help on entering note with two flags, and quarter/half notes in same position

• Aug 6, 2020 - 14:23

Hi, I'm new to musescore and looking for pointers on how to enter SATB closed score notes as shown in the image below:

  1. enter a note with two flags where S&A sing the same note.
  2. enter the notes in the bass clef where B sings a half note, and T sings quarter notes.

    notes.png

Thanks!


Comments

In reply to by cbrake

To me it does, almost, there are some unneeded voice 2 notes with stems turned up (or voice 1 notes with stems turned down)
OTOH you could make all lower notes in both staves voice 2 (and with stem down), quite common in closed score SATB (or any time two 'instruments' share one staff)
Actually Soprano and Tenor voice 1, stem up, Alto and Bass voice 2, stem down

In reply to by cbrake

Your score looks like what I would do. In mm3 & 6 I do what you did, put one voice's notes in voice 1 and the other in voice 2 and flip a stem to make them look like a chord when the measure is not selected. I personally prefer this over deleting voice 2 rests or making them invisible but it's not vital.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Beams and flags do present problems you need to make a decision on. If you need different sounds in the mixer for each voice, then always using 2 voices per staff is necessary and you there are a lot of choices to be made about stem directions and visibility of flags and beams.

As far as it looking like a piano score, if your making it look like a piano score then the decisions have to be made, if you do separate stems as Jojo recommends, the decision is easy and all of the stem directions happen automatically in MuseScore, provided you use voice 1 for the top and voice 2 for the bottom.

In reply to by mike320

I had never thought about it before, but it appears many of the hymns/choral arrangements use a style where stems go in same direction, unless it is the same note, or if there are mixed half/quarter notes in that position. It also seems practical to use two voices and then flip all the stems up by selecting a stem, then select similar to flip them all up, and then flip the few that need to go down.

musescore-voices-3.png

However, this can get a little tricker if there are anything smaller than quarter notes (as Jojo mentioned). See below for an example -- the last note now likes like 1/16 notes instead of 1/8.

musescore-voices-4.png

Part of this may go back to when scores were manually created and more like art ...

Anyway, good to understand the options.

Attachment Size
musescore-voices-3.png 6.27 KB
musescore-voices-4.png 10.2 KB

In reply to by cbrake

Unless I am missing something, it's usually easier to just enter those as chords rather than separate voices, unless you need the separate voices for playback purposes. Or, if it is already entered as multiple voices, just use Tools / Implode to automatically convert to chords where possible.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I have no special opinion on whether it's better to have the stems going the same direction where possible or not - I've seen both methods, and am fine with either personally. I'm just saying if you want them going the same direction, it's generally better to do that by making them chords rather than faking it with stem directions. The latter method will cause problems with flags as noted, and also beams.

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