two items: notes of different duration on a single stem. location of rests

• Jan 14, 2021 - 22:21

1) I am trying to put two notes of different duration (quarter note and dotted quarter note) on the same stem. But the app defaults to one of the notes only

2) How do I move rests around in a measure. I want to move a quarter rest from after the note to the beginning of the measure. The app will not allow me to do that.

Any help will be appreciated.


Comments

1) for two different durations at the same point in time you will need to put the notes in different voices. See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/voices and use voice 1 and 2. The note in voice 1 will have its stem up and the note in voice 2 will have its stem down. You will have to flip one of those depending on which way you want the combined stem to point. Select the note whose stem you want to flip and press X.

2) You don't move rests, you move the notes leaving silence (rests) in their place and overwriting silence where you want the notes. Suppose you have 1/4 note followed by 1/4 rest you would select the 1/4 note, cut it using CTRL+X and paste it on to the later rest using CTRL+V.

I will add to the above:

  • If there are only two different rhythms happening at once, they shouldn't normally be on the same stem. One set of notes is stem up (voice 1), the other is stem down (voice 2). Only if there are three or more independent rhythms on the same staff would you normally ever see different durations with stems the same direction. And even then, you would then normally offset them so they don't share a stem.

2) You actually can copy/paste rests, but it's not what you want here. Copying a rest from beat two to beat one won't move the note that was previous on beat one, it will simply replace it. So, in practical terms, don't think about moving silence; think about moving sound. If your goal is to take the note on beat one and move it to beat two (or any other beat), then that is what you cut/paste, not the rests.

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