Hairpin alignment, magnetic layout, automatic hairpin placement

• Feb 9, 2018 - 15:49

I find myself spending SO much time aligning my hairpins, is there something I am missing? Also, when I add a dynamic marking and then a hairpin, the hairpin goes into the dynamic marking and I then have to drag the hairpin in front of it. I am wasting so much time, surely Musescore has a smarter and better way of inputting dynamics and hairpins. Please help. I am trying out Sibelius and the time I am saving by using their magnetic layout is worth the cost and I really hope Musescore can get a feature like this in the future very very soon.


Comments

Version 3.0 will have collision avoidance to dynamics and hairpins will not collide. In the mean time you can change the settings for hairpins so they default to an horizontal offset of 0.5 or 1.0 so they avoid most dynamics.

In reply to by mike320

I wouldn't recommend that, though - the standard rules of music engraving calls for hair[ins and dynamics to align vertically. Unfortunately, for now the manual adjustment is advised in the cases where you need to have a hairpin start on the same note as a dynamic. but as noted below, don't do it by dragging - this will be slow and imprecise compared to use of the keyboard.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

True, that fixes things albeit only after the fact. And still not ideal in that now the whole thing is moved over, potentially creating additional collisions to the right (like if the dynamic ends before a dynamic, as I would normally do). Ideally, you would want to change the start handle only. Still, for a certain type of use case, this could be a clever workaround.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I was imagining something like text styles (which of course do not exists for hairpins) when I suggested the horizontal offset. So it would have to be after the fact. One problem with this is that the right end would be farther to the right than you probably want.

There seems to be no easy fix with a 2.x version of MuseScore so we'll have to wait to see what the final product for 3.0 looks like. It sounds like 3.0 should fix this issue by default.

In reply to by mike320

There is General style for hairpins, and it allows setting a vertical offset, but not horizontal.

The current master builds for 3.0 do seem to work well in this respect. Add a hairpin to a note, add a dynamic, and the start of the hairpin automatically shifts. I also see a built-in combo of dynamic with hairpin on the Lines palette. Only for mf, not sure if others will be added or if you would be expected to edit the dynamic afterwards.

In general, though, even in 2.1, hairpins should align automatically, and should be placed correctly according to the notes you have selected when you add the hairpin. If you have a case where you feel this is not happening, please attach your score and steps to reproduce the problem.

It is true that hairpins do not currently avoid dynamics placed on the same note. Dragging is never the preferred way of adjusting things, though. Double click and move the handle with the arrow keys (Ctrl+Right, for instance, moves 1sp to the right). It will be far faster and more accurate. Also, consider simply not starting the hairpin on the same note as the one with the dynamic - usually this is not necessary or helpful (although a few times it is, of course).

Meanwhile, as mentioned, this is being addressed for MuseScore 3.

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