Linked part editing
I would like the possibility to edit parts separately, and have the changes reflected automatically in the main score.
This feature is in Sibelius, and is very useful for focusing on single staves or parts.
The way the part extraction works in MuseScore is not so very intuitive (to me atleast). In addition having separate files for each part is messy.
Comments
This would make it much easier to work with parts. Think of a crescendo in a duet score; does the crescendo apply to the first instrument, the second, or both? This would make it easier to specify
In reply to I agree by MDMilford
It has only been since Finale got that feature that it has been worth the effort to compose regularly for large ensembles. Before that, it was just too much hassle to be worth it.
The entire concept of part extraction is completely nuts, as though the parts were somehow separate from the score. With extracted parts, every time you find something wrong, you have to fix it in two places. For any nontrivial changes, this means re-extracting the parts, which means reformatting the parts from scratch, which means a day or more of wasted time....
Not sure what the crescendo in duet scores thing is about, though. That has nothing to do with linked parts. A crescendo is always by definition tied to a measure, which is part of a staff, which is either part of the primo or the secondo part, not both.
In reply to It has only been since Finale by dgatwood
This is interesting. Seems to me that what is needed is a "layer" approach such as photoshop.
In reply to It has only been since Finale by dgatwood
I believe Mosaic was the first program to have this feature back in the 1990's, followed by Igor Engraver that did have it from its first version in 2000, Sibelius in version 4 in 2005, and then Finale in 2007. MuseScore got it in ...
In reply to Linked layouts by Magnus Johansson
As far as I can recall, Notator (from C-LAB/Emagic, predecessor to current Logic) for Atari had linked parts from the very beginning - late 80's. They were implemented in a surprisingly simple/elegant manner. Because the claim to fame of Notator was the integration of notation and sequencing, their score format was essentially just a glorified MIDI file with special pseudo-commands for layout.. Those pseudo-commands could be for score+parts, or for parts only. I believe you controlled this as with recent Finale releases - changes made in score mode affected score & parts, changes made in part mode affected the part only. As with most things in Notator, it worked simply and beautifully. And part extraction in particular was one of the most painful things about having to switch to Finale back in the mid-90's when I finally gave up the Atari. I pined for Notator for a decade until finally getting linked parts in Finale a couple of years back.
Anyhow, while I've been a Finale user since the mid-90's, I think 2008 will turn out to have been the last upgrade I purchase. Every time a new release of Finale comes out, I look around to see if there are any open source alternatives that would be viable for my purposes. And until now, the answer has always been "no". Musescore was barely on my radar back when I upgraded to Finale 2008, but one of my students mentioned it in class a few days ago, so I am *just* coming on board. And I have to say, "OMG". Based on my first look on Tuesday, my impression was, wow, this has come a *long* ways in the last couple of years since I last looked. Still not expecting too much, I imported a couple of my Finale scores via MusicXML and almost cried to see them come up in MuseScore mostly intact. I will be enthusiastically recommending MuseScore to my students, but without linked parts in 0.9.6.3, I was thinking, it's still not quite there for me. I imagined it was at best probably still a year or two down the road before that came to pass.
So just a bit more browsing this morning, and in another thread I find it's already happening. Even if it isn't fully baked yet (presumably), I'm encouraged enough to start my next project using Musescore. If nothing else, I can always import into Finale via MusicXML if I run into any brick walls. But from what I've seen so far, I'm not expecting any. I can put up with extracting parts manually until a stable release that incorporates linked parts comes along, and it looks like just about everything else I need is already in place. I'm sure I'll find some areas where I'd like to see improvement - but it's not like the same wasn't true of Finale! And I have a feeling that feature requests made here are going to be more effective than making them at MakeMusic.
So, pardon the gushing, rambling, and largely off-topic posting. I'll close by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to the developers and community, and I promise I'll post more appropriately in the future.
In reply to My first encounter was in Notator, ca, 1989 by Marc Sabatella
In Finale, the behavior is actually a little more subtle than that. Changes in the score affect the score and all parts unless you have previously moved that element in a given part, in which case the part positioning takes precedence. It's basically a two-level namespace. The part namespace has precedence, but in the absence of an attribute in the part namespace, the score namespace fills in the gaps. I won't go so far as to say that it is elegant, but it is (mostly) functional.
Yes!!! This is the feature that is really high on my list of 'must haves' for any serious piece of score writing software. Muse Score is generally brilliant, but so far doesn't have this.
Big respect to the development crew for the awesome work they've done thus far tho!
What a labour of love.
In reply to Linked Part Editing by mikedeebass
This would be a very valuable ability.
In reply to This would be by xavierjazz
I am working on it for the next major release...
In reply to Linked Part Editing by mikedeebass
You can try this feature by downloading a nightly for mac or windows from http://prereleases.musescore.org.
Nighlies are NOT for serious work but only for trying the new features and give feedback.
Note that any file created with a nightly will not work with current stable release (0.9.6.3)
In reply to You can try this feature by by [DELETED] 5
I did go ahead and download the most recent nightly and gave the linked parts a whirl. So far so good on the basic idea. Crashed before I could really do anything aside from verify that changing a note in the score really did affect the part and vice versa. I'll report that separately.
In reply to I did go ahead and download by Marc Sabatella
Should work again with revision 3568. I messed up playback for parts.
In reply to You can try this feature by by [DELETED] 5
I, like a previous poster, have often gone looking for an alternative to Finale, but until recently never found anything. I am extremely impressed with all the work that has been done on MuseScore. It is great software, but linked parts are a remaining hole in the list of must-haves.
When will linked parts make their way into a stable release? I am using MuseScore version 1.0 on Linux (Ubuntu). Most of what I do is for choir and orchestra and I am very eager to have this feature.
In reply to When? by brianr0922
It is already implemented for the next major release, which will be 2.0. There is no exact time table for release, but you can try it out by downloading one of the nightlies. Just beware that the nightlies are a work in progress and not always stable, but they are getting more so every day, with a long list of bugs getting squashed.
Patience grasshopper, patience....
This sounds like a very promising feature, and I will most definitely be using it should it make its way into the next release.
The ideas that have shaped MuseScore never cease to simply astound and amaze me, and that same brillance that makes MuseScore great also has the capacity to change the world insofar as music is concerned. I've often felt that music is a language, and probably the most complex language there is. And with MuseScore, this language-with its many wide and varried facets, with all its complexity and simplicity, with all the room within the set structure for chaos and creativity-with MuseScore, this language known as music is evolving (or will evolve) to a level it has never seen before, to be known and shared by all. This is truly a great piece of software. Now that I've had my rant and rave on the brillance of MuseScore...
I have not seen the implementation of this feature yet (though I am very eager), but I do hope that we will have the option of setting up default page format for all of the parts (that is different from the score). Does anyone know if this is the case?
In reply to Part Page Format by brianr0922
I just added a new preference item "default part style" in the current developer version. The style is applied to all new created parts. The page format is part of the style, so it should be possible to automatically get different page formats for score and part.
In reply to Default part style by [DELETED] 3
Fantastic!
The other elements I find most important to be able to affect separately for score and parts are:
1) manual system breaks
2) manual element positions
3) enharmonic spellings
In reply to Fantastic! The other elements by Marc Sabatella
I believe 1/ is done and maybe 2. Could you explain the rationale behing 3 ?
In reply to I believe 1/ is done and by [DELETED] 5
Yes, #1 definitely works - thanks for pointing tha out. #2 I'm not as sure about. My test score does indeed show that changes to position in the parts aren't reflected in the score, but then, neither are changes in the score reflected in the parts. Even adding new elements to the score doesn't show in the parts - only note changes show. But that's using a score that already has parts, made in 1.0. I haven't had much success creating new scores with parts in the nightly builds - MuseScore crashes on Create Part. I'm not clear on what the workflow is supposed to be, though. I was kind of surprised to have to go through the Parts dialog at all; I was kind of expecting parts to be generated automatically. One more week of teaching, then some down time when I can play with the nightly more.
Anyhow, as for #3, I know this came up in a previous discussion - perhaps in conjunction with an issue in the tracker - but here's my take:
As a jazzer, my scores often involve transposing instruments (saxophones and trumpets). I like to work with my scores in concert key, but of course want the parts transposed. For relatively simple / tonal music, I'm fine with the literal transposition of pitches as spelled. But especially when writing things like saxophone solis, where the inner voices can have oddly spelled intervals due to the harmonies involved, I often find it prudent to respell some pitches enharmonically in the parts for better readability.
For example, if my original 2nd Tenor line went B Db Eb E F# in concert key, because it came from a chord progression that went Emi7-Db7-Gbma7-A7-D, I do want to see that spelling in the concert key score, because that allows me to easily see my chord voicings. But that line, transposed for tenor, turns in C# Eb F F# G#, and I know I'll get many fewer wrong notes if I write that Db Eb F Gb Ab (or C# D# E# F# G#).
Really, even without the issue of transposing, this comes up. As an instrumentalist, I wouldn't have wanted to see that line in the original key either. I'd much rather see B C# D# E F# than B Db Eb E F#. But it definitely comes up that much more often with transposing instruments.
In the absence of a way to have separate spellings for score versus parts, I'll choose the spellings that make sense for parts and live with scores in which chords appear to be spelled wrong (in the above example, that would be a C# in the Db7 chord). But it's less than ideal.
BTW, all this also goes for chord symbols - well, the transposing bit, anyhow. A progression I write as B7-Bb in concert key I'd rather see transposed as Db7-C then C#7-C. Really, it should have been written as Cb7-Bb in concert key, but again, no one wants to read that.
In reply to Yes, #1 definitely works - by Marc Sabatella
At an absolute minimum, notes must be simplified when working with transposing instruments, or else you can get double flats or double sharps in either the score or the parts. Nobody wants that. Although there should be a reasonable set of defaults (which usually translates "prefer flats in flat keys, prefer sharps in sharp keys"), it would be nice to have the ability to manually say "show this F# as Gb" or vice-versa on occasion as well.
In reply to Fantastic! The other elements by Marc Sabatella
Also important on #2: an element in parts should be individually positioned *only* if that element has been repositioned in that specific part. By default, each part should show each element wherever it appears in the score (even if you subsequently adjust the position in the score). When you insert a new marking, you should position it in the score, then check the parts and adjust the positioning as needed. This makes for a better workflow than manually positioning it for every part individually, as more than nine times out of ten, the position of an element relative to a note should be the same in every part as it is in the score, and the exceptions are usually an indication that you're cramming too many lines onto one page or the other. :-)