System inappropriately jumps to next page

• Jan 10, 2012 - 03:17

Check out page 8. There should be three systems there, and the first two seem shifted up to make space for the third. However, that third system doesn't show up until the next page. When I select all the notes on page 8, cut them, and paste them back into the same measures, that seems to fix the problem. However, when I save and reopen, it's back to how it was.

PS. Any suggestions on how to improve the content or formatting of the arrangement would be appreciated as well :)

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Fireflies 7.mscz 53.96 KB

Comments

• Jan 10, 2012 - 05:41

I'm not sure what makes you so sure there is room for a third system on that page. I mean, it looks close, but I found that reducing system space a couple more notches was necessary to get it to fit. i suspect you are being fooled by the page fill into thinking you've allowed for more space between your staves that you really have. Most of your pages are being filled out automatically and thus your system space setting is not really being used except on that page.. What you perceive as the second system being pushed up to make room for a third actually just a matter of this being the first page that didn't reach the page fill threshold and thus isn't being filed automatically. Try increasing your page fill threshold to 100% and you'll have a truer picture of what is going on, and it will be more clear how much to reduce system space by in order to fit another system on that page. Then you can always reduce the threshold again when you are done, so your pages are automatically filled again.

As for suggestions on improving things, I don't know that using Hide Empty Staves is doing you any favors here. It is mostly just making things inconsistent. you are getting only two systems per page in most cases anyhow, so you really aren't gaining much by hiding the occasional staff. It might be a page or two longer without hiding the empty staves, but spacing could be more consistent, and I suspect it would be worth it.

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 06:36

Marc said:
As for suggestions on improving things, I don't know that using Hide Empty Staves is doing you any favors here. It is mostly just making things inconsistent...

Seconded. We recently performed John Rutter's "Gloria", for brass and choir, and it was almost as bad as yours. One minute there's two staves for S/A, next minute T/B, then SA/TB, then S/A. No bold separator slashes (no idea what the proper name is) between systems, and exactly four bars of band squeezed into a missable line between two S/A/T/B/band systems. Terribly unreadable and error prone. On a quick count they reduced 59 pages of S/A/T/B/band honest two-per-page systems to 44 pages.

Well, Oxford is given a legal monopoly to prevent anyone from doing it better for the next 70-100 years, and no doubt this helps the cash register. But you could be more concerned with music than money: just stick to two cases: accompaniment only where there are several lines, 4+1 where there aren't.

Brian Chandler

(Sorry, I don't know how to do quoting properly. ((Sorry^2, I don't even know how to get square brackets.)))

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 06:55

What you're saying makes a lot of sense, but I am very lazy. Do you know of an easy way to split two voices on one staff (part 1 and part 2) into two staves, or would I have to re-type the whole thing?

Edit: same for merging two staves into a single staff with two voices

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 07:23

I'm not a Musescore expert, so I don't know if there is a direct way, but you never need to type everything again. Just practice cuttin' 'n pastin'.

I think the Answer (not necessarily helpful now) is that for choral music you should always start with separate staves for S/A/T/B, and avoid assiduously stuff like "MEN". Occasionally if there is a whole section in unison, or a movement for the wimmin you *might* typeset it differently in the end, but if you're lazy that's even more reason never to think about it; just produce 4+1 staves.

Incidentally, I think there are some issues about spacing with MS, and I don't understand why some of your pages have the two systems spread out to top and bottom (which is how I think they should be by default) while others have them "top-aligned", with a blank space at the bottom.

Brian Chandler

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 14:53

It's the page fill threshold I mentioned above is responsible for some pages being stretched out to fill the page (putting the extra space between systems) while others are squeezed together at the topof the page (putting the extra space at the bottom). Any page more full than the value you specify in that parameters is stretched; any page less full is not. So this is completely under your control.

As for splitting a staff written with two voices on one staff into two separate staves, I am pretty sure there is a video tutorial so ewhere on that. I'd do it by first creating the copying that whole staff onto the second staff, then exchanging voices on the second staff so that what was voice one is now voice 2 and vice versa. Then selecting all notes on voice two on each staff and delete. There might be other ways, but that's what occurs to me.

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 06:38

Thanks! You were exactly right about the threshold; I didn't know that that feature existed, which was why I was perturbed by the fact that page 8 seemed to be different from the other pages. I decreased the page fill threshold to 0 and increased the staff spacing to 22 points; now it looks much more consistent.

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• Jan 10, 2012 - 09:45

I'm afraid from a score-writer's point of view the whole thing is a complete mess!

The arrangement is announced as being for SATB and Piano but you seem to have scored it for SSAATB with miscellaneous Men and Women parts scattered here and there!

Personally I would start again and do a copy/paste job on the whole thing into a new score.

It is not a good idea to suddenly jump from open score to closed score format - as you seem to be splitting the parts, open score is the logical choice, however S1&2 and A1&2 can each share the same staff as there is no counterpoint going on.

This would reduce your layout to a 6 stave system, which could probably be juggled to fit 3 systems per page.

HTH
Michael

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