the bar? Controlling their size would be helpful.

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