Hiding a system until it needs to be used

• Oct 4, 2020 - 01:32

This piece goes from one voice and piano to two voices and piano. Is there a way to hide the second voice until it needs to be used? I've figured out how to hide things, in a clumsy sort of way, but I haven't figured out how to hide the actual space taken up by the second voice. Thanks, wizards. You always have the most amazing answers. <3

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p18_Fortunatus.jpg 389.28 KB

Comments

You have hidden the staves in the wrong way if it's clumsy. Undo whatever you did. Right click the staff you want to hide when it's not used and set "Hide when empty" to always. Now when you want to put music on the staff, select a note or rest in the same measure in the highest number voice in the staff above it and press alt+down arrow. If this is the first staff, select a note or rest in the same measure in voice 1 and press alt+up arrow. Now press n to start note input mode and don't worry about when the highlight is, trust it's in the correct spot and enter a note. The staff will now be visible for that system. It may sound complicated but it works well once you're used to it. I've been using this method on a couple of pianos piece I'm working on that have between 2 & 4 staves in it.

In reply to by judeeylander

Mike320, I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back to this. Real life and all that stuff. :)

I hid the staff Always, but Alt Up/Down Arrow doesn't open the measure, and click on Note insert after Alt Up/Down Arrow only inserts notes in the top system. I'm obviously missing something here. Would you help one more time? Thanks! <3

In reply to by judeeylander

When you alt up/down to the staff, when the status bar tells you that you are on the correct staff, start entering notes, once you enter a note on that hidden staff it will become visible again. When you first get into note entry mode on a hidden staff, you will see the note entry cursor on the top staff, close your eyes and just enter the note (only using a keyboard) and it will work. This trick doesn't work with a mouse.

If this doesn't work, attach the score and tell me which instrument you are having trouble putting a note into and I'll try to figure out what you might be doing wrong.

In reply to by judeeylander

Your laptop has a keyboard unless you have one from Star Trek with voice interface ;-) I said keyboard because it works with both midi and the computer keyboards. If I were entering this, I wouldn't worry about hiding empty staves until the score was finished. Don't forget to uncheck "Don't hide staves in first system" after you check Hide empty staves so the voice 2 will be hidden on the first page.

If you really want voice 2 hidden until you enter notes in it, then don't use Hide empty stave in the Style menu but right click the staff, and set "Hide when empty" to always. This will only hide voice 2 and not the other instruments where you want to be able to enter notes. You can select a note in voice 1 use alt+down arrow to move the cursor to voice 2 and start entering notes, just know the display will be strange until you actually enter a note while in note input mode.

If you are copying a score and wish to follow along with the exact same format (to do a line-by-line comparison), you can "set up" the score by first entering some note(s) into the measures where line breaks occur. Then you can hide empty staves (Format -> Style -> Score) to get the same "look" as the original score. (This prevents the "important staves" from vanishing.)
Then, fill in the blank measures. It may make line-by-line copying easier.

Have a look:
Fortunatus_Jude-2.mscz

In reply to by Jm6stringer

I entered all the data and stretched to create the line breaks as I went. I was able to hide all the second voice and it looks wonderful. I couldn't hide all the first voice, which meant I'd have to figure out how to unhide the first few bars. However, I was able to select and hide from the first empty bars to the end. It also looks wonderful!

My last desire was to make the page breaks match the original. When max. system distance is set to 8.5 spaces, all looks great, but my page breaks don't match. Increasing the system distance to 15 spaces puts too much space around the piano solos beginning in bars 39 and 81, Is there a solution to reducing the extra space around the solo parts?

Y'all are awesome, ya know. Wizards. Everyone of you. <3

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p18_Fortunatus_Jude.mscz 46.98 KB
p18_Fortunatus.jpg 389.28 KB

In reply to by judeeylander

If you want the page breaks to match the original, enter system breaks as you enter the score, it's often easier than going back and doing it later. You can then enter the page breaks where you want them. Finally make adjustments so the systems will be on the correct pages. In this case I opened Format->Page settings and reduced the scaling so everything will fit on the right pages. Finally, your footnote about m33 was moved down causing a big space between it and the staff it's attached to. That is all I did. I think you'll be happy with this:

p18_Fortunatus_Jude_0.mscz

In reply to by mike320

I'm finally back, I've completed my learning curve, and finished! Thanks for everything, mike320 and Jm6stringer! <3

I set the max system distance to 8.5 spaces. I thought it gave the best visual look over all, including the two piano solos.

I added all the system breaks. First time for me. I've always increased and decreased stretching to make systems work in the past. Kewl tool! Now they stay in place, not pop out every time I make an edit someplace else.

I added a blank header on the first page. We will be standardizing titles, etc. in the html instead of in the scores. The blank header makes the first page space correctly.

Lastly, I scaled the score to 1.5mm overall. This is also the first time I've ever scaled anything. WOW! It came out perfect!

Thanks again, Mike and Jm. You're the BEST! <3

Attachment Size
p18_Fortunatus_Jude.mscz 41.96 KB
p18_Fortunatus.jpg 389.28 KB

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