Hide empty staves

• May 11, 2021 - 21:42

A simple(?) question:
Is there a way to hide empty staves ONLY in first system?
Kind regards
Erling


Comments

I can't think of a reaosn for such a feature to exist - is there a real world use case for that? If you explain what you are trying to do and why in more detail, we can understand and advise better. Chances are whatever it is you are trying to do is more directly accomplished some other way.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for responding. I cannot give too much feedback on this except perhaps the score I just have published: https://musescore.com/user/26911315/scores/6771868
Starts with piano, adds a violin voice and finally the ("human) voice (I have changed it to oboe for playback reasons).
And the first system in my original score from 1914 is only the piano. The rest of my score is pretty much like it is on original paper score.
Kind regards Erling

In reply to by ErlingI

So you're saying for some reason that editor chose to show the empty staves on the second, third, and final systems, but not the first? That's an extremely questionable choice in my opinion. But if you wish to reproduce it, just hide empty staves but plan invisible content in some measure on any staff that for whatever reason you want to show even though empty.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for feedback.
It is difficult for me to say what the 1914 publishers had as guidelines for their score.
Is it for the pianist to have a clear view of when the different voices (violin, song) “enter the stage”? If hiding a system “inside” the score it might make it more difficult to “see”: who am I now accompanying, the singer or the violinist?

(Another “issue”: A “side effect” of hiding first systems is the “loss of” “long instrument name” in systems. I have seen this discussed on this forum.)

Else: See the attached image from the original score.
It this layout “invalid”, “obscure” and hard to find? Or should it be possible to reproduce this layout in Muscore without too much “hassle”/workarounds. From a programmer’s point of view, it should be a simple task.
And yes, the workaround you describe works (as also pointed out by @shoichi).

Attachment Size
part of score.jpg 143.64 KB

In reply to by ErlingI

If you can show evidence it is a standard in common use on scores from other publishers, then it would make sense to add a feature to reproduce that specific layout directly, yes. If it's just an unusual quirky choice by one editor, then I think it makes more sense to simply make it somewhat easier to force individual measures to be considered non-empty. I envision a special "Not empty" element you can add from the palette to mark which staves you want to keep. Because it's actually quite common to want to show "some" empty staves (to complete a "section", or to balance the page sizes). So being able to pick and choose is actually important enough to want to simplify that. I've just never heard of anyone literally showing all empty staves after the first system.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks again for feedback. Agreed: It might be difficult to find example like the one I showed (and I have some 1000 scores!), so perhaps it is not worth while "solving" rare cases like this, but use workarounds when needed.
That said, having a clear view of systems (even emty) in a score must be of value to a pianist accompanying. Or am I wrong here? Kind regards Erling.

In reply to by ErlingI

Hi, so you want to create something like this in MuseScore:
score-sample.PNG

It should not require too much hassle to achieve this. When you add a "section break" to the 5th bar/measure, the next system will start with the "long instrument name". In my sample I have removed the "short names" otherwise they would show at the next system.

Also attached the MuseScore file, in case you want to check.

Attachment Size
sample-score.mscz 12.13 KB

In reply to by Henk De Groot

Thanks for answer and proposal! The section break is indeed a way to "solve" this , (and remember to set the pause to 0 sec). As I have seen this topic discussed elsewhere, I wonder why it has not been mentioned as a way to handle the "long instrument name-problem" before. Or perhaps you are the first to "solve" this issue for the community! Thanks again!

I have applied the various proposals on this page on my score:
https://musescore.com/user/26911315/scores/6771868
However, to be veeeery "difficult", the trick to show an "empty" system using an invisible note still makes some "unwanted footprint" on the layout imposed by the invisible note. The bar "affected" is easy to spot.
I have tried adding other elements (text, chords etc.), making them invisible, but that does not have any effect on showing the empty systems.

In reply to by ErlingI

Yes indeed and make sure playback is not enabled for that note. Glad to hear you found my "solution" works with section break, I forgot to mention you should set the pause to 0 as I was just focussed on the layout. Good to see you found that already in other topics.

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