Voice moving onto other staff

• Nov 10, 2018 - 18:18

I currently have this:
current.png

but would like it to look like the following, without all the ledger lines:
new.png

I tried using cross-staff notation but that didn't work. Is this possible? Having the last two beats of the lower voice on the upper staff is how it's printed in the old 19th c. edition that I am looking at.


Comments

We'd need to see the actual score to be sure, but I guess these are 2 independent instruments, not to staves of one instrument.
Or you're using cross staff notation wrongly somehow

Cross-staff notation is the way to do it. You are apparently no using cross-staff notation properly.

Make sure you have a C4 (middle C) entered in the bass clef for the first note you want moved, then select it and press ctrl+shift+up arrow to move it to the other staff. You can then do the same for the F, A and C that follows (and actually move them all at once). If you did this and it doesn't work then attach your actual score and explain what you are trying to do.

Edit: ...or listen to Jojo.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks for the prompt followup. This is keyboard music (Pachelbel, Ciacona in f); the variation I'm working on is made up of two voices, an upper and a lower. I'm attaching a larger screenshot below. As you can see, I have the notes that I want to move up entered in the bass clef (last two measures). I did exactly as Mike said (the same as I tried before), ctrl+shift+up arrow; nothing happens. It doesn't matter whether I use the left or right control or shift keys. I am using ver. 2.3.2 on a Win10 laptop.

Attachment Size
longer excerpt.png 43.42 KB

In reply to by redux02

I now have no doubt you have two pianos in your score rather than one piano with two staves. As Jojo said, if you attach your .mscz file we can see what was done internally. I can make two staves look like one instrument or one instrument with two staves look like two totally different instruments in a picture.

I suggest if you don't want to attach your score that you press i to see the instruments. If piano is on the list twice, you have two pianos rather than one piano with two staves.

In reply to by mike320

I didn't attach the score because it is several pages long, but I can if necessary. However, Mike has identified the problem. When I press i, I see the dialog that's shown in the attached screen shot. The file was imported from a MusicXML file and something obviously was not right. I have no idea why the second stave is listed as treble clef. (I'm not experienced with MusicXML, sorry.) This also explains another problem I was having. I added piano as an instrument, copied the upper XML line and pasted into the piano right hand, then did likewise with the bass. Cross-staff notation works on the piano. Maybe there is a better way to do this, but it seems to have worked. Thanks for your help.

Attachment Size
instrument.PNG 29.75 KB

In reply to by redux02

If you continue to need assistance, then yes, attaching the score will help. The fact that it is several pages long doesn't make it any harder, and it's still easier than taking a screenshot and attaching that.

Anyhow, seems the MusicXML file was probably not set up well, but your fix is fine. Might have been slightly easier to just add a new staff to the top instrument, then copy the contents of the second instrument into that new staff and delete the bottom one - only one copy/paste operation needed. But no guarantee the other attributes of the top staff were correct; that's where having the actual score would help. Adding a new piano instrument helps guarantee more correctness.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you, Marc. It's good that adding the piano instrument will help keep things as they should be. It was actually easy since I could select the first measure of each XLM voice and type Ctrl-Shift-End to select the entire part (i.e., I didn't have to select each each page individually or something like that) -- very helpful.

I may need to do similar XML imports in the future, so I learning more about MusicXML is now on my to-do list. It seems very odd that the second XML voice was identified as treble clef when it displayed throughout the document with a bass clef. I looked in the handbook but there is no information about how MuseScore imports an XML file. Maybe there should be a dialog where you could confirm or change the instruments etc. on import.

In reply to by redux02

When you (or anyone) creates a piano staff the first staff is always identified in the instruments as treble and the second staff is identified as bass. Since your import resulted in two instruments with one staff MuseScore reported two treble clefs. The Treble clef on the second instrument was change to a bass clef, which is easily done by a user. Just drag the new clef from the palette to the first measure until it changes color and release.

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