How do I copy Tempo marks?
Hi folks - absolute newcomer here!
I've been using an old unsupported version of Sibelius for many years to generate organ accompaniments for hymns at my local church. Two days ago I discovered Musescore, and 2.0 Beta seems to do everything I've been using Sibelius for, only better or simpler. Superb - thanks for all the hard work in producing it!
There's just one issue I haven't yet solved. In Sibelius I could input the notes for one verse, spend ages adjusting the tempo, sometimes on a note-by-note basis to make it suitable for congregational singing, then copy and repeat-paste that verse to generate the following verses. I don't seem to be able to do that in Musescore because the copy and paste doesn't include the tempo marks.
I have a work-around which is to save the first verse; then compile an album using that verse several times over, then use "join scores" to merge the several verses into one score. The final score then needs a bit of final tidying, but it works well and the tempo marks are preserved throughout all verses.
My question is - have I missed something in 2.0 beta? Is there some way to copy and paste including the tempo marks? I realise Musescore is not primarily meant for playback, but it's just too competent for its own good ;)
Steve
Comments
Can't you set it to repeat the verse x times? See http://musescore.org/en/node/36001
In reply to Can't you set it to repeat by Brer Fox
Using repeats is not ideal because:
1) I change the organ voice from verse to verse to add variety. The new "instrument change" feature in 2.0 Beta is perfect for this.
2) There may need to be some subtle tempo differences from verse to verse, depending on the lyrics.
Steve
Yes, copy/paste skips tempo text, as well as other "system" text. It looks like this was a semi-deliberate decision - or at least, a direct effect side effect of a decision that was definitiely deliberate.
Consider - if you select a measure containing a tempo marking, then hit delete, do you want the tempo marking to go away? Probably not. That implies the tempo is *not* part of the selection. But for copy/paste, we probably *do* want it, which implies it *is* part of the selection. Unfortunately, the selection mechansim can't predict what you are going to want to do. The tempo text is either part of the selection or it isn't.
Here is the commit that excluded system text:
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/commit/1edc02d8891ec8594b8e910ec…
Here is the bug it was fixing:
http://musescore.org/en/node/25980
Here is the discussion of the changes:
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/962#issuecomment-45403470
I do understand the desire to have selection mean the same thing whether deleting or copying/pasting, but wonder if maybe this shouldn't be an exception? Or, an alternate solution that would allow both behaviors would be to add "System text" to the selection filter, so you could get delete to not remove tempo text by excluding it manually. Still, not many people will think of that. If we went this way, I'd propose excluding system text by default, as the case of deleting content is probably more common than copy - and at least in some cases where we are copying, we *don't* want the text copied.
In reply to Yes, copy/paste skips tempo by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for your informative reply.
To answer your question - if I selected a measure containing a tempo mark and then hit delete, I would expect the tempo mark to go away, just like it does in my version of Sibelius. But I do understand that my sort of use may not be typical of the majority.
Yes, allowing both behaviours would be ideal; using the selection filter and excluding tempo marks by default would be fine by me.
Steve
In reply to Thanks for your informative by Steveeh
Hmm, maybe in Sibelius it depends on what version of the program, or on how you create the tempo marking? I just tried in my copy (version 7) and selecting the measure then pressing Delete does *not* remove the tempo marking, and copy does *not* copy it. I created the marking by clicking a note and pressing Ctrl+Alt+T then typing some text. So it appears that, for better or worse, our behavior is actually exactly like the default behavior in Sibelius 7.
In reply to Hmm, maybe in Sibelius it by Marc Sabatella
I think Sibelius allows alternative ways of doing the measure selection.
I have Sibelius v1.4 and a current trial version of Sibelius First - both behave the same. If I select a measure by holding down the CTRL key and clicking in the measure, everything is highlighted including any tempo marks. That selection can then be copied, pasted or deleted, including the tempo marks.
In reply to I think Sibelius allows by Steveeh
OK, so it's kind of conceptually similar to what I'm proposing regarding the filter: default does not include tempo marks, but doing some special extra thing will include it.
In reply to OK, so it's kind of by Marc Sabatella
Correct!
What initially threw me was that the Musescore and Sibelius measure selection methods "felt" almost identical. For example, say I have a score with a single piano instrument (two staves - treble and base), if I simply click in a treble stave measure I only select the items in that stave - Sibelius does the same. And if I ctrl+click in the treble stave, it additionally selects items in the base stave; Sibelius does the exact same thing, but would also select any tempo mark.
Edit: One further thought: I notice that Musescore allows shift+drag as a selection mechanism; maybe its behaviour could be modified to allow selection of everything within the dragged area, rather than ignoring some items as it does at the moment? It feels a bit "counter-intuitive" to drag a select box and find that not everything under it is selected.