Move Notes and Rests and Other Questions

• Nov 21, 2019 - 00:35

While editing a measure, how can I move a note or a rest around? These rests cannot be moved and no new notes can be added to the measure. (see graphics)
I was editing one measure and suddenly Music Score 1.PNG the next measure changed. What went wrong?

Attachment Size
Music Score 1.PNG 2.06 KB

Comments

In reply to by mike320

It is not difficult to enter notes and rests. Let me explain my points better.
1. The software changes a measure when one writes another measure. For instance after writing measures 1 - 3 and in the middle of writing measure 4, the software changed measure 1. Why?
2. Trying to restore measure 1 to what it used to be the software added 2 eighth rests in the middle. Why?
3. The rests could not be moved.
4. The score is an exercise in figuring out the meter of a line in a music theory class. This means that you don't want to enter the meter from the beginning. But I guess that this is not a desirable feature in the software.

In reply to by Eli02116

  1. does not happen. MuseScore does not automatically add rests to a measure you are not editing. If you had attached the score that showed the rests you couldn't do anything with rather than a picture, it's possible someone could figure out what went wrong.

  2. You have choices. If you know the score is in 12/8 but don't want it to show, you can enter the time signature then right click the staff, choose staff/part properties and remove the check from show time signature.

In reply to by Eli02116

As mentioned, we cn assist better if you attach your score. It's difficult to tell much from a picture. But it does appear from the picture that you dragged a rest out of its correct position, so that could be explaining something about what you are seeing that makes it look like changing one measure affected another measure.

MuseScore is perfectly happy to let you enter music without a time signature, just right-click and use Staf Properties to turn off display of time signatures, then you can also increase and decrease measure lengths as you see fit in a variety of different ways. But it's true it isn't meant as a general purpose "music whiteboard" where you can enter notes first then draw in barlines later.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I should start another topic and probably will but I think a "whiteboard" type option should be possible. Here is the idea:

The user enters notes using insert mode or methods (ctrl+shift+note) to create irregular measures. The user can then use a modifier like alt+shift when they apply the time signature and the measures are recalculated until the next time signature. So if there are 12 beats in the measure and a 4/4 time signature is applied, the measure is divided into 3 equal measures. If the measure is not divisible by the time signature, then the irregular measure is padded to make it divisible by the time signature (4 beats in this example). If there are several measures, all measures are treated as a single measure and barlines are inserted at the appropriate places padding the final measure if necessary.

In reply to by mike320

Yes, there have been many proposals over the years for something like this. It's a good idea, and actually, most of the framework is in place internally to actually implement it fairly easily, once a good UI design is figured out. I suggest you search around for the term "scratchpad" to get an idea of previous thinking, but probably best to start a new topic indeed.

In reply to by Eli02116

The idea of "moving a rest" doens't make sense musically - a rest is silence, it's simply the absence of sound. Presumably your actual goal is to move some notes to take the place of those rests - to replace the silence that is currently at that time position with sound. So, just do that directly, no need to "move silence" at all.
Simply move the notes directly - just cut and paste them directly on top of the rests you were thinking you would need to move.

Again, if you attach your actual score and explain what you are trying to do, we can understand and assist better.

In reply to by Eli02116

You can replace a rest with a note - cut and paste works perfectly for this.

What I am saying is a rest is silence. If you move the silence, what's left? Different silence? A complete vacuum? Pyesumably, what you really want is to replace the silence with sound - like, maybe, some number of the subsequent notes. So, just move them directly., Cut and paste. Simple as that, takes two seconds to move the notes right n=on top of the rests, no need to waste additional time "moving" the silence first.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The problem appeared when suddenly the first measure changed. Two eighth rests appeared in the middle of the measure and some notes disappeared. To restore the measure I needed to replace the rests with notes. Cut did not work. There is no paste, since I don't have the note yet.

I did manage to correct the score, but in a different way. The score is attached.

Thank you for all the replies and feedback

Attachment Size
Music Theory 1.mscz 6.44 KB

In reply to by Eli02116

At this point in time, I am completely sure you figured it out, and if so, that's awesome!!
In case others have the same problem, if something like this happens, use ctrl + z to undo the action, it will also bring you back to the location of the note/piece you just undid.
To redo, use ctrl + y. In some cases for me, ctrl +y does not work for me, but what did was ctrl + shift + z.
With cut and paste (ctrl + x and then ctrl + v), sometimes the rests would be duplicated into the new area as well.
I'm sure people have figured out that trying to delete rests does not work, but there is a solution to that as well. Ctrl + del will get rid of the rest for you... the problem is that it will also take out the rest of the staff, including notes. I have used this before and it can be helpful, all you really need to do to help fix what happened is add a new rest to one of the bars before/after and insert a note there.
I hope this helps anyone who needs it :D

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.