Courtesy accidentals and time signatures

• Feb 23, 2015 - 15:10

Hi,

I have a multi-movement score where the key signature changes both within and between movements. How can I remove the courtesy accidentals at the end of a movement without also removing them from within the movements?

I've tried Style | Edit General Style... | Page | Create courtesy key signatures, but that has a global effect. I need something that affects only a single system.

Thanks.

Comments

• Feb 23, 2015 - 21:04

Well I tried the nightly, but it seems to be a bit buggy in that area. At first, nothing I tried seemed to work. What's more, right clicking each of the courtesy accidentals and time signatures gave different results: in some cases the "courtesy" option was greyed out, and in others it was unselected, but I could still see the accidental/time signature. But when I saved the score and reloaded it, the problem had gone away.

I realise these observations are a bit vague (I'm trying to remember exactly what I did), but I hope it will help with the development.

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• Feb 23, 2015 - 21:52

Hmm, actually, current 2.0 builds should be considerably *less* buggy than 1.3 in this area. It's possible you simply misunderstood something of how it is supposed to work. In general, you don't right click the *courtesy* signature to get the option to make it go away; you right click the *actual* signature. or it's possible you were using too old of a build.

if you are seeing a specific problem in a *current* 2.0 build (not the Beta; that's two months old now), please see if you camn reproduce it and post the score you are having problems with amd precise steps to reproduce it. We are preparing to release very soon, and if there is still some sort of bug here, we definitely need to know about it in order to fix it! But I think you will find it actually works as it should.

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 09:48

Original score (Evening_Service_in_G - ms1.3_A.mscz, produced using version 1.3)

In 1.3

The new movement starts half way down page 9. The last bar of the first movement contains a line break.

• The previous movement (top system) ends with a double bar in common time with no key signature (C major, though it actually ends in the key of G).

• The new movement (bottom system) is in alla breve time and one flat.

• There is a vertical frame between the movements and a horizontal frame to indent the first system of the new movement.

• The top system ends with a double bar with courtesy key signatures on either side. Those before are invisible; right clicking them gives menus with a "Hide courtesy signature" item. Those after the double bar are visible and can only be made invisible.

• There are no courtesy time signatures.

• The key signatures on the bottom system can be clicked to "Hide courtesy signature".

• The time signatures on the bottom system can only be hidden.

So far so good. The only thing that surprises me is the courtesy time signatures. I don't get any at the start of the new movement, but I do at the end of page 7. Is this to be expected?

So what happens when I import it into 2.0.

In 2.0 (MuseScoreNightly-2015-02-23-1607-272a553)

• First off, the pagination has changed. The new movement now starts (with the vertical frame) at the foot of page 8.

• On the previous system we have a double bar line and both courtesy time and key signatures (the former are visible and the latter hidden).

• The bar number at the start of the new movement is now -71.

Otherwise everything is as before.

1. Saved as Evening_Service_in_G - ms2.0_A.mscz

2. Add a section break to the last bar of the first movement. This changed the bar line at the end of the first movement to a single bar and changed the instrument names at the start of the new movement from short to long form. I still have the courtesy time and key signatures (shouldn't they have disappeared?)

3. Remove the line break. Seems to have no effect.

4. Add a page break to force the vertical frame onto the next page. Seem to have no other effects.

5. Removed horizontal frame.

6. Adjusted the bar number (offset 0).

7. Put the double bar back.

8. Saved result as Evening_Service_in_G - ms2.0_B.mscz and closed Musescore.

9. Restarted Musescore 2.0 and loaded Evening_Service_in_G - ms2.0_B.mscz. Now the the courtesy time signatures have disappeared. I still have the invisible courtesy key signatures though.

I've attached the three files mentioned above. I hope that gives you enough to sort it out. I think it might be a backwards compatibility issue between 2.0 and 1.3.

Attachment Size
Evening_Service_in_G - ms1.3_A.mscz 48.04 KB
Evening_Service_in_G - ms2.0_A.mscz 53.95 KB
Evening_Service_in_G - ms2.0_B.mscz 57.63 KB

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 13:43

Thanks for the detailed response!

Regaridng the differences in layout between 1.3 and 2.0, to some extent that is unavoidable. Many things abut layout have changed - virtually all for the better - and that means occasionally a different number of measures per system or system per page in some cases by default.

Regarding the courtesy systems, it is hard to tell exactly what you mean, as I think it must look different on my system than yours. I don;t see a courtesy signature (key or time) on page 7 because there is no change on a line break on that page - just one in the middle of the system that for some reason you have hidden. Which makes no sense to me - how would the person reading this understand you wanted a change? Although I recognize I am not as well versed as I could be in the notational conventions of this type of music.

I suspect that marking the courtesy signatures invisible is what is preventing them going away with the section breaks. I think that has caused the key signature to be marked as "special" (non-generated is the internal term) in a way that means som of the automatic handling that would normally be present is not. But there also does seem to be an issue with the order in which section breaks are added relative to the signatures. I have seen something like this before but don't fully understand. I will look into it.

Thanks again for the information!

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 14:29

As you say, there is no line break on page 7, but only when the score is opened in Musescore 2.0. In version 1.3, the pagination is different and the change of key and time occurs at the beginning of page 8, and courtesy time and key signatures are needed on page 7. Please open Evening_Service_in_G - ms1.3_A.mscz in 1.3 to see what I mean.

As for the hidden key signature, that is caused by the change of pagination in 2.0. In 1.3, with the key changing to C major at the beginning of page 8, no key signature is required other than the courtesy one on the previous page (if changing to a key with a different number of sharps or flats, the courtesy key signature would show all the changes, including naturals, but the key signature on the new line would give only the new key signature without any naturals; when going to C major, with no sharps or flats, you therefore get no key signature at all). Hence the invisibility. Once again, open the score in 1.3 to see this or see the attached PDF.

Attachment Size
Evening_Service_in_G - p7-8.pdf 58.5 KB

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 16:53

I did open the score in 1.3 for comparison, but that doens't explain what I see. For me, the key change in question appears in the middle of a system even in 1.3 - just a different place (toward the end of last system of poage 8). So it's still hard to see exactly what is going on. The PDF helps. The discrepancies, BTW, are probably due to font differences on our respective systems affecting the lyric spacing.

Well, it does sort of - I think you've set things up impoperly, and that is why 2.0 is having issues. Rather than making the key signatures invisible in 1.3, you should have used the "Hide courtesy" and "Hide naturals" options (again, while right clicking the main key signature, not the courtesy signature). This would have told MuseScore what was going in a way it would have understood better upon import to 2.0.

So I *think* what you are seeing is not necessarily an inherent incompatibiltiy between 1.3 and 2.0, or any sort of significant bug in 2.0 - it's more a case of the two programs not dealing with unusual/unexpected input the same way. I do plan to investigate further when I have time, but that's how it looking right now.

I think the thing two do would be to remvoe your key changes from 1.3, then add them back but this time the "correct" way for what you are trying to do. And then I suspect it would import into 2.0 better, although you'd still have layout differences. I always recommend liberal use of explicit line breaks to help ensure your scores lay out the same way (and reduce stretch a notch after inserting the breaks to make sure things still fit).

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 20:02

OK, I did what you suggested (hide naturals) and it worked, except that my double bar is now single. But then when I made the changes at the start of the new movement, that bar line stayed double. O well!

I think one of my problems is finding out what is the "correct" way of doing things. The quickest way to learn something new is to dive in and search for help when you hit a problem. But when you start with something as complex as I did, you soon find yourself needing some of the more "obscure" features. And I think I did well before having to ask for help. The Musescore documentation is good, but only as far as it goes. There may be something there about "hide naturals", but if I saw it, I didn't realise it's significance.

And when you search online, it doesn't seem to search the online documentation, but the forum. I'd like to be able to start with the documentation and only if I can't find anything turn to the forum.

Just one other point. I actually only turned to Musescore 2.0 because someone on this forum suggested it. And the next reply told me how to do what I wanted in 1.3. This has grown out of all proportion.

Thanks for all your help.

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 20:22

Whichever type of barline you see by default, should be able to change it manually using the barlines palette, in either version.

And yes, I agree, you've done amazingly well in figuring how to a do a lot of pretty complex things on your own!

Anyhow, sorry this has expanded beyond what you wanted, but please realize, with the release of 2.0 becoming imminent, we are very concerned with making sure things work as well as they can in that release, so getting to the bottom of this is important to su that unfortunately have little to do with helping you with your specific score. Ideally, we'd do both, of course :-)

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• Feb 24, 2015 - 07:53

In Nightly, the supported way of handling this is:

1) In menu "Style | General...", tab "Page", set (or leave) as checked the check box "Courtesy key signatures"; this ensures that all 'normal' key changes will have a courtesy signature if needed.

2) When a movement ends (or at whatever point you do not want the previous status to carry on), add a Section Break to the last measure; this ensures that the last measure will not have any courtesy signature and applies to time, clef and key signature changes.

The Section Break can be found in the "Breaks & Spacers" palette and looks more or less like a reversed squared 'C'; in an unmodified palette, it is the third symbol.

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• Feb 13, 2017 - 16:49

I'm having a similar issue: Style/General Style/Page has allowed me to hide courtesy key signatures between movements, EXCEPT...I have one movement that ends in F# major while the next begins in a minor, and I can't get rid of the six-natural-sign key signature at the top of the latter movement. When I right click (actually two-finger click with a Mac tracking pad), a Key Signature menu pops up and I can scroll down to Hide Courtesy Key Signature, but when I click that nothing happens (aside from the naturals being highlighted in blue). When I try it again the same menu appears with SHOW Courtesy Key Signature, so clearly it "thinks" something's happening...but not at the human level. Thanks in advance.

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• Feb 13, 2017 - 18:03

At the end of each movement, you should be using a section break - see the Breaks & Spacers palette. This suppresses courtesy signature but also reset measure numbering etc. You should not normally be using the style option to suppress courtesy signatures, because that would suppress them *within* movements which would be incorrect.

Also, the hide/show courtesy option requires to to select the *actual* signature (the one starting the next system). So that could be what you are doing wrong.

If you continue to have difficulty after following this advice, please attach your actual score and explain in more detail where/what the problem is.

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