First Measure Displaced

• Nov 4, 2011 - 02:10

Hello there. :)

I am running MuseScore 1.1 on Mac OS 10.4. The initial spacing between bar measures is too large, and so I have decreased the value of "System Distance" (In Style -> General Style -> Page), which works perfectly...

...EXCEPT...that the very first measure is extremely obviously "out of touch" - if you will - with the rest of the measures: there is a larger space between it and the second measure than the space between any of the other measures. Anything I have attempted in order to make its spacing even with all the others has resulted in dismal failure.

What can I do to address this issue? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

-J


Comments

Posting an example score would help. It seems you are probably using the term "measure" incorrectly, as there is normally no space at all between measures, and System Distance would affect the individual measures. So I'm guessing you mean system when you write measure, except that distance between sustems is normally constant unless you added a spacer. Sp an example would help clarify what you mean.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thank you. I appreciate that there's a good chance I have my terminology all wrong, so this will clarify things. :)

I've attached my original score, the original score with System Distance set at 4.2 (that's the #2 file), and a picture of the second example, in case for some unknown reason you will happen to open it and see nothing wrong...

It should be evident that the first "system", line, measure, or whatever it is...is obviously out of place with respect to all the others. I hope this example is sufficient.

Thank you. :)

-J

Attachment Size
O Lord, Keep Us #2.mscz 7.31 KB
Picture 1.png 91.43 KB
O Lord, Keep Us.mscz 7.2 KB

In reply to by Gidoza

Oh, yes, another thing I forgot.

If you look at measure/system 7, for some reason the Treble clef and the Bass clef do not have the same number of beats in them, and nothing I've done has been able to fix the issue... (last note should be a half note, but I've been forced to put a half note with a dot in the Bass clef). I think the Treble has 19 while the Bass has 20, if I remember correctly. Very odd.

-J

In reply to by Gidoza

The example definitely clarifies the confusion over measures versus staff/system. I was imagining traditionally-notated music with several measures per line, but you are creating music in which each line contains only one measure. So for you, they appear to mean the same thing.

Also, the bug you describe in which one measure has the wrong number of beats - that happens occasionally, and you'll see theeads using the word "corrupt" to describe the scores. There are a coiple of sure-fire known ways to create corrupt measures, and then some cases whee they show up but no one yet knows why. You might want to do a search on the term "corrupt measure" of somethng similar to see if there are any known issues corresponding to your case. I do know that copy and paste of fragments of measures involving triplets seems to be one of the main culprits.

Anyhow, I do see the spacing issue in your file, and I can see why it happened. You apparently have a lyric attached below the last syllable in the bottom staff. It seems to be just a few carriage return characters, but MuseScore is allocating extra space for that invisible lyric. You can delete it by just editing the lyric for that staff - you'll see there is nothing there until the last note, when suddenly the cursor jumps down two lines. Hit backspace a couple of times and you're good to go. No idea how that happened, but maybe you have some ideas?

I should note, though, that the reason you are seeing so much space in the first place is that MuseScore is also trying to stretch the spacing to fill the page. You can disable this by upping the Page Fill Threshold to 100%. if you do that, you'll see your system space value is actually way too low. Since MuseScore is mostly ignoring your system space setting and is instead just filli the page, I'm surprised it has any effect at all, but I guess it does indirectly by affecting the space above the first staff pr below the last staff.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Aha, I see the invisible lyric you are talking about. Thank you so much for discovering it! Must have been an accident on my part.

As for line 7...I guess it will remain as an anomaly. Quite amusing, really.

I am most gracious for your aid. Do take care, kind sir. :)

-J

In reply to by Gidoza

"As for line 7...I guess it will remain as an anomaly"

You have come across a "feature" of MuseScore which plagues all of us writing in constantly changing bar lengths/time signatures.

What you have is a corrupt bar.

The way to correct this IME is to insert a bar before (or after) the faulty one, make sure the actual time signature (measure properties) is correct, and then re-enter the notes. Sometimes you can use copy and paste to do this, but sometimes that merely propagates the corruption into the new bar.

I have yet to isolate the reason the MuseScore corrupts bars, otherwise I would have filed a bug report, but I encounter it frequently in my own writing, particularly in my Responsorial Psalm project which uses constantly changing actual time signatures, depending on the word rhythms for that bar, which I see you are also doing in your own writing. Sometimes these only manifest themselves during the next work session after saving and reloading of the score.

Regards
Michael

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Michael,

I'll try rewriting the line and see what happens, and I'll let you know the results when I get around to it.

But for now, since you've mentioned it, exactly what are you doing in your Responsorial Psalm project? While the music I'm working on here is for Byzantine Vespers, I also attend Mass on Fridays at my university and help with the singing. However, the lead singers are a bit discontented because there's no real music for weekday Responsorial Psalms, and they've been brooding on how to deal with this (although they ideally want to revert back to the Gradual at some point). If your project fits with what we're needing, I might most humbly ask to use your music. :)

Anyways, thank you for the suggestion on how to fix my problem! Take care,

-J

In reply to by Gidoza

Quite simply my Responsorial Psalm Project is to provide music for the 3 year cycle of Psalms for the Eucharist as designated in the Anglican Common Worship lectionary for the Church of England, beginning with the Principal Service, Year B.

We've just re-introduced Responsorial Psalms at the church where I am MD, and, although there is a wealth of free Roman Catholic material (try www.ccwatershed.org for example), there is nothing specifically Anglican, and which matches the Common Worship Lectionary, so I am filling the gap with a project dedicated to the memory of a former Rector of St Michaels - only 3 psalms finished so far, but another in preparation - there will be one a month as that is how we are introducing them.

Apart from the Psalm for Advent Sunday Year B, which was begun a few years ago, the psalms are all written using the 8 traditional church modes. The chants are written to coincide with the layout of the Common Worship Psalter for daily use which has the sentences for the Antiphons, together with a collect which is not part of the project.

They are all released under a Creative Commons Licence, but I am currently waiting for full permission to publish on the internet for the words from the CofE copyright licencing people.

The project is hosted here: http://www.organspider.me.uk/CWPsalms.html

Apologies for the off-topic nature of this post :)

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

No need to apologize for the off-topic nature of the post: I asked the question (unless you were saying that to someone else). Judging by what you've said, I suppose what you have wouldn't work for me, but it was still worth inquiring. Thank you! :)

Take care, and God bless you with your work,
-J

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