Incipit staves

• Mar 9, 2016 - 10:01

Can anyone tell me how to create incipit staves for early music. Ideally I would like to use numes, but if these are not available I will use stemless notes. I'm not expecting to be able to playback the incipit line, but would like to be able to format it separate from the main body of music. Many thanks in advance.


Comments

Depending on how exactly you want it to look, it sounds like you might want a horizontal frame to separate the initial measure from the rest - see the Handbook under Frames. If that doesn't quite do what you are looking for, feel free to post an example of how you'd like it to look. I've seen incipits notated different ways, so I'm not sure exactly which you'd be trying to emulate.

suggestions for a workaround:

change by palette the notehead to diamonds and make steams invisible.

create a separate piece for the incipit staves, save this file as png-file, insert in the main piece of sheet music a horizontal frame and load the png-file inside (play with scale to frame size).

(see attached file)

I'm not familiar with inicipit staves an don't know whether I understood your question correct - is it useful?

Btw this is also interesting for you beside of your request:

https://musescore.org/en/node/99696

(Another way) In Lilypond there seems to be a possibility for your request:

http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/working-with-a…

( but therefore in musescore 2.0.2 seems to be it neccesary the export as xml file and convert it to an ly-file.

Other (easier) suggestions are welcome ;-).

Attachment Size
inicipit1.mscz 25.05 KB

In reply to by kuwitt

After reading Marcs reply it is easier to insert a horizontal frame before the the measure of the main body to separate the two parts than my complicated workaround whith inserting of a picture ;-)

I had the same problem, but finally I can.
But I have one problem:
I need not to put claudator for the incipid, but if I remove it it disappears in the other systems.

In reply to by Shoichi

That's proably the workaround with the latest MuseScore version: adding a white filled square. I believe with MuseScore 2.3.2 it was quite easier: selecting the single bracket of the incipit and pressing "v".
Not sure, if it's by design or if it's a reggression, if there already exists a bug report or a suggestion.

In reply to by kuwitt

It only "kind of: worked before - that sort of info doesn't really survive layout changes that alter the assignment of measures to systems. So in general it's better to find other methods.

In MuseScore 3, for instance, there is new option to control bracketing defaults for single-staff groups, so MuseScore can do what want by automatically in most cases. If you attach a score with a specific example and explain what you'd like to see different, we can assist better - or see if there is some option that would yet need to be added to handed that case.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

In my opinion it would be nice, if MuseScore could handle such case better in a future version. I played a little bit around with an mscx file by using a text editor, and it seems, "< visible > 0< /visible >" works with a lot of elements, but I didn't figure it out to add it to a bracket (but I'm not a professional with such stuff ;-) .

So, I took a stab at making some incipits in Musescore today. I've attached my score file and a PDF of my ideal version from Lilypond.

The placement with the horizontal frame works pretty well. Some things that are lacking or that I can't figure out:
1. obviously the symbols are all modern. They could be inserted from Bravura, but that would be with all manual positioning, so not great. The worst are the whole and half rests.
2. can't add barlines to the continuo part because it was disrupt anything longer than a breve like the longa rest in the B1 part.
3. spacing is way too wide, can't decrease stretch anymore
4. spacing of rhythmic values should not be aligned (longa rest would ideally take up same horizontal space as a breve rest, for example)
5. can't delete the bracket, as others have said

If there's a way to do this better in Musescore, I'd love to hear it!

Attachment Size
Bodenschatz-Audi Hymnum-p1.pdf 218.29 KB
incipitTest.mscz 13.91 KB

In reply to by Shoichi

Thanks. That's not an acceptable solution for me- too pixelated, staves don't line up. I could insert an SVG to address the quality, but I would have to be able to insert multiple images to make all of the staves line up.

In reply to by jonarnold

I was able to get a more accurate end result using Bravura symbols, but they're all manually positioned. I could align similar symbols with the same X-offset, but some of them have different anchor points, which is strange. Also, some symbols are too big like the mensuration sign. The bracket is still there. FYI, in this file the clef visibility is not saving for some reason, but I've included an image.

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incipitTestBravura.png 197.3 KB
incipitTestBravura.mscz 16.06 KB

In reply to by jonarnold

The width of your first measure is partially caused by the many unmerged hidden rests; so here's a version with that corrected.
Used the inspector to change the noteheads to "mi" and "alt brevis" as I find the normal diamond heads too small for reproduction purposes.

Then (after indeed reducing that measure's stretch to 0) I've adjusted some leading space segment values (again, inspector) to further try and squeeze it down a bit more.

I've also opened up the time signature properties for the 2nd measure for each staff and there selected the wanted text symbol for the 4/2 signature (which you may not want if you're bringing the score up to date to current standards).
Finally I've also added a(n invisible) volta to the first measure but gave it repeatlist 0 so it is always skipped on playback.

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101411-incipitTest_0.mscz 16.56 KB

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