Customizing Places Bar (Measure) Numbers Appear

• Jun 28, 2018 - 12:48

In my masterscore and parts, bar (measure) numbers currently appear at the start of each system.

I have rehearsal marks, and would like for MuseScore also to show bar numbers at every rehearsal mark.

I’ve scoured the manual, but can’t find a solution. Is there a way of doing this?

Thanks in advance.


Comments

Right-click into the measure, measure properties, change measure number mode to always. Needs to be done for every measure you want it happening, it is not a general setting

BTW, not sure if you are trying to do this to achieve some unusual look - I don't think I've seen a score prepared exactly this way. But do note there are a couple of built-in features you might find useful if you actually want the rehearsal numbers to appear instead of rehearsal marks, but to look like rehearsal marks. That much is common.

One way is to actually type the measure number into the first rehearsal mark. Then enter other rehearsal marks however you like - enter the measure number or not. When done, select all, Edit / Tools / Requence Rehearsal Marks, and everything will sync up.

Another is to set measure numbers to not show in the style setting, but then set to them Always show in measure properties, and set the Measure Number style to mimic the rehearsal mark style.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks Marc. For clarity, my rehearsal marks show letters in boxes. Bar (measure) numbers show numbers.

It would still be good if MuseScore could be set automatically to display measure numbers at rehearsal letters, so that players could find their place where successive multimeasure rests (separated by rehearsal letters) show in their parts.

For example, if a conductor says "Alright everyone, let's go from bar 127" and the player's part looks like this:

missing_measure_numbers.gif

...then they'd have a harder timing calculating that they had to start from (somewhere) inside [K], than if MuseScore could automatically be set to show bar numbers at every rehearsal letter. Using rehearsal letters rather than rehearsal numbers makes it of course much simpler for musicians to distinguish between bar (measure) numbers and rehearsal letters for sections of music.

In reply to by Film Composer

"Go to Rehearsal mark 'I'" is much easier, isn't it? Alone because they are much bigger and in a box. And they are synced between master score and parts. If ou have rehearsal marks, measure number are pretty much not needed anymore at all. Unless you have too few rehearsal marks or have tham et the wrong places...

In reply to by Film Composer

For clarity, this is what it would be cool for MuseScore to be able to show automatically, without having to add bar (measure) numbers manually at every rehearsal letter...

bar_numbers_per_rehearsal_mark.gif

In this way, if the conductor says "Let's go from bar 127", the player knows instantly that's inside [K] and can follow their part much more easily.

(Font size of bar [measure] numbers should be the same throughout of course.)

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Thanks Jojo, I'd already seen that. However, instead of having to do that manually every bar, it could be useful (for some) to be able show bar numbers using - Measure Properties > Mesure Number > Show Every > X bars. Sorry if the suggestions seem silly for you.

In reply to by joesh

Showing every X bars is already possible in Format / Style / Measure Numbers. Although FWIW, this is not normally recommend, as Elaine Gould writes in Behind Bars, it leads to the misleading notion that these particular bars have some significance. Every system (the default) is good, every measure (X=1) is good, adding them explicitly (especially as rehearsal marks) at musical phrase / section boundaries is also good. I suppose another interesting option could be to have them added automatically wherever there is a double bar, etc.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Yes, but as Jojo pointed out, adding bar numbers at rehearsal marks is a bit the same thing - and by using the Measure properties this is easily done anyhow. However, as others have commented, bar numbers can sometimes be very useful, especially for teaching purposes.

In reply to by Film Composer

As mentioned, it's already possible to get this by enabling the measure numbers manually. If this were an approach that is commonly used, I could see making it possible to get this result more automatically, but as it is, I don't personally see it being worth adding yet another option for something that is rarely if ever done in published music. Unless you have examples to show this really is a convention used in the real world? In my experience at least, showing measure numbers on all measures is the much more common solution to this sort of problem. I suppose in principle at least, a plugin could conceivably do what you are asking..

Still, it's not a bad idea, I could see the usefulness in certain cases, maybe based on your suggestion, more editors will start using this approach, and then there would be have more reason to support it directly!

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