Ostinato

• Apr 5, 2011 - 20:44

Maybe a dumb question, but can anyone tell me how to create a continuing ostinato in the bass underneath changing parts above? Do I simply have to cut and and paste (and repaste) the pertinent bars throughout the score, or is there an easier way to do it? Repeat lines apply to all staves, so it doesn't seem an option...


Comments

Copy and paste is one way, but after you've copied a bar once, you can just just hit "R" and it will keep repeating. Sometimes it also works to simply select a bar and hit "R", but not always, and I've never understood what it depends on.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks Marc, it occurred to me to use some kind of repeat-paste, but not knowing how it works with MuseScore... Still, an ostinato function would really help this program, as well as a way to attach repeat brackets to only one stave. BTW, thank God for the v1.0, last version was moving toward meltdown, at least on my laptop.

In reply to by realself

I don't understand what you mean by an ostinato function. What exactly would you want it to do that the "R" key doesn't already do? Perhaps you mean something like creating the symbol for "repeat previous bar"? MuseScore can already do that,too - see the Repeats palette. Not sure what you mean about attaching repeat brackets to only one staff - that wouldn't make musical sense. How would someone reading the score understand what to do? It's not standard musical notation. I think the "repeat previous bar" symbol is probably what you really mean.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

What I meant is that it would be nice, if one instrument were to repeat for five minutes underneath the others, to have a repeat for that stave alone-instead of having to do hundreds of R repeats. You're right in that it might be confusing to read; is there a notation for "repeat until cue?"

In reply to by realself

Not a standard one that I've ever seen, although I'm sure if you just wrote "repeat until cue" and left the other measures blank, or filled them with slashes, people would get the idea. But the "repeat previous measure" symbol I keep mentioning really is the correct way to do this - at leats, that's how all professionally produced scores I have ever seen do it. It's the first symbol in the "Repeats" palette. Put one of those symbols in every measure that you want to repeat the ostinato, and everyone will know exactly what you mean, because that's the standard notation. And it wouldn't take long to place 100 of them. Drag one into position. Select, hit R a few times. Now select that whole passage of repeat-previous-bar symbols, hit R a few times to repeat the whole passage. Every so often, stop and select everything you've entered so far, and now "R" will repeat the whole shebang. Exponential growth is a good thing in cases like this. It means filling 1000 measures isn't 1000 times harder than filling 1 - it's only 10 tijmes harder.

But what would indeed be very helpful would be if you could just select the whole range of measures, double click the repeat-previous-bar symbol, and have it automatically placed in all 100 measures. It works that way for several other symbols (like double bars, for instance), so I wouldn't think it would be that difficult to make it work for the repeat-previous-bar symbol.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

¨Not a standard one that I've ever seen¨
Standard or not, it is common practise. TI. i have seen it more often.
Like: in one (4 bar) system, one staff has ¨play 4 times¨ and in the next 3 systems that staff can be hidden, so saves space...

¨if you just wrote "repeat until cue" and left the other measures blank, or filled them with slashes, people would get the idea¨
I agree but it takes space on the page which is not always present.

It would also be helpful when making parts...

Is it already supported by now (in MS 2.0)?

Thank you.

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