How to stretch out 2 bars at the end of a lead sheet?

• Mar 26, 2022 - 14:24

I have 2 bars at the end of my page that I wanted to make in line with the other rows of 4 bars per line - Anyone know how to do this or what it's called in the handbook?

see pic attached:


Comments

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

You could play with the "Last system fill threshold" on the Format>Style>Page dialogue. The default is 30% - meaning that MuseScore will stretch the final system to fill the space between margins if it would otherwise have a length 30% or more of the distance between. Or in other words it will give you a short last system unless its length is greater than 30% of the space available. Decreasing that setting will force MuseScore to stretch the last system for otherwise shorter system lengths. Setting it to 0% will result in the final system always being stretched to fill the available space.

But... two super-wide bars at the end will probably look rather silly (each to his or her own taste of course). My preference would be to forgo the 4 bars per system and instead add system breaks so that the music is more evenly spread. You have 18 bars. 18 is not a multiple of 4. Therefore you can't have 4 bars on every system. Some systems are going to have more or fewer bars. I can't see the first 4 bars but let's assume it makes sense for them to stay on the same system. I see that bars 5 - 7 are "busier" than the others. They would probably benefit from being given more room so I would try removing your existing system breaks in bars 8, 12 and 16 and adding them instead at bars 7, 10 and 15. Then that section of the score in your picture will have systems of 3, 4, 4 and 3 bars and the last system will probably automatically be stretched to fill the space between margins. It may be that other distributions of bars per system would be even more attractive - something to play with.

In reply to by SteveBlower

Hi Steve,
thanks for your reply. I had a play with - "Last system fill threshold" on the Format>Style>Page dialogue.
I specifically wanted to keep this document with 4 bars to a line though. I'm a guitarist and find it a lot easier to understand and interpret the piece when I can see the chord progression in even blocks. this helps me to see the form quickly and also the melodic/rhythmic changes in the melody.

Thanks for all the replies to this post. I couldn't work out what >Inserting a frame< was supposed to do - unless I added a picture or text? I tried all the options recommended, then decided to leave it, as I didn't think it looked too bad the way it was.
I've had a bit of time to mess with the formatting, it does take a while to learn and then remember how to do what you did before.
I found the Format tab >Stretch>incress or decrees layout to help. And also by selecting the bars you want to change length of; then >Control+right click (MAC) >select drop-down menu and >bar properties.

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