bracketing staves
After many years of avoiding it I am trying to get to grips with the mechanics of writing out music, initially lead sheets.
I am aware that staves may be bracketed together and that the meaning is that the music on both staves is to be played simultaneously.
Possibly the most commun use of bracketing seems to be in piano music where left and right hands are represented on two staves bracketed together. In piano music it is likely that bracketing is done throughout a piece. On a particular lead sheet I have a situation where a counter melody takes place from bar 4 to bar 8 and on the final four bars of the song.
I find that bracketing in Musescore seems to be global. To the last four bars on one stave I added another four bars on another- the counter melody. I tried to bracket the two staves together but find that Musescore adds brackets globally.
I spent the best part of yesterday trying to find a way of bracketing these two staves together but have been so far unsuccessful.
If anybody can explain it I would be very grateful
Comments
Not sure you really mean brackets or bracketing.
an instriment has one or more staves, like Piano has 2, Organ may have 3, most other instrumets have only one stave. A normal staves had 5 lines, but there are also istrimenst with 3 or even just one line.
A score has one or more instruments, so has one or more staves
To indicate which instrumentes play at the same time, the initial barline of every system 'brackets', or better, spans all thees instruments. For instrumente with more than one stave usually all barlains span the staves of that instrument (again Piano being an example) and also may have a curly brace at the beginning ot each system spanning its staves.
Sometones sqare brackets are used to group several instruments, like woodwinds or string section.
Long story short, while I'm not 100% sure what you really want, I believe you want one stave thought most of ypur Piece, bus 2 staves for the Duration or a couple measures.
If so, the solution is to have 2 instruments, fill all the notes and leave empty where there are none, then use 'hide empty staves', see https://musescore.org/en/handbook/layout-and-formatting-0#style-edit-ge…
Similar answer to the above:
Without seeing the score you are having problems with, I can only guess, but I'm thinking that maybe you are needing to use the Style / General / Hide empty staves. That is, create your lead sheet with two staves, add your music to just the top staff for most of the iece but also add music to the bottom staff for bars 4-8 and the last four. Then turn that option on and the bottom staff will disappear everyewhere it is not needed. But it kind of sounds like you might have not set your score up correctly for that; you might be trying to enter music on both staves through even though it's not meant to be played simultaneously.
Well, if turning that option on works, then you've things correctly. if it doesn't, then post the score you are having trouble with and we can help show you what you need to do.
Thanks very much for your advice. It would seem that I have used incorrect terminology; I should have referred to braces rather than brackets.
A problem for me is that lead sheets do not name instruments since all that is usually given on a lead sheet is the melody and the chords of a given song. I could be wrong but what you seem to be saying is that I set up the whole piece for two instruments throughout, then I remove all the empty staves. I can see that this would give me almost what I require, although I can't honestly be sure what would happen if I were to do this. Wouldn't the staves that were braced have the names of specific instruments alongside them? I don't wish to name instruments, merely to indicate that the second stave is a counter melody by adding rehearal marks to the stave containing the counter melody.
As it stands, I have transcribed the song already, providing the counter melody in staves underneath the melody. All I lack is a means of linking the melody and counter melody and by the sound of it there is nothing I can do other than starting again from scratch setting up as you say, two instruments.
One of the reasons I am copying lead sheets into Musescore is so that I can transpose them for other instruments. Given this, I do not wish to start naming instruments on the parts.
In reply to Thanks very much for your by Limehouselaundry
Thanks to both Jojo and Marc for your advice. I have come to realise the enormity of the task I set myself and I have therefore changed the way I have written out the lead sheet.
The counter melody is played as a four bar intro to the melody and is indicated above its stave as an intro. I have indicated the intro as the counter melody in rehearsal marks beneath the staves for bars one to eight and bars 67 to 70. That way I am able to indicate when the counter melody is to be played without having recourse to setting up two instruments.
Thanks again for your advice though. The problem with any piece of software is that without faniliarity tasks may be undertaken without fully appreciating their complexity.
In reply to Thanks very much for your by Limehouselaundry
You can get rif of the Instrument names, just slect and hit Del
In reply to Thanks very much for your by Limehouselaundry
Braces & brackets different names for essentially the same thing.
Anyhow, it's not an enromous task at all. It's really as simple as I said: create a score for two instruments (or add a second staff to the existing instrument; either can be done from the Instruments dialog when creating a score or later via Edit / Instruments), add you notes, then turn on that option. Turning on that option removes all empty staves throughout the entire score in a single click; so it literally takes only seconds. And as Jojo says, the instrument name that appears by default when creating a score for multiple instrumenta can simply be deleted.