Centering notes in measure

• Oct 9, 2011 - 01:48

Okay, this seems a little odd. A measure has a whole rest in it. The rest is horizontally centered in the measure. I replace it with a whole note. The note is left-aligned. If I then delete the whole note, it is replaced with a whole rest that is left-aligned. I can grab the rest and move it around in the measure. If I grab the whole note I can only move it vertically.

How can I center the whole note horizontally in the measure?


Comments

Just delete it (EDIT: select the whole measure and hit delete; doesn't work to just delete the rest). MuseScore will automatically place a centered rest in any completely empty measure. Although note you can also nudge amy note or rest horizontally by double clicking to enter Edit mode then nudging with the arrow keys.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks. That does the trick -- but exposes what may be a graphics bug. If the note has an accidental in front of it, the accidental does not move with the note. If moving the note to the right, some smudgy artifact is left between the accidental and the note -- at least until you leave edit mode. If moving the note to the left, the note moves over the accidental -- again until you leave edit mode. This is no big deal, but -- given that the application clearly knows that the accidental is "attached" to the note (since it realigns things correctly on exit from edit mode) -- I would expect it to move the accidental with the note. But maybe there are complications that make this not worth doing. But it probably shouldn't leave the artifact during the note move.

Also, I notice that if you move the note to the right "too fast", it disappears!! It reappears when you leave edit mode. If you move it too fast to the left, this doesn't happen, but other artifacts get left behind and are cleaned up only when you leave edit mode. Again, no big deal; but probably should be considered minor bugs. Maybe repaints just aren't being done at close enough intervals. Finally, under some circumstances (haven't quite figured them out) when you move the note, it leaves the original one in place until you leave edit mode. This seems to happen if you click in and out of edit mode a couple of times before doing the move. I suspect the events aren't being handled quite correctly. But again, these odd behaviors are minor.

But I have 2 staves, and the problem is in the bass staff. I have notes in the treble that I don't want to delete. You'd think I could copy a centered rest and paste it, but that doesn't work unless I have a second note or rest in the clipboard with the centered rest.

In reply to by DonB-88

Assuming you are using the current version - 2.0.3 - and not the version from five years ago (!) being discussed on this thread, then copy and paste of the (centered) full measure rest should work just fine. If you are experiencing some sort of problem, please attach the score you are having problems with and list precise steps to reproduce the problem, so we can advise you better on how to do whatever it is you are having trouble doing.

I guess maybe it's possible you are trying to copy *just*( the rest? Not sure why you'd be doing that,. but instead of copying the rest, copy the *measure* containing the rest. Copy and paste generally works only when you have selected a range (indicated with a blue rectangle).

Thanks Marc. This is the best, most helpful community I've ever been a part of on the internet.

I did notice that the original post was from 5 years ago, and was surprised that the issue had not been "fixed" in all that time.

Your answer led me to figure out a good work-around. I can't paste the entire measure, because there are notes I want to keep in the other staff. To do that, I would need to copy-paste them to a blank measure, then fix the rest, then restore the missing notes. Kinda awkward.

But, it's easy enough to convert the rest I am copying to a range by shift-right, shift-left. Then I see the blue rectangle, and the copy paste works on just the rest. So, Thanks!

In reply to by DonB-88

What you describe isn't a workaround - it's the correct way to use copy and paste. As I said, you need to select as range, not just a single rest - copy and paste doesn't work that way. There are lots of ways to select a range. In this case, the easiest is to just click a blank area within the measure instead of clicking the rest. No need to select the other staff - just select the measure on the staff you want to copy.

But also, as mentioned previously on this thread, no need for copy and paste at all. If you have notes and rests that you wish to replace with (centered) full measure rests, just select that range and press Delete. The fact that there are notes on another staff you don't want to delete in no way prevents this from working. Just make sure your selection doesn't include those notes.

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