Repeats and jumps

• Apr 1, 2024 - 11:46

I think this is more of a music problem than a MuseScore one but I have written a song, the structure of which is A (VERSE) B (CHORUS) A (VERSE) C (BRIDGE) B (CHORUS) A (VERSE) B (CHORUS) I am trying to get MuseScore to play it without having to duplicate any of the three parts which should allow me to fit it on one page. I would like to think that with the judicious use of first and second time bars, DCs, DSs, trios, codas and what have you that this would be possible but not only can I not work out how to do it, neither can my music teacher hehe. Any ideas? Thanks


Comments

My first idea: if you actually achieve the desired flow in Musescore the way you envision it, then I have concerns that a musician who is supposed to play it won't understand the flow, right?

I guess without duplicating a part it won't be possible at all.

In reply to by HildeK

I suspect you are right and it is not possible but i would like to be able to minimise the duplication, I do disagree with your and Steve's inference that the simpler option is usually the better one though. The simpliest way to print this is to not have any repeats and print six pages of music when two would do. I would like to think that most musicians would understand first and second time bars, DC, DS etc and if they don't then i still think educating them would be preferable to simply dumbing it down.

In reply to by andylear

> I would like to think that most musicians would understand first and second time bars, DC, DS etc
I am sure, they do!
But with these elements alone, it will probably not be possible to write down your desired sequence - at least that's what I'm convinced of. I have tried to find a solution and have only been successful if you have part B a second time. But I am not a professional ...

On the other hand, you can take a sheet of paper and try to write down this sequence (without notes, but with voltas, DC, DS, etc.) and show it to us. Then we can tell you whether it can be implemented in Musescore or not.

In reply to by HildeK

I am not entirely sure what you are asking. I put the sequence in the origional post A (VERSE) B (CHORUS) A (VERSE) C (BRIDGE) B (CHORUS) A (VERSE) B (CHORUS). I don't think it is possible to do this in musescore (hopefully I am wrong) so the question then becomes how can it be written with the minumum of duplications. Currently I have managed to get ABAC with first and second time bars and had to copy and paste B and then A and another B. I am useing musescore 3 (which i imageine most people arnt but I do not wish to downgrade my computer from windows 7) so I have attached a very rough mxl file in case it helps. forget the drum track and the piano, for the moment it will probably just be me playing it on the guitar which is why I am not overfussed about making it as easy as possible to read.

Attachment Size
empty promises.mxl 13.76 KB

In reply to by andylear

> I am not entirely sure what you are asking.
I just wanted to know how you would write it or find it on a sheet of music and understand it. It could be that you can notate it sensibly and still not play it correctly in Musescore. It doesn't matter ...

My suggestion is to write part B (chorus) a second time and then make the jumps with D.S. al Coda and To Coda. But then, unfortunately, you have to notate block B twice! See picture.
SeqExample_.png

Maybe the modified file helps but I still found a difference in the very last note now.

Attachment Size
empty promises.mscz 19.22 KB

In reply to by andylear

@andylear...
I noticed your attachment after I posted my example below.
Anyhow, here's a MuseScore 3 version of your score:
ABACBAB.mscz
You specified A-B-A-C-B-A-B, but it looks like you may be needing a pickup measure at A's beginning. If that's the case, you can place the Segno variation symbol after the pickup (if you don't want the pickup played by the D.C. - which jumps to the beginning).

In reply to by HildeK

Ohh thank you everyone this is exactly what i was looking for, everything on one page. Perfect! I think i will want the chorus to finish slightly diferently on the last time round but i presume I can do this just by useing first and third time bars. Im not sure if you can have a third time bar without a second time one and hope the program has the sense to use the first one twice untill it counts up to three but i can experiment with that. worst case I can use 12&3 time bars and still fit it on one page. Thank you again this is precicely what I was looking for.

I have to admit though, that I don't understand how it works (although it obviously does). At the end of section A it says to coda but it only does go to the coda on the second pass. How does it know to do that?

The DS al Coda (or D.varS al coda) and DS al fine both seem to be attached to the same place so I am surprised that it knows which one to use but presume that it has enough sense to know that it can’t go to two places at once and (sensibly) decided to go to the fine last?

Lastly (and this nothing to do with this particular piece and is mostly for Steve) when I play in an orchestra with complicated repeats and jumps I use different coloured highlighters to draw large (massively oversized, bigger than the entire stave) brackets of different colours on the music, so a blue bracket goes back to a blue bracket, a red to a red etc. Hopefully this will reduce your number of car crashes :)

In reply to by andylear

The "To Coda" instruction is only executed when a D.S. al Coda has been reached. This is the trigger!

The fact that both instructions are in the same place and work is probably due to the order in which they were set. So first D.S. al Coda and then D.S. al fine. This is possibly an accidentally correct behavior of MuseScore and could actually confuse a musician.

You can change the text of the commands after setting them to make it clearer for the musician. Like I did with 'D.varS.', which was also an unusual name.

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