Multiple voices displayed as chords
I have to edit a score where I have two voices in some staves. The original score is handwritten and the voices are just merged into one stave because of space problems. But the handwritten voices are more written like chords, where they share the stem, flags and rests.
I want to extract later a part, where I see only one stave with one voice, so that I can show the notes larger and use the full space of a tablet display. I could enter now all voices as chords, but as far as know it is not so easy to select then the right notes to make them invisible. If I have two voices I can select all notes of one voice and make it invisible in the part. Of course it seems to me that I need to select note heads, stems and flags separately to make a multi-selection by voice.
So I need something where I can enter multiple voices, but these voices should be displayed like chords.
Or I need chords, but then a better extraction/selection algorithm, I do know how this could work :-)
What could be the best way to achieve that in MuseScore?
Comments
Using American English. If you have two notes in a chord of different lengths like a quarter note and a half note, you will need to use two voices. If the entire song is made up of the same number of voices during the entire song, you might as well use voices. If you want certain notes to look like a chord then you can select all of those notes and use the inspector to make all of the stems point the same direction. This seems to be the most likely scenario you are describing.
When it come to time to separate the staff into parts, you can use the selection filter (press F6) and leave only the voice you want to move checked. You can then copy it to its own staff. When you paste it, the selection will still be selected. Use Edit->Voices and swap the selections voice with voice 1. You will then have only rests in the now unused voice selected, press delete to get rid of those. Remember at this point to check all of the voices in the selection filter. Select your notes and click notes in the inspector then click the arrows to the right of stem direction to make the point the correct direction. At this point, you should only need to fix some slurs and dynamic markings for the part to look correct.
I would:
Create the complete score with all parts on one staff, each in it's own voice.
Create new staves for all of the parts, copy each part including the first to its own staff as described above.
Use File->Parts and extract parts for each of the individual parts.
Open Instruments (press i) and mark the parts staves invisible.
You now have a condensed score and parts for each voice.
In reply to Using American English. If… by mike320
I have attached my current MuseScore file. I tried already to select voice 1 and switch the stem direction to upward. But then you will see, that all notes prints their own stems and flags and do not share it. You will see it immediately at first note. I want that they share the stems and flags and print it only once.
Ok I found on my MacBook it is Fn+F6. But I do not know how to use this selection filter dialog. I can select the check boxes, but nothing happens in score, nothing will be selected. And of course I did the same by the context menu and select all of a voice.
Your description sounds to me that I do a Copy/Paste, this is not what I want. I want to edit my score only once and extract a single instrument/single voice into a new view. I called this a part, but I am not sure if this is the right English word. There exists also the word "abstract". But you are speaking also from a part extraction with menu "File > Part".
But I am confusing, because you need the word "part" for everything else too, where you describe your Copy/Paste stave workflow.
For me a part is, where I make a complete new view and extract some voices. This is in file menu. And of course I do not want to copy something. I want to have the feature of MuseScore, that I can edit a part and it is reflected in the main score and vice-versa.
In reply to I have attached my current… by unique75m
With that specific score, all of the notes are the same length. You can select the entire score (press ctrl+a) then use edit->Tools->implode to combine all of the notes into voice 1 and they will look like chords.
To fix the funny looking slurs, right click one, chose select>all similar elements then press ctrl+r and they will all look nice.
To make the parts, create two staves. Copy everything from the existing one to the first staff you add. Select that entire staff (you will need to select the first note and press ctrl+shift+end) then use edit->Tools->Explode and all of the top notes will end up on the top staff and the bottom notes on the bottom staff. You can then extract parts and make them invisible in the main score as I explained above.
I'm addressing your other questions in another answer.
In reply to I have attached my current… by unique75m
In English, each instrument is considered a part. You can use the File->Parts menu to create a part for each instrument. A singing voice is considered an instrument in MuseScore and much of the music industry. A score consists of all of the instruments that play the song. So if there is only one instrument for the song, the score will consist of only one instrument. If there is more than one instrument, you will have that many instruments in the score. When you use the File->Parts dialog to create parts, in English is is called extracting parts - abstract is a totally different, unrelated word.
In the case of your score, you have two violins currently written on a singe staff. If you use the MuseScore->Tools->Explode as I explained (create 2 parts, copy to the first explode the first), you can make the two violins have their own staves. Since you want both the entire score (both violins on one staff) and the parts individually, you will need to have both versions in your score. When you use File->Parts, press the New button, check the violin you want in a part, then name the part. You can do the same thing for the other violin then press OK. The dialog box will disappear and you will have Parts tabs for the two violins. You will have a staff with both violins and a staff for each of the other violins. Since you want the staves for the singe violins to not be there, you will need to open the instruments dialog and make those invisible AFTER you extract the parts. If you delete them, the parts will be empty.
I hope I've made myself clear. If there are any further questions please ask. It is possible there is a translation of the handbook for the language you speak first. You can look for the English words I have discussed in the English handbook then change to the translation you understand using the box at the right of the handbook.
In reply to In English, each instrument… by mike320
One thing I forgot to mention. What you are trying to do will be very easy when version 3.0 is released. That's still quite some time away though.
In reply to One thing I forgot to… by mike320
Thank your for your description, it helped me lot and I was able to follow all the steps now.
There are two things that I do not like with that solution. The first is that I copy things and make it redundant. If I later want to edit the main score, it is never reflected in the invisible parts and vice-versa. The other thing is, when I use explode to split the voices into two staffs, the first one looks nice, the second staff looks ugly. There are some slurs that crosses the triole numbers or which are too near the note dot. I need to reformat that, but this is ok for the moment.
But the implode works fine for me. I needed to look in the settings what the keyboard shortcut cmd+R means, but I could found that it resets my user settings.
My musical background is not very large, I am just a beginner with violin :-)
But when I make a technical view on that as developer, I would say, that internally a chord could be also expressed with multiple voices. This would make it easier to distinct the notes in a chord. If I then implode two voices there should be an ImplodedGroup created that contains the two voices. This ImplodedGroup renders the contained voices as chords with stem/beam sharing. But the voice objects still exists and can used for selection or for extracting parts. This would make the life easier, than just imploding things and lost the voices.
It seems to me that the world will be better with MuseScore 3.0. I get also the smart layouter :-)
Is there currently a date set when this will be officially released?
I am sorry for my English, so I never learned that in school. I learned it through my programming experience and later because of customer visits in America. But of course I need to know a lot more about some right words in some contexts :-)
In reply to One thing I forgot to… by mike320
I found another issue why a simple implode is possibly not working for me. I extended now the score so that both voices have their own slurs. If I implode the two voices, then the slurs of voice 2 are completely lost. On the other hand if the implode would work and the slurs are also imploded, I think they would be displayed on top like for a chord, which is also not what I want in that case. The voices should behave like voices and the upper voice should show your own slurs at top, but the bottom voice should their own slurs at bottom. Only the stems/flags and rests should be merged. If the slurs are merged too and only shown at top nobody can distinct anymore if the slur should be played for voice 1 or 2. That is the problem with a simple chord notation :-)
I have added the new score again.
In reply to I found another issue why a… by unique75m
In the first example, I did not pay any attention to the slurs, so I didn't think about the results from imploding the voices into chords. So you know, cmd+r resets most of the options in the inspector back to default, just like going through the inspector and pressing the arrow buttons on the right of the inspector. In the case of slurs, it returns to to the location they would be in if you entered them and did not adjust them in any way, with some exceptions.
From a musical point of view, slurs are intended to apply to entire chords, so what you are doing would make no sense to someone looking at the score. They would not know what each individual violin is supposed to do. For any duet, such as you are writing, it makes more sense to give each instrument its own staff in the score. If the score were being printed and sold, there would be no master score with both violins. There would only be two parts identified as Violin 1 and Violin 2.
The reason this is so difficult is that it is not the normal way to do things. MuseScore makes normal things easier. The reason MuseScore is going to make it easier to combine parts in version 3.0, which I would guess will not come out for at least another year, is for large orchestral scores. When there are 50 Instrument parts for a score, it is difficult to print 50 parts on a single page, it is common to combine two like instruments that can play only 1 note at a time onto 1 staff. So it is common to have Flute 1 and Flute 2 on the same staff in the conductors score. Currently, doing this makes it difficult to make a Flute 1 and Flute 2 part without printing both on the same staff. You must resort to the things I've explained about your violin duet.
Having said all of that, if you still want to combine the two instruments on a staff I will help you. Just keep in mind that even in version 3.0 this will not be easy, exactly as you are attempting, unless they are making some changes I am not aware of. Since I don't program or test 3.0 yet, it's possible that I'm wrong. The thing that makes this most difficult is the different slurring patterns. It's not impossible currently, but I believe far more time consuming that it's worth.
In reply to In the first example, I did… by mike320
It sounds to me that I need to do what you describe in text paragraph 3. I need to put many staffs on an A3 landscape for an orchestral score. It has 17 staffs including the two staffs for piano. If I write everything into its own staff then it would use too much space and does not match an A3 landscape anymore. That is the reason why there are two like instruments into one staff. I need to print an A3 landscape single page for the full score for all who want that old version of analog paper :-)
But for me I need to print only a single voice in A4 landscape, so that I can use an 13,3 inch ebook reader like BOOX MAX 2. I cannot show the full A3 score on that reader, because the notes are then to small and unreadable. The only I could do is, that I extract a staff with the two instruments, but this is not what I really want. For me as beginner it is easier to have only the notes that I am really playing and not seeing any other things that makes me confusing :-)
In reply to It sounds to me that I need… by unique75m
Now that you explain your goal it is easier to explain what you need to do. You want to combine instruments onto a single staff for the score and then make individual parts of the two instruments.
With different slurring patterns or different note lengths, you need to use voices as you did with your original score you posted. You need to follow that up with two invisible staves where you can have each instrument's notes. When you extract parts, you will use the two invisible staves for the parts. To create parts out of two voices, you will need to use the selection filter. To open the selection filter press F6. The first five items listed will be All, Voice 1, Voice 2, Voice 3 and Voice 4. These are all of the items you will need to concern yourself with for this. To make the voice 1 notes into it's own staff, keep voice 1 checked and uncheck voice 2. Voices 3 and 4 are unused so you don't need to be concerned with them. Select all the measures, then copy and paste into the new staff. Check Voice 2 (or all). Select the staff with both instruments again and uncheck voice 1. Copy the notes and paste them into the staff you made for the second instrument. At this point, the notes are still selected and in voice 2. Use the menu MuseScore->Voices->Exchange voices 1-2 to move the notes into voice 1. Voice 2 will be nothing but rests and should still be selected. You can press delete and all of the voice 2 rests will be deleted, leaving you with notes in voice 1 only. You can then extract these two parts, then make their staves invisible in the instruments dialog by remove the check from the "Visible" column. One more thing, you will most likely need to fix all of the dynamics on the second instrument since the dynamics are probably all attached to voice 1.
I realize that this causes you to need to manually update each part when you make a change, but I don't know of an easier way. Copy and paste ensures the same mistakes are always on both staves. This is good. If you fix one, you know you need to copy the fixed measures to the other staff every time.
When you add the piano, it should be set up as a grand staff, that is both of the staves will be connected by barlines and have a curly bracket at the beginning of the staves. If you look at the piano in the instruments dialog you will see something like
Piano
-Staff 1 Treble
-Staff 2 Bass
This indicates that both staves are for one instrument. When you extract the piano part, both staves will automatically be put into the part. Note that this is how the orchestra templates set up the French Horns. I always delete the second staff and add new french horns so I can create individual french horn parts if I want to.
I will continue with how to make the staves with both instruments look more like what you want in another post.
In reply to It sounds to me that I need… by unique75m
You will have a score with a bunch of combined instruments on staves with two voices and every note having its own stem, that is nothing will look like a chord. This should be the final step. Hopefully your score is correct at this point. If there are any changes left to be made, they will be simple minor changes that should not be too difficult to fix in both staves.
If you have a complete measure with the same rhythms and slurs, you can select those measures and use the implode tool to turn them into chords. If you have the same rhythm with different slur patterns, I would suggest you keep the two voices so it is clear to the conductor who is to play what. If both instruments have the same note with the same type of notehead (solid like a quarter note or open like a half note) you can make one of the noteheads invisible and the note will look like it has a stem for both instruments. If the two instruments play the exact same notes for a measure or more, it is normal for the the conductor's score to have one line of notes with "a 2." written above the score to indicate the instruments play in unison during that section. When the instruments return to their own notes and/or rhythms no notation is necessary because it will be obvious that the lines of notes will be divided. If a single instrument plays an extended amount of time while the other has rests, it is usual to indicate this by writing "I." or "II." above the score to let the conductor know who is playing those notes. The rests for the instrument not playing are not put on the conductors score. You may ask "What is an extended amount of time?" The answer is up to the editor of the score. I would say at least 2 measures, but I have seen scores where this was done only when more than one system was played by an instrument.
String instruments are never combined, like violins 1 and violins 2, since they are capable of playing several notes at one time. Keeping track of who plays which note or notes would quickly become a nightmare.
There is an alternative to the implode command that you might decide to use. It is quite tedious and I prefer using the implode command. When the two parts play the same rhythm and slur patters, you can adjust the stem directions so the are proper, for example a G on the second line has the stem pointed up, and the stem directions for both instruments are then same. Select a note and press X to flip the stem. You can then select the beam or flag that does not belong and press V to make it invisible. In the View menu there is a check option to "Show invisible." When checked, you can see items you have made invisible, this is the default setting. Anything Invisible will not show up in a PDF or printed page. This can be used on any notes, not just entire measures. So I occasionally use this when I want a few notes in a measure to look like chords and other notes to have their own stems.
One thing I did not mention because it is so obvious to me. Enter your score in continuous view. Once the score is entered, and parts extracted, you can switch to page view and make minor adjustments so the score looks nice. This is actually quite important. If you need to adjust a slur or crescendo so it crosses a page line, and it does not already, you need to delete the slur or dynamic and enter it properly so it crosses the page. You can then adjust its appearance if you still need to. Not doing this will lead to your slurs and dynamics moving, a lot, and making you quite unhappy.
In reply to You will have a score with a… by mike320
Thank your for all your hints. I think your described alternative looks to me the best option currently. I have used my example with the two voices, flip the stems of voice 1 upwards and make their flags, beams and rests invisible. After that I needed some little corrections in layout, as example the rests of voice 2 were not displayed in middle of staff or some slurs crosses the triole numbers.
I was also able to extract the staff as part and made voice 2 fully invisible there. It is a little bit more effort to change every time all things from visible to invisible, but maybe I can write a little plugin for that in future, if I am unhappy with the manual work. But the advantage with that solution is, that I do not need to copy the voices into separate staffs and changes on extracted parts are reflected in main score too I guess.
I never tried the continuous view so far, but I will give it a try :-)
In my example maybe you have seen that there are many notes. I needed to change the page scale, so that they fit on A3 landscape. At this time I thought it would be great to just entering notes in a continues view and also print it on a continuous paper, so that I get something like A4 portrait, but which is 3 pages wide, which means it is wider than A3 landscape. But we are living in an unhappy world and there is no printer that can print from a role :-)