Mid-measure clef change
I don't know if I should file this under Support or Feature request. I've not found a way to do it.
Some scores I occasionally work with are best notated with a clef change mid-measure. It's fairly common, for example, in scores for viola, where the change is between the C (viola/alto) and G (treble) clef.
All my attempts to date to do this have failed. The clef change is forced to the beginning of the measure (or end of the preceding measure). If there's a way to do it I'd like to know what it is. If not, I suggest it as a feature request.
Comments
Method 1:
Highlight the first note in the measure that should be in the new clef (single click it).
Double click on the wanted clef in the palette.
Method 2:
Drag the clef from the palette with the mouse onto the note.
Take good care to watch as to what is highlighted: if the measure is highlighted then the clef will start at the beginning of the measure; if only a notehead is highlighted, the clef will start from that specific note.
In reply to Method 1:… by jeetee
Interesting. I had tried Method 1 before and it didn't work. I just went back to the same score and did it again and it did work. Method 2 also worked. I had also tried a third method which does not work: range select (select and shift select) all the notes in the measure to which the clef change applies and then double click as for Method 1; that moves the clef to the end of the previous measure. But if I Ctrl-select the same notes and double-click as for Method 1 the clef is placed before every one of them! That seems strange.
Thanks for the quick reply.
In reply to Interesting. I had tried… by Gerald Reynolds
Selecting the region (Shift-click) works as well, but will indeed make the clef change with a courtesy clef in the previous measure if the start of your selection includes the first note of the measure. This is in line with most published scores and ensures your musician is well aware of the change if it happens to be just at a system or page break.
If you want the first thing in your current measure to be the clef change and have no courtesy clef on the previous measure then the only way is to apply the clef to that single note.
If you Ctrl-click the same notes, MuseScore isn't aware that you've selected a range (also note, no rectangle around the selection). Ctrl-click allows you to select non-consecutive notes; you could've selected a single note and then another one 5 measures down the score.
This is why MuseScore then places a clef before each of those selected notes, by using Ctrl-select you've basically asked it to do so, telling it that those notes don't necessarily form one solid range.
In reply to Selecting the region (Shift… by jeetee
Thank you for that explanation. While the range I selected with Shift-click did not include the first note in the measure, it did include the first note in that particular voice; the beats preceding it in the measure were rests. There were other notes preceding it in another voice, so the courtesy clef was misleading, suggesting that it applied to both voices, which was not my intent. Clearly in that situation Ctrl-click was the better way to do it.
Select the note, before you want to change the clef and double click the clef in the clef palette
or
drag and drop the clef onto the note (not the measure)
see: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/clefs#mid-measure-clef