Split Measure

• Dec 11, 2011 - 23:47

Is there a way to split a measure into two lines, the thing I'm trying to write in MuseScore? If so, please tell me.


Comments

I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you referring to a measure that is so long it won't fit on one line - like a measure with 100 beats in it or something? Best way I know to handle that would be to simply create it as two separate measures, but hide the barline at the end of the first line. You can use the Measure Properties to set the number of beats in each "part" of the measure without actually changing time signature.

WHY: I split measures to keep the lyrics and musical phases on one line.
And/or to keep the chorus or refrain separate from the verse.
This is common in music with a pick-up measure.

For example, instead of :

I'd | like to build the | world a home and | furnish it with | love, Grow |
apple trees and | honey bees and | snow-white turtle | doves. I'd |

I'd have the following which, to me, looks cleaner:

I'd | like to build the | world a home and | furnish it with | love,
Grow | apple trees and | honey bees and | snow-white turtle | doves.
I'd | like to teach the | world to sing in | ... you know the rest.

HOW: I enter the music as normal. For the measure I want to split, I do the following steps:
1. Select measure to split, and insert a measure.
2. Select measure properties on the inserted measure.
2a. Set Measure duration/Actual to make the split. I.E. change 4/4 to 3/4
2b. Set layout stretch to 0.90 (makes it look more even on the page)
3. Highlight all notes in the original measure and cut (or copy).
4. Paste into new inserted measure. This puts the notes in the correct measures.
5. Select measure properties of the original measure.
5a. Set Measure duration/Actual to what was cut. I.E. change 4/4 to 1/4
5b. Set Add to measure to -1 (to keep the measure count correct.)
5c. Set layout stretch to 0.90 for same reason as above.
6. Set bar line between the two measures to invisible.
7. Add line break over first half of the split measure.

One glitch to be aware of: Remove any breath marks before step 3, they tend to not be copied correctly,
Notes, lyrics, accents etc. copy correctly as far as I can tell.

Hope this helps, Steve Miller

Attachment Size
Split Measure Example.mscz 2.13 KB

So I've searched the forum. I've found this answer (https://musescore.org/en/node/14035), but one month shy of 6 years old I was hoping there might be a better (better meaning things change) answer now.

I have a song I would like to enter a time signature of 1135/4. That won't fit on one line unless it's really, really small (read: unreadable). I can manually divide it up by inserting and hiding barlines, but with a song this long I was hoping not to have to do that for all those lines.

I've experimented a number of different ways and it seems the measure is sacrosanct and cannot be divided. I was just hoping that there was something I didn't see, some way I don't know about.

Thank you.

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