Inconsistencies between score and parts

• Aug 16, 2017 - 21:51

I'm working on my first large-scale project in MuseScore: twelve charts for a seven-piece band.

I've discovered more issues and bugs regarding the synchronisation of parts and score than I can even remember, and because I have been working against a deadline I haven't taken the time to write them all down, but off the top of my head here are a few of them:

  1. Issues with transposition; for example, at one point the chord symbols in the trumpet part were showing in concert pitch even though the notes were correctly transposed. To fix this, I went to the score, double-clicked on each chord symbol to edit it, which seems to have forced the program to update the chords in the trumpet part, thus fixing the transposition.

  2. Lots of issues with barlines. Double barlines in the score showing as ordinary barlines in the parts, etc. To fix this I've been going back to the score and putting in the barlines again even though they're already there. This usually fixes the parts, but sometimes I have to actually delete the existing double barline in the score before re-inserting it.

  3. "Resequence rehearsal marks" in the score doesn't appear to do so, or at least not completely, in the parts. I'm not sure the best way to fix this. At one point I ended up with two conflicting rehearsal marks on the same measure in one of the parts (but not in the score). Resequencing the rehearsal marks in that particular part resulted in two identical rehearsal marks in that measure. Deleting one of them resulted in both being deleted (from that part). Going back to the score, the rehearsal mark was still there, so I deleted it and re-inserted it.

  4. Articulations and slurs in the score not being transferred to the parts. The workaround is to delete them from the score and then re-insert them.

All of the above has relied on my noticing the problems and fixing them "by hand", as it were, which sort of defeats what I thought was the purpose of having the parts linked to the score. (I thought the purpose was to avoid inconsistencies popping up.) So, I find this very frustrating.

Comments

• Aug 17, 2017 - 14:51

I understand your frustration but indeed the purpose is to avoid inconsistencies popping up.
It would help tremendously if you could isolate bugs and give exact steps to reproduce the inconsistency. If you do, we can try to fix the problem. If nobody notice and document the bug, there is almost no chance we fix it randomly.

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• Aug 17, 2017 - 14:59

1) I've never seen transposition issues in chord symbols between score and parts, so definitely, if you ever see that again, please attach the score and give us steps to reproduce the problem so we can investigate. But I've done literally thousands of charts at this point and never seen a problem with this, so I'm guessing it will turn out to be some obscure sequence of steps that led to this.

2) This much I have seen, usually involving the combination of barlines, repeat signs, and line breaks. The way we handle these is a bit tricky - like consider, you can have both a double bar and a start repeat in the same location on the score, but in the part the double bar might be at the end of one line and the start repeat at the beginning of the next, and we need to deal with that; also the fact that we provide the ability to explictly set the barline style at the start of a system but this differs between score and part. We try to gewt all these cases right, but indeed, sometimes there are glitches. Filing an issue with precise steps to reproduce the problem would be helpful here as well. See for example #179366: Adding an end/start repeat barline to score adds an end repeat barline to parts.

3) Resequence Rehearsal Marks is not something I use a lot so even though I wrote the code, I don't necessary have huge confidence in it. I did however just run a quick test and it worked for me when i tried it. I tested in cases where the rehearsal mark coincided with a multimeasure rest as well as cases where it did not, since that it often relevant to inconsistency issues. So anyhow, again, if you run into another case where it does not work, please give us more information.

4) The issue with slurs sometimes not copying is known and recently fixed, as mentioned, so the next release should have that. Not aware of any issues with articulations, though, so here again, if you encounter this again, please give us steps to reproduce.

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• Aug 17, 2017 - 15:57

Thanks, Marc. Yeah, I have no idea how to replicate the problem with the chord symbols, and I agree, it was probably some complicated sequence of steps. I'll try to recall and reproduce what I did. I believe it had something to do with transposing the music to a new key (I mean with the "transpose" command in the "notes" menu).

Yes, I've had lots of issues with wanting a double bar line and a start-repeat barline in the same place. So many issues in fact that I had concluded that this feature must not officially be intended to work and that I was only succeeding in getting the desired result through trickery. (The trickery I've had to use is this: peruse the parts to find the missing double bar lines; insert a double bar line, which causes the repeat sign to vanish; then insert the repeat sign.)

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• Aug 17, 2017 - 17:58

Okay, here's how to replicate the chord transposition problem:

Create a new score (with the general "treble clef" template).

Right-click on the staff, go to "stave properties", and change the intstrument to "B-flat trumpet". The key signature changes to D major because the score is displayed in the transposed trumpet key.

Toggle the "Concert Pitch" button a few times. Verify that when the score is displayed in concert pitch, it shows a key signature of C major, and when displayed in transposed pitch it shows a key signature of D major. All good.

Go to the "Parts" menu (under File) and select "New all" to create a trumpet part.

In the score, select the "Concert Pitch" button so that it shows the key of C major. (This step is important. The bug doesn't appear if the score is viewed in transposed pitch.)

Add some chord symbols in the score.

Select-all, and use the "Transpose" command (under the Notes menu) to change the key. Let's go to the key of E-flat major (three flats).

Note that the chord symbols and the key signature in the score have been correctly transposed to the new key. In concert pitch, the key signature shows E-flat major and the chords are also as expected: they've been transposed to E-flat major. Toggling the "Concert Pitch" button to view in transposed pitch, we see that the key signature now shows one flat (F major) and the chords are up a whole step from concert pitch. This is correct and expected.

Now view the trumpet part again. If viewed in concert pitch, it shows a key signature of C major (instead of the expected E-flat major), and the chords are in D-flat major (instead of the expected E-flat major). When viewed in trumpet pitch, the key signature shows D major (instead of the expected F major), and the chords are in E-flat major (instead of the expected F major).

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• Aug 17, 2017 - 18:17

Thanks for following up! This is worth submitting as an official bug report - would you mind goign that one step fuerther? You can use Help / Report a Bug from within MuseScore to get started.

I probably should have mentioned that I was guessing a change of transposition might be involved - that much is known to cause problems in some cases. Not just for chord symbols, but for pretty much everything. See #62416: Changes to staff transposition (and other properties) not reflected in linked parts. So when you mentioned the change of instrument, I was first thinking, ah, it's another side effect of that known issue. But actually it isn't. That issue only affects a change of instrument after generation of parts. In your case here, the change happens first. And the same problem occurs if you actually create a score for Bb trumpet directly, rather than creating one for a C instrument then changing instrument.

The key appears to be issuing Notes / Transpose if the score is concert pitch but the part is not (or vice versa). So the steps are as follows (feel free to copy and paste into issue report):

1) new score for Bb trumpet, keys of C
2) generate parts
3) switch to concert pitch in score
4) add a chord symbol
5) select all
6) note / transpose
7) change key to Eb
8) Ok
9) view score then part

Result: chord symbol is not properly transposed in part

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