Note edit deletes lyrics

• Jul 23, 2018 - 11:55

Hi!

When changing pitch of a note with qwerty-keyboard or midi-keyboard
lyrics for that note is deleted.

A bug?


Comments

In reply to by G-Sun

I suspect the name in preferences will be the same as modes on the tool bar in the Norwegian translation. This is what is done in several other translations I have seen.

If you adjust the note pitch using the arrow keys on the keyboard, the lyrics remain the same as you are simply adjusting the parameters of the note.

If you use a MIDI keyboard or computer keyboard shortcut you are actually replacing the previous note with a new note.

Unlike staff text, lyrics are actually anchored to the note, not a point on the staff, which is why you can add staff text to a rest, but cannot add lyrics to a rest.

So, I would recommend adjusting pitches by transposing using the qwerty keyboard - arrows or other transposition short cuts. Once you get these down if becomes quite fast.

More info can be found here - https://musescore.org/en/handbook/transposition

In reply to by Daniel

Thank you!
Yes, I found those workarounds.

Maybe there are reasons from the technical view-point for this behavior,
but from the user/musical-viewpoint this is poor design/bug imo.

Using arrow up/down needs far more attention and key-strokes then just hitting g on the keyboard.

In reply to by G-Sun

I don't disagree, but the challenge here is that the syllable of the lyrics are tied to the rhythm/duration of the note.

There would need to be a much more clever way to handle this if the lyrics remained fixed while possible to change the note duration.

In reply to by G-Sun

Can you explain your use case in more detail? Probably whatever you are trying to do would be better accomplished using a different method. I could imagine, for instance, that you have a soprano line and now you've copied and pasted it to the alto part and want to keep the rhythm but change the pitch. Well, that's exactly what repitch mdoe is for. In regualr note input mode, you don't keep the durations either. It's a "complete clobber" mode, very useful for other use cases, but not that one.

In reply to by G-Sun

The reason is as I said - it's designed for an entirely different use than what you are using it for. You want to are trying to keep everything except pitch - same durations, same lyrics, etc. The default case is for cases where you really don't want to keep anything - not the pitch, not the duration, not the lyrics, etc. The chances that you'd want to keep the existing lyric when you are likely already changing durations too (otherwise you'd be using repitch mode) is very low. Making the default be a true "overwrite" mode saves the trouble of needing to delete the old content first.

So in short, repitch is designed is already optimized for your particular use case, and the default step-time is already optimized for its particular use cases. Just use the right mode for the use case and all is well.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Ok,
I understand default is overwrite/delete as is,
but..
I've never had one case where I wanted to change the pitch and/or duration and not keep the lyrics
But, the opposite has happened very often.

Repitch has it's limitations when notes stop, and I want to enter more.

Now, as I know how these things works better, I'm doing ok,
I just see no legitimate reason for the default behavior.

If I want to delete lyrics, using default note input is not how I'd like to do it.

In reply to by G-Sun

I think you are still thinking of the the specific case where you are trying to tweak a soprano part to turn into an alto part. But the vast majority of uses of note input are not that at all. They are entering entirely new music. And again, in these cases, you really would normally want to keep nothing.

In reply to by G-Sun

I agree with Marc. (FYI, Marc and I often disagree). You are talking about a special case. In this case re-pitch is the perfect tool for the project. This is actually a relatively new tool. Not long ago there would have been no easy way to do what you want.

In reply to by G-Sun

I've never had one case where I wanted to change the pitch and/or duration and not keep the lyrics

And neither change removes the lyrics. Inputting a new note does.

Change the pitch by dragging the note up/down or selecting it or pressing up/down arrows → lyrics remain
Change the duration by selecting the note and then selecting a new duration (toolbar or numeric keys) → lyrics remain; even if you lengthen the note and it starts eating duration away from the next note, that new shorter next note keeps its lyric!

This is not working right.
When I'm not in note edit mode,
selecting note, hit b on qwerty-keyboard,
lyrics is deleted.
Automatically Musescore goes into note edit mode,
and if I continue, the lyric are continually deleted.

In reply to by G-Sun

Right, MuseScore goes into note edit mode, which replaces what's there. You into repitch mode and the lyrics stay.
Maybe this could get changed to drop you into repitch mode rather then edit mode.
Maybe we need to differentiate whether prior to pressing a-g outside of edit mode you selected a note (go to repitch mode) or rest (go to edit mode)

In reply to by G-Sun

"Undo" works, so no harm done ;-)

But yes, this annoyed me too at times, not working on notenames but generally entering notes via mouse, then sometimes someone tells me e.g. "that first note in measure 5 should be a G", so I select it and press G, and then have to recover the lyrics sylable...

In reply to by G-Sun

MuseScore isn't doing "harm" when it obeys your command and replaces the music that was formerly in that position with the music you are telling it you want instead. it is doing exactly what you are asking for. By entering a new note, you aren't saying, "you know, I like everything about this music except the pitch" - you are saying, " I wanted new music". If you wanted everything to stay except the pitch, you wouldn't have entered and entirely new note - you'd have changed the pitch only, using repitch mode (or maybe arrow keys if it's just for that one note). Similarly, if you like everything about what's there except duration, don't enter s new note - just change the duration, using the duration keys. Or, if you like everything except the lyric, just replace the lyric.

MuseScore provides all of these options because they are all valid things to want to do. Sometimes you want to keep everything but only change the lyric. Sometimes you want to keep everything but only change duration. Sometimes you want to keep everything but only change pitch. And sometimes you want to just totally and completely enter new music. Just choose the right command according to what you want done and all is well. It's not "harm" that doing a command designed to do accomplish a specific task actually accomplishes that task rather than some task that a different command is designed to accomplish.

That said, I think many people would probably rather have it so typing a letter while not in note input mode simply did pitch replacement without putting you into note input mode. That would make it more consistent with how the duration shortcuts work. This was, I think, a deliberate decision back in the day to make MuseScore more friendly to newbies by making it so when you first start the program, you can enter notes without having to figure out about note input mode but instead just typing a letter. If we still think that's important, we could keep this behavior is nothing is selected. But with a single note selected, I do think simply changing the pitch makes more sense.

After some working in Musescore I must admit I do appreciate the "Note-input (delete all previous)" mode.
I would like a "Note input (keep lyrics and other elements)"
but, once getting to know Musescore and the current input-modes this is less necessary :)

Thanks!

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