Bug: Automatic Placement isn't

• Oct 13, 2020 - 23:07

Whenever I make changes in clefs or otherwise change the transcription of a part (usually involving a clef change) certain notes will refuse to change stem direction to conform with convention for where they are in the staff. One note I keep seeing in the little project I'm working on at the moment is the B on the top space of bass clef. In this example, every single B in the score now has the stem going up instead of down. I looked at the element inspector and under "stems" "auto" is checked. If not checked, I can select the entire piece and change to "auto" and nothing happens. I can select a note and then select "auto" in the element inspector, but to have to do that for each affected note is obviously much slower than just hitting X. MuseScore gets most of them right, but it is not accurate every time in my experience when there are changes that involve clefs. Having to comb a piece for these errors is a waste of time, and I often miss some of them and have to re-export when I finally see one. I hope there is a simple fix.

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• Oct 13, 2020 - 23:17

My guess is that you have inadvertently created a second voice. If there are multiple voices the "auto" stem direction is up for voice 1, down for voice 2. If you see one or more "ghost" rests in the score, they are probably in voice 2. If you delete them the stem direction should sort itself out. If not, attach the score here so we can investigate further.

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• Oct 13, 2020 - 23:49

You must attach the score with the problem or we'll never be able to tell for sure what the problem is. I've never seen anything like this if everything is entered normally.

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• Oct 14, 2020 - 03:02

OK- I reimported the mxl file and transcribed enough of it where you can see the issue. The original tenor part was in the vocal tenor clef, and since I only changed the first two pages to bass clef, you can see that the Bbs all have their stems going the wrong way. This seems to happen everytime I try to do a quick trombone part from a tenor part, and often with horn on alto parts. As you can see, there is only one voice on that part. Perhaps there is a simple explanation and fix, but I haven't seen it. Thanks for looking at the file. I sent the mxl file as well.

Attachment Size
Die_mit_Tränen_säen_werden,_SWV_378_Schutz copy.mxl 14.39 KB
Die_mit_Tränen_säen_werden,_SWV_378_Schutz_copy.mscz 30.14 KB

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• Oct 14, 2020 - 03:59

That was a great suggestion, and it worked. I re-imported the mxl file into MS again, and you're right- the treble clef Bbs all had their stems up. Perhaps the app used for the original before the transcriber exported to mxl had the default for the third line to always be stem-up. Either that or the transcriber prefers all Bs to have the stem up, maybe to keep them away from the lyrics. Stem up on the third line is generally OK; but when that gets moved on the staff because of changing clefs, it seems to maintain that oddity. I wish MS would just fix it automatically. But the workaround you just taught me is nearly as good, certainly better than trying to catch each one and hit X each time. Thanks.

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• Oct 14, 2020 - 04:05

Cherry picking what you honor when you import a musicxml (mxl) file isn't a good idea. The idea is to make the score portable between programs with similar representations in both programs. MuseScore gives us a lot of tools to make fixing things easier. The manual mentions all of them. Having said that, you know you can always ask here in the forum if something seems too complicated or you can't figure out how to do something. A lot of us have seen a lot of problems and we don't get surprised too often unless you find a new bug.

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