Ledger lines are still visible for invisible notes

• Sep 3, 2011 - 19:39

An issue to do with liturgical composition.
This is to do with the need to enter hidden tied notes which make the playback of reciting notes correct.

These are by necessity due to the irregular nature of some of the texts we are setting to music. If you make all the notes visible it results in a very messy score, so I hide the inessential notes and change the head type of the note or chord at the beginning of the bar. The problem is that the ledger lines are still visible, so when you print out the score there are lots of little horizontal lines in the alto and tenor voices!

There may be a workaround for this, but I ain't found it yet!

Example score attached.

Regards
Michael

Attachment Size
Advent SundayB-PSalm80.mscz 8.72 KB

Comments

I don't have a workaround for the specific issue of non-invisible ledger lines, but I do have workaround for the general issue of needing different notes for playback and display. Instead of trying to put the invisible playback notes on the same staff, put them on another staff - an instrument you add to the score just for playback purposes. Then zero the velocity of the display notes so they don't play. Create a "print score" using File->Parts, defining a part called "print score" that contains all the "regular" staves.

BTW, another workaround for your particular situation is to use eighth notes instead of quarters in the top voice, so it fits in the same time as the whole note below. That would eliminate the need for the hidden notes in the first place. At least sometimes.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

It is still going to be a problem due to the irregular nature of the texts - using quavers instead of crotchets in the top voice will result in needing to add more invisible notes - often you get odd numbers of syllables which would result in 11 or 13 quavers to the bar which would just add to the mess!

I'm totally gobsmacked that noone has fixed this!

Has anyone filed an official bug report??

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

The link to the issue tracker is in the menu at right - you can do a search to see if there is an existing issue, and submit one yourself if not.

As for the workaround I suggested, obviously, it won't always be an even number of eighth notes. But still, by mixing quarters and eighths (and sixteenths as necessary), it still seems you should be able to do this. Although as I said, really, I find it much more straightforward to use a separate staff for things like this.

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