Changing notes keeping lyrics
Changing the value of a note (eg., making a quarter note a half note) results in deleting the next note and the lyric that goes with it. This means I can't edit a score, that is, change the value of notes to hold them longer or shorten them, keeping the same words with the notes that changed. MuseScore won't let me delete rests either so I can change how the measures divide. What am I doing wrong?
Comments
Experiment with these. If you have further inquiry, be sure to peruse the Handbook and/or post here on the forums for help.
Regards.
In reply to Use the Cut & Paste… by worldwideweary
Oh trust me, I have tried several different variations of Cut/Paste. Nothing happens. Same with Split and Merge measures. Won't let me put my lyrics back in, won't let me change where the measures break. Won't let me change the values of the notes without cutting something else. Very frustrating. I've searched the handbook and finding a lot but nothing about this, just spent an hour on the Forum reading pages of insulting advice that if we needed to change our minds about the notes (i.e., edit) we're in the wrong place. What is so wrong with wanting a word-processing program for writing music and printing it as sheet music? Code for notes on a staff seems no more complicated than code for words in a paragraph. I don't get it.
In reply to Oh trust me, I have tried… by Wordsmith818
Interesting. Things happen for me when I cut/paste measures with lyrics. If you select the whole measure and copy it and paste it to another measure, the lyrics are pasted along with the notes. If you're asking a moral question about what's wrong with wanting word processing-like behavior, I suppose you might want to help the programmers by contributing to the code or wait for more people to contribute their time to implement more options, but if you want advice as to increase a note duration and keep the lyric: copy the measure first then increase the size of the desired note, and repeat this pasting properly to work through it. It's not perfect, but it works. To say nothing happens on your end means you might need to re-attempt. Hopefully you figure out how to do this effectively.
P.S. Use Shift+Click when selecting a portion of a measure so you don't merely highlight the note-head. This can be important.
In reply to Interesting. Things happen… by worldwideweary
Thanks. I don't really understand what you mean, but I'll give what I imagine you mean a try and see what happens. So far, I'm spending way too much time fixing what I've already inputted when it changes without my realizing it has. Hopefully I'll get more adept before I throw my computer out the window. :-)
In reply to Thanks. I don't really… by Wordsmith818
Cut and paste most definitely works. If you wanted to lengthen a note and have some as-yet-unspecified number of subsequent notes move later, simply select them (eg, click the first, shfit+click the last), ctrl+X to cut, then lengthen the note you want lengthened, then click the rest right after that note and ctrl+V to paste. MuseScore cannot guess how many notes you want moved, that's why you need to do it yourself.
In reply to Oh trust me, I have tried… by Wordsmith818
What is so wrong with wanting a word-processing program for writing music and printing it as sheet music?
Nothing, but it is a bit hard for an engraving program.
Music engraving is actually a lot closer to how a graphics editing program works, rather than a word processor. If you cut away a part of an image in a graphics program, it also doesn't start moving/shifting around other parts of the image.
In reality Music Typesetting is a combination of the graphics and text-like approaches to editing it. Currently MuseScore heavily uses an approach closely tending towards the graphical aspect of workflow. There are many users requesting the option of a more text-like approach as well and I'm sure it will happen. But for that we need at least a single developer who can put in the effort to create (and maintain) such a mode.
In reply to What is so wrong with… by jeetee
Interesting. I know nothing about writing code. I wish I did. I wonder why music typesetting was conceived as a graphics program rather than a text program. Hmm. Thanks.
In reply to Interesting. I know nothing… by Wordsmith818
Music is inherently different from text is that each note in music has a specific point in time. With a word processor, of course every time you delete a character, you literally want every letter from that point to the end of the line forward moved left to compensate. And if this creates room for another word on the line, of course you want the first word of the next line moved up to the end of this pone, and so on. The semantics are 100% clear in a way that a word processor has no trouble whatsoever knowing exactly what you want.
Not so with music. Say you've written out a piece of music, and then go back and want to lengthen a note on beat 2 of measure 37. There is absolutely no way for MuseScore to know if you want subsequent notes moved later, or how many of them you want moved if so. Chances are really good that you probably want the next note or two or three or seven moved, but probably not the next 6000 notes. There is simply no way to guess. So rather than guess wrong and make you clean up the mess, MsueScore simply asks you to tell it explicitly how many notes to move. It works simply and easily for correctly of note durations here and there.
In reply to Music is inherently… by Marc Sabatella
But what if you DO want the next 6000 moved? That is, you left out a note. I tried adding a measure so I could make the change of duration in a few notes, which worked great. But then I ended up with a whole note rest between the sections and could not delete that measure. Odd, huh?
In reply to But what if you DO want the… by Wordsmith818
Normally, of course, you'd realize you left out a note long before entering 6000 more - you'd see everything was off according to the barline. But even in this exceedingly rare care, cut/paste works exactly as well as it does for one or two notes.
To delete a measure, select it and press Ctrl+Delete. My guess is you tried Delete by itself, which deletes the contents of a selection.
In reply to Normally, of course, you'd… by Marc Sabatella
Fabulous. Thanks again.
In reply to Fabulous. Thanks again. by Wordsmith818
Well, actually, I tried Ctrl X, like the dropdown box says, AND Ctrl Del, but neither work. The measure remains. :-(
In reply to Well, actually, I tried Ctrl… by Wordsmith818
Ctrl+X is "cut", which like Delete only deletes contents. Needs to be Ctrl+Delete. Also, remember Ctrl = Cmd on Mac, if that matters. You have to have the compete measure selected (blue rectangle showing).
In reply to Ctrl+X is "cut", which like… by Marc Sabatella
Got it! I couldn't figure out how to select the measure. But I finally got it. Thanks so much.
Works just fine here, when changing the duration by selecting the note and changing the duration via the menu or shortcuts. But indeed loses lyrics if overwriting with note of different duration (but same pitch)
In reply to Works just fine here, when… by Jojo-Schmitz
Well, it doesn't just lose the lyric; it loses the note that went with that lyric. Making all kinds of ghosts in the score.
In reply to Well, it doesn't just lose… by Wordsmith818
If you overwrite an existing note, that and all things attached to it (accidentals, fingerings, lyrics etc) are of course lost.
Not so if you just change the duration. So just select the note and hit 5 to make it a quarter, 6 for a half note, etc.
In reply to If you overwrite an existing… by Jojo-Schmitz
No, it's the NEXT note that disappears. And the lyric with it. So if I've got four quarter notes attached to four words, and I change the first one to a half note, the next note goes missing. If the lyric didn't go too, I might not notice, which would be really bad. But I am not then able to replace it. If a rest gets put in there by the program, I can't get rid of it no matter what I do.
In reply to No, it's the NEXT note that… by Wordsmith818
Ah, ok. MuseScore doesn't have an insert mode, just replace.
Copy those notes (and lyrics) first, paste them to the next position after having changed duration.
For example:
1. Second note and the remainder of the measure selected
2. Copy
3. Increase first note
4. Paste afterwards.
All seems intact afterwards.
In reply to For example:… by worldwideweary
Step 2 could also be Cut rather than Copy
In reply to For example:… by worldwideweary
Cool. Thank you for the demo! I will try this!