Behavior of the "R" repeat key

• Sep 25, 2020 - 16:33

In copying a score to Musescore, I needed to edit measures copied from previous entries. I highlight the entire measure and use R to make a copy. I then edit individual notes. The score is 3/4 time and a measure had a dotted half note in voice one and three quarter notes in voice two. I observed the following behavior. If I select any of the quarter notes in voice two and try to copy with R nothing happens. I changed the duration of the voice one note to a half note, and R would not copy the first note in voice two but would copy second and third. If I change the duration of the note in voice one to a quarter note, all of the notes in voice two could be copied using the R key.


Comments

The R key doesn't copy individual voices and isn't affected by the selection filter (See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/copy-and-paste#selection-filter if needed) so this is a safety to prevent you from getting an undesirable repeated selection. When you select voice 1, all notes that overlap are also selected and truncated if necessary for the R shortcut. Many people would freak out rather than pressing ctrl+z to undo the undesired copy if they got all voices copied after selecting a couple of voice 2 notes so it's probably a good idea.

In reply to by mike320

So while it was not obvious in most situations I encountered in using this method, you are saying that selecting a note in one voice actually applies to all notes at that beat in the score and would duplicate those of other voices. However in the situation there is no note in the other voice directly although it is included in the duration of that from the other voice. (dotted half is present for the entire measure.) So even though there is no new note in that voice at that point, I cannot copy from the middle of a notes duration even if it does not appear to be there.

In reply to by msokol

No, R only works if voice 1 is explicitly selected. If you have a whole note in voice 1 and a few notes in voice 2 starting on beat 2, you can select only voice 2 notes without selecting anything in voice 1. R does nothing rather than trying to guess what you want it to do in this case.

If you select voice 1 notes, it will also select any notes in the other voices. It'll duplicate any notes in the selection area.

In reply to by msokol

Prior to 3,.5, pressing R with a single note selected. By popular request, we added this recently. But there was some question about exactly how it should work - copy the whole chord or just a single note, copy articulations and lyrics or not, etc. In the end, after much discussion, a simple compromise was reached - we create a range selection that contains the selected note, and apply the "R" command to that, since the code already exists for that, making it very easy to implement, and there was no specific consensus to the contrary.

This approach does mean that results can be unexpected in multiple voice situations, if you intended to copy only one voice and there is content in another voice at that same position. But the selection filter will work to limit the effect. It also means there will be situations where you can't actually create a range selection if the note values don't line up conveniently. For these cases, if you do have some particular reason to use "R", better to do so in note input mode.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Here is a description of what I have done in the past and again recently. Say I have a waltz in 3/4 time (for illustration) so three quarter notes in a measure and maybe two voices. What I do when copy a score is to use previously entered measures to populate new measures at least for pattern. So working on one staff at a time I would select any number of measures, hit R and those measures would copy starting to the measure dirctly after the marked measures, empty or not. Then I would edit selected notes, up or down in pitch as necessary. So if second note in the measure was higher, I could edit that note (or chord) , and if it was replicated as the third note, I would then just hit R and the two final notes are the same. This copies the entire cord the note is in. If in edit mode, I highlight a note and change its duration or add or remove an accidental, then hit R that change copies to the next position. If I highlight all notes in multiple voices at that position and hit R it replaces the next notes or adds them if blank, and any changes required due to the changes in duration are included in the copy. e.g. If I have a note that is too long a duration for the measure it is truncated and added into the next measure as well. You get the idea. But my original post was because the feature no longer seemed to work independently of how other voices were notated. I do not recall this in earlier versions, where any selected note or notes would copy forward. So in a measure with eight notes, I could select three in series and the next three positions for notes of those durations would be placed forward into the measure or if necessary into the next measure. I used it in both input and edit modes more or less identically as best as I recall.

In reply to by mike320

That is not how it works. In edit mode if you click on a single note head in a chord and press R the entire chord is copied. If you are in edit mode and are adding a note to a chord that exists, the entire modified chord gets copied when pressing R after inserting the new note which remains highlighted after insertion. So a single note head is only copied if it is a single note, not in a chord.

In reply to by msokol

I think when you say "edit mode", you really mean "normal mode". "Edit mode" is what you enter when you double-click. "R" is not valid in that mode. But as I explained previously, in normal mode, "R" will create a range selection around the note and copy that, so yes, the whole chord, along with any markings attached. Again, this was the simplest way to quickly achieve something resembling the consensus of the various different competing things people expecting to have happen.

In note input mode, though, range selection is not really a thing, so there "R" does indeed copy just the currently-selected note.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes.. what I was calling Edit mode is what you are saying is normal mode and I am saying it is NOT INPUT MODE. By this I mean I can highlight notes, add artifacts to the notes whether accidentals or other markings from the pallets by clicking on the items in the pallets. But please check out your last comment because I observe a different behavior. In normal mode I observe a chord with two note heads. I click on the N to enter input mode. I then select the note duration and any accidentals and use the mouse to click on a staff line to enter a third note on the chord which the system does. The chord now has three note heads. The last one entered is still highlighted. If I click on R the entire three note chord is copied not just the currently selected note.

In reply to by msokol

Right. And as I am explaining, it is by design, to accommodate the best compromise / consensus we could from the many varied and incompatible requests that were coming in, that "R" in norma mode actually creates a range selection then copies that. I may have misspoke if I implied that in note input, only the current note would be copied. This is also by design according to multiple user requests that it copies the full chord. But, unlike in Normal mode, it does so without creating a range selection, so you don't also get copies of notes in other voices. Sorry for the confusion.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Exactly... no copy of other voices as expected. Does not copy all notes at that position in the measure. That is what I expect and works great. But back to the original question on this thread. I have voice one with dotted 1/2 note. Voice two has three quarter notes. Only the final note can be copied with an R because the copy is not in the range of the dotted note. If I make it a 1/2 note, then the last two notes will copy with an R but not the first quarter. If the 1/2 is changed to a 1/4 any of the other voice notes can copy with R. So an R with a copy into the range of the other voice is prohibited. I guess by design but confusing since I am not making any changes in that voice and not sure why they cannot be completely independent.

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