6/8 time issue

• Jan 13, 2016 - 06:07

OK - This sounds easy enough, but I have no clue how to get MuseScore to give me what I want. I would appreciate some help.

I'm working on a march that is in 6/8 time - standard stuff - 2 beats to a measure; dotted quarter gets the beat.

My problem are the rests. I started the composition, and Muse filled in all the blank measures with whole rests. That's cool. Now, I want to put a quarter note in the measure, for beat one (not a dotted quarter), so the remainder of the beat should be an eighth note rest, with a quarter note and eight note rest for beat two. (I suppose a dotted quarter rest coulod also be correct for beat 2, but its not what I want to see.)

What I get is the quarter note followed by a half rest. While correct from a counting aspect, it is not appropriate with the "two beat" feeling of the march tempo. I know I can go in and change the half rest to the correct sequence by keying in the eighth and quarter rests, but that's a lot of extra key strokes.

Is there a way to get MuseScore to see the 6/8 tempo as a 2 beat, and not a 6 beat rhythm, and fill in the rests as I prefer?

Before anyone asks, I have set the tempo marking to dotted quarter = 120. Playback seems to be correct - it feels like a march with 2 beats to the measure.

Thanks in advance.
Jerry

PS - I just went back and looked at the rests again, and its worse than I thought. Adding a quarter note to a 6/8 measure, produces the half rest as noted above. Then, if I go into Note entry mode, and add an eighth rest, I get a second eight rest, and a quarter rest. That's backward from what I want - a typical march rhythm should have it the other way - quarter rest, then eighth rest. Mathematically its correct, but if you give that to a musician they'd go crazy.


Comments

Using your example of 6/8 meter...
If you wish to initially impose your preferred rhythm on 'silence', you can create one measure with quarter rest, eighth rest, quarter rest, eighth rest. Then select that measure and press R to repeat as many times as you wish on the empty stave(s).

silent_rhythm.png

Then, enter your notes. The rests should stay until overwritten.

Regards.

If you want a quarter note and a eighth rest, do enter a quarter note and a eighth rest.
Click the full measure rest, press N, 5 (for quarter note), C (if you want a C), press 4 (for the eighth) , press 0 for the rest

Yes, the default rests inserted to keep a measure full do not obey standard notation rules for compound meters. But as mentioned above, there is no reason to rely on those automatic rests. You already enter your own notes yourself, you simply need to enter your own rests as well.

Someday, though, it woild be nice if the automatic rests were aware of compound meter.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks to everyone who replied. That's the great thing about this forum - it provides a sharing of ideas and techniques that is a great help. I have tried these and have got some ideas to try out!

The best solution, I believe, is the ability to set a compound rhythm pattern. Marc, would it help if I submitted a requirement for this, or is one already there?

Thanks again.

Jerry

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