Fix number of measures per line?

• Nov 3, 2010 - 14:42

I'm new to Music Score, and perhaps my questions has been dealt with in the past. I'm now confronting a score in which I get different number of measures in different lines of the Staff depending I would guess on how complex the notation is in a given measure (too many rests, or semi-quivers, etc.).

Cheers,

JMiguel

Comments

• Oct 17, 2011 - 22:19

I'm new to this. I know how to use the page breaks and assign bars per line via style/edit general style. It starts out right, but sometimes when I add notes it does what it wants. It will take my 4 measures per line and make it 3 and the next line will have 1. It doesn't matter where I put the page breaks. The sizing things doesn't work either, they will end up random sizes. Any ideas?

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• Oct 17, 2011 - 22:26

One thing that isn't immediately obvious is that you can control how much space a bar or selection of bars takes by adding or subtracting from Stretch.

This is done by selecting the bar(s) required and then using the curly brace keys { } to add or remove stretch.

I use this for finetuning my layout all the time.

HTH
Michael

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• Oct 18, 2011 - 03:33

Just because you say you want four measures per line doen't mean MuseScore will actually be able to *fit* four measures on each line. You might need to select the four bars you want squeezed together and apply Layout->Add Less Stretch until the measures are shrunk enough to fit

Also, be aware that the Style option to fix measures per line is probably not the best way to go any more. The Break Every X Bars plugin is more flexible, since it allows you to have some lines have more or fewer measures.\

As for sizing producing "random sizes", I rather doubt that is true; more likely, you just don't understand what parameters are doing what. What specifically are you doing, what specifically are you hoping to see, and what specifically you seeing happen instead?

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• Oct 18, 2011 - 16:03

I will grab that plug in. Basically, I'm trying to do Real Book type lead sheets. Here's a for example. I start new project. 32 bars, go to Style/General edit/System-I say make it 4 bars per system/fix measure width. It looks fine. I start typing in notes, fairly simple, no more than 4 to a bar, but mixed values. The bar lines start shifting. Second odd thing, I have a measure of eighth note triplets followed by a bar with a repeat sign, and then the same thing. Visually, plenty of room on a line for this. By the time I finish the 3rd bar its pushed the 4th bar to the next line and stretched it across the whole line. If I pull page breaks and drop every 4 bars, that won't change it. I get the stretch thing. It seems that you should be able to grab/highlight any number of bars and define how many to a line, or at least create a template that sticks.
What I'm doing is creating a layout that I want-4 measure per line.What I'm hoping to see is that they will remain in place and even (if things get tight I'd like to make that choice), what I'm seeing is measure width changing and measures migrating to other lines.
I certainly could be doing things wrong as I'm new to this, or expecting things that it is not capable of.
cheers

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• Oct 18, 2011 - 16:38

I would not use Style/General edit/System at all to carry out this task. Just use line breaks and the break every X measures plugin. If your music goes on the next line, then use "less strech". If it happens too often or the music collides, then it's too much music to be on one system for this font size. Reduce the size of the whole score in Layout -> Page settings -> Scale.
If you start with the leadsheet template, it should be easier.
For more help on creating leadsheet see these two tutorials.
http://musescore.org/en/node/11723
http://musescore.org/en/node/11726

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