Score Efficiency?

• Feb 12, 2012 - 00:07

Not really a necessity, but I think these would greatly aid in efficiency of use. Also, I think that if these are implemented, an option in the Layout/Style/etc. should be available to un-check in case someone doesn't want to use them.

1.) Auto-format?—Not sure how to explain this, really. In band scores, things like tempo and playing style (swing, legato, etc.) are marked on the woodwind part of the staff (above piccolo or flute 1 depending on the format), the brass part (above French horn 1), and the strings part (above violin 1, solo violin, piano, or harp depending on score). Right now, you cannot put a tempo on the same part in a score. The only way around this would be to insert a system text which goes all the way up to the top anyway, so you'd have to mark it individually on each part.

2.) Auto-place—Automatically place instruments in score order (As some of these vary depending on ensemble [concert band, orchestra, small ensemble, etc.] it would be helpful to have a box or something to click which type of ensemble you need, and let MuseScore place the instruments accordingly. Note that this may be fairly difficult to accomplish, though I think it would be extremely worthwhile in the long run.. This is one of my favorite aspects of some other music notation software.

3.) Auto-size—I think it would be great if MuseScore automatically sized the score to fit a page (page one, however, is often used for a title/information page, so I would start with page two). Also, this includes instrument names. Often when I change the page layout, the instrument names become too small to read, so I have to copy and paste each name individually from a template. This takes VERY long and gets frustrating quickly.

4.) Auto-bracket, etc.—This may be harder to do. I would like to suggest that instruments are automatically bracketed (Bracket woodwinds from piccolo to contrabassoon [again, varies depending on score], then from Alto Saxophone 1 to baritone saxophone [or bass sax, depending on score], then from French horn 1 to tuba, then string bass by itself [only for concert band], then pitched percussion [mallet instruments, then tubular bells, then timpani, though this varies depending on composer's instrumentation] then unpitched percussion [this is very complicated, though I believe MuseScore's instrument list already has them in the right order], then piano by itself, then harp by itself, then strings [from solo violin or violin 1 to contrabass]. Also, it would be helpful to automatically accolade (the curved bracket) split instruments (flutes 1 and 2, clarinets 1, 2, and 3, etc.).

I apologize for making this seem so much more complicated than it is. I would be glad to clarify any of this if needed. Please note that, with things like instrument placement and so on, many people and websites are misinformed. While most of it is completely relative, a lot of it should be in a very specific order, which is often not followed. If you would like me to explain these, I'll gladly do so.

Thanks!
iHasCheese


Comments

#1 above is basically what Finale calls "staff lists". These provide a way of controlling which staves a given marking appears on. MuseScore provide just two options: staff text that affects the current staff only (for both score and parts), or system text that affects top staff for score / all staves for parts.

While the full Finale facility seems like overkill to me, I might propose each staff have a single additional property that controlls whether system text appears on that staff for the score or not. By default, it is turned on only for the top staff, but you could set it for any other staves you like, so system text would also appear on tpt 1 and vln 1 in an orchestral,score, for example.

Seems like several of your other points would be best addressed by simply providing well designed templates. The sizing I have proposed be handled by a simple control to let you specify number of staves per page with a slider to control how mich of this is achieved by adjusting scaling versus interstaff distance.

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