Delete a rest
Hi all,
this is my first post here. I discovered MuseScore only a few days ago and I find it really amazing.
I am not a professional musician but am making multichannel DDS sintesizer hardware using a microcontroller so I need score-to-sound program to be able to hear the results before converting the notes + effects (decay, portamento, vibrato, waveform change, ...) to rather complicated data that will then be hard-coded into the µC's flash memory.
First I have to say I did read this thread but I will try to explain why the option to delete the rest could be really helpful and how it should work.
To better explain the problem and the solution I made this very short video.
This is a link to Dropbox file, no need to sign, just press 'No, thanks' and 'Download'. It seems Dropbox is at the moment experiencing some problems with viewing videos directly in browser's window but it is only 2 MB file (1 minute and 15 seconds .avi video file).
Here is the explanation of the video:
As can be seen, there are two identical parts - piano and flute. After making the flute channel by copying the notes from the piano's channel, I tried to add some variations.
1. First I deleted two 1/4 notes.
2. Then I inserted four 1/8 notes in the place where I removed two 1/4 notes.
3. Then I decided I will use 1/16 notes instead of 1/8 notes so I edited the duration of those four notes which resulted with 1/16 rests after each of the note.
Since I do not want the rests in between the notes I selected the first rest (at 0:31) and pressed Delete button but to my surprise that doesn't work.
What I expected was - after deleting the rest, all the notes which are on the right side from that rest inside that measure will shift to the left to fill the gap (where the removed rest was before) and the appropriatte rest will be inserted at the end of the measure.
When I couldn't delete the rest I searched for the solution and then I found the before mentioned thread saying there is no option to delete the rest and that the only option is to use multiple cut-paste operations.
As can be seen, instead of:
delete, click, delete, click, delete (or delete, arrow, arrow, delete, ...)
I had to do the following:
click, cut, click, paste, click, cut, click, paste, click, cut, click, paste (or cut, arrow, arrow, paste, ...)
which is both unintuitive and very slow because each cut and paste is pressing two keys.
The solution that would make UI more user friendly woud be as follows:
Before deleting the rest:
1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest
After deleting the first 1/16 rest:
1/16 note, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 note, 1/16 rest, 1/16 rest
I am sure many users would find such an option more natural, faster, simpler and more intuitive than doing multiple cut-paste procedures or deleting the measure to write it from scratch.
Comments
How about this situation: I want to cut a rest and add its value to the following note? Or to the preceding note? Or I want to add a rest somewhere other than at the end of the measure?
Your proposal selects one of many options and makes it the default. Good for you in your specific situation. Useless for everybody with a different idea.
There is no musical reason I can see that would make the end of measure the preferred "repository" of the time lost due to cutting a rest.
I suggest leaving Musescore alone and doing it like this: Retype the first two notes (used to be eighths now sixteenths) then copy/paste the rest of the measure to move it forward by an eighth.
In reply to How about this situation: I by azumbrunn
Hi,
thank you for the reply. Yes, it may be just one of many options but that would be at least one option to delete the rest - now there isn't such an option at all.
A workaround would be to be able to move the note horizontally using the mouse, but that option isn't supported either. I've tried Noteflight online score editor too and there is an option to move the note with the mouse upon what the rest automatically jumps to the proper location. Here is the video of how that works:
move_note.zip
I bet a lot of people find that useful and I am sure the same would have been with the feature I described in the initial post.
To add to this though; from what I gather you're not looking to delete(move to end of measure) a rest at all.
Your real problem is that you want to halve your rhythm. There is a plugin for that (though it doesn't seem to be working for all cases nor for everyone from what I've gathered). Try the ABL-patched version found in this post: https://musescore.org/en/node/81641#comment-453686
That's not deleting a rest, but a cut/past in disguise, that rest then shows up at the end of the measure.
Not sure how usefull it is to restrict this to the current measure, a single measure is rewritten from scratch quite quickly
Well, we could have called what I described one way or another (halving the rhythm, cut/paste in disguise, ...), the point is I am sure it would be useful and is certainly intuitive because the first thing that comes to most people's mind when they want to move the note to the left is to try to move the note to the left :-) or to make the space for the note by deleting what is in-between (the rest).
I could already after 2 minutes of using MuseScore tell it's an extraordinary piece of software but my opinion is by adding these features it would be even better.
In reply to Well, we could have called by chupo_cro
Maybe so. But look at the list of improvements that are in the works for version 3. Many of those are much more valuable than this feature would be. I can't remember one time when I wanted to move a rest from somewhere to the end of the same measure.
I would recommend you use Musescore for some time and then think about your question again. I am almost certain you won't miss the feature any more.
In reply to Maybe so. But look at the by azumbrunn
Maybe that feature really woudn't be useful to the musicians. I am talking from the perspective of someone who can read the individual notes but can't play by looking at musical score. I can play quite a few instruments but can't write down what I can play. I can write the notes only by inserting the notes (heights) and giving them aproximate durations. Then I must hear the result and make a corrections to the durations. That is why what I described was one of the first thing that I needed - to make the timings correct.
It might be interesting to see the results of the poll asking whether people would like the features I mentioned or not.
I will certainly try to learn using MuseScore because it is very polished and I don't think one could find a better software for the same purpose.
BTW, I tried portable version with Windows XP SP2 (yes, I know XP is obsolete and SP2 is even more obsolete :-) ) and it works well but MuseScore.exe and MuseScorePortable.exe don't end upon quitting the MuseScore so I have to end task for MuseScore.exe manually. If I don't then OS has to end the task on shut down/restart. I know XP is not officialy supported, just saying.
Regards
In reply to Maybe that feature really by chupo_cro
If you do this regularly you might want to explore a few more scorewriters, some might be more fitted to your task.
But I would still recommend you learn note reading; in your case all you need is rhythm and it is quite simple and logical (it can get complex but the system is easy to understand). Look it up in Wikipedia. Practice by clapping or foot tapping the rhythms you are reading (you can even use playback to check yourself). You'll get the hang of it quite quickly; the fact that you like doing this means almost certainly that you have an inborn sense of rhythm that just needs to be "formalized" a bit.
In reply to Maybe that feature really by chupo_cro
The problem is again, that while *in this particular case* it *happens to randomly be the case* that moving all notes to the end of the measure does exactly what you want, in general, it simply *won't* be the case, and doing that will actually make things *worse*. It has nothing to do with how well you read music or not - it has to do with how likely it is that MuseScore will be able to guess how many notes you want moved. Because in this particular case it happens to be everything to the end of the measure, you are imagining it will turn out to be that way all the time, but it just isn't so. Most of the time it is either fewer or more notes than that, so it is absolutely more efficient to simply do it yourself than have MuseScore guess wrong and then you have to repair the damage done in the process.
In reply to The problem is again, that by Marc Sabatella
"It has nothing to do with how well you read music or not": I was just trying to point out that you are at a disadvantage in using a scorewriter like Musescore if you are not sufficiently familiar with how notation works (just like using Word without knowing how to type). This instance is just one of many such situations.
In reply to "It has nothing to do with by azumbrunn
Indeed, and to be clear, my response wasn't meant in direct response to yours :-)
In reply to "It has nothing to do with by azumbrunn
I think your analogy is not quite correct -- it's more like trying to use a word processor to write in a language you don't know.
The problem is that while in this particular case it might happen to be the case that the notes you want are the ones in that particular measure and that particular measure only, in the real world, that's the case only a small percentage of the time. So if MuseScore were to guess that this is what you wanted, it would help you in these small numebr of cases but make things worse the rest of the time. Only you know how many notes you want moved - MuseScore cannot possibly guess that. And that is why you need to do the move yourself.
As mentioned, it seems worse in this particular case because really, it isn't about deleting rests but about halving rhythmic values. Ideally, that would be a built-in command so there would be no need for moving things manually. And someday we do hope to add such a thing.
It seems to me you are cutting and pasting each note separately. You can select all notes you want to move at the same time and then cut and paste them all together.
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/selection-modes
In reply to It seems to me you are by AndreasKågedal
Yes, but in the original case, it really was each note one at a time that needed moving, because he was trying to halve the durations of each. Which is why a built-in tool to sovle that specific situation is a far better solution.
I can't find the poll mentioned, but I would love this feature, or something close to it. I can't think of any reason to confine to the measure, but I like the idea of deleting the rest and shifting everything after backwards to fill the vacuum.
In reply to I can't find the poll by 34e
There isn't a poll, I just said it would be interesting to see the results of such a poll.
In reply to I can't find the poll by chupo_cro
Here's a poll then: https://strawpoll.com/817cccw
Make of it what you will. Only open to people with the link. No ballot-stuffing please.
In reply to Here's a poll then: by 34e
FWIW, I don't think this is as useful poll as it could be. I think most people have not truly thought through the ramifications of what would happen in a score if MuseScore literally moved everything from that point to the end of the score backwards. It might *seem* like a good idea until you see it in action, but I think once put in practice, you'd quickly discover how "annoying" it actually would be. Especially given the issues with tuplets that would essentially prevent it from working.
Furthermore, only having the option of "end of measure" or "end of score" is way to limiting. I would surmise that the vats majority of the time, what you actually want is *neither* - it's something more than a single measure but less than the entire score. Or also fairly often, less than a measure.
To me, having to force MuseScore to guess is a recipe for frustration to many people much of the time regardless of the results of such a poll. Better is to find a solution that actually address everyone's needs letting them get the results they want at any given time, rather than forcing people to guess today which behavior they would want to be stuck with the rest of their lives.
And I think previous discussions of the topic have shown ways this can be done. Here is one:
What if instead of a single "delete note or rest" command and a seaprate "change duration" command that required you to click the note and then have MuseScore *guess* how many notes you want moved (based on the results of a poll taken perhaps years before that you may or may not have participated in), we had a "scratch pad" mode. You select a region (possibly a single measure, possibly everything to end of score, possible a subset of a measure, possibly something else), hit the "scratch pad" button, and the contents of that region are copied into a single large "measure" (the "scratch pad"). While in this mode, any notes or rests you delete or change the duration of move all following notes *within the scratch pad*. So *you* - not a poll - are in control of how many notes get moved. There could possibly even be shortcuts to say "create scratch pad using current measure" or "create scratch pad from here to end of score" to make those cases take one fewer keystroke than they otherwise would.
When you are done with the scratch pad, you hit a button and the results are copied back to the original selection. There could also be an option to make it so that when the results are copied back, they are copied as one long measure, for the benefit of those creating measureless music. But the norm would be to copy back to the same original measure structure.
To me, this is the type of solution that truly addresses all aspects of this, rather than just providing a partial solution to one case and one case only.
In reply to FWIW, I don't think this is by Marc Sabatella
If I may, some more on your scratchpad idea:
-making a selection before entering scratchpad would not be mandatory because a default would exist for when no selection is made (default selection would be full score or even a preference if you want)
-scratchpad would be available by a shortcut, not mouse only please
-pseudo barline would be displayed in gray in the scratchpad mode to show the result as it will be when you exit scratchpad mode, possibly in red for those (temporary) impossible to solve such as crossing triplet
-these pseudo barlines will have no effect on notes, a long note over a pseudo barline would not be split and tied before exiting scratchpad
-a shortcut would exist to exit scratchpad, no mouse only
-and very important, CTRL-S (and CTRL-Z/Y) will work in scratchpad mode.
This last point is crucial because I would be in scratchpad mode to notate long recordings of folk music with unclear rhythms and if it would require to have a valid score (e.g. no crossing triplet) and to exit the scratchpad mode everytime you want to save it would be awful.
In reply to If I may, some more on your by frfancha
I was imagining the default would probably be to make the current measure the default if there is no range selection (eg, if you start by simply clicking a note).
As far as I am concerned, *nothing* should be available by mouse only. Everything in MuseScore should be available both via mouse and keyboard. Right now that's not true for palettes (something we hope to address) but is for almost everything else.
I like the pseudo barline idea, but of course, much of the time, there would be no clear place to draw it, such as if the barline would occur in the middle of a long note.
I don't see how that saving a score in scratch mode would make sense, though. Notes in the scratch pad haven't been assigned to measures yet, so it isn't clear what you'd actually be saving. How would such a score look if loaded into the mobile app, for example, or uploaded to msuescore.com? What would it look like if then converted to MusicXML, or exported to PNG? If you intend to work in this mode a long time, best to do it piecemeal. No reason a save operation couldn't *automatically* exit the mode for you, though.
In reply to I was imagining the default by Marc Sabatella
I understand that if the current file format of MuseScore only allows "correct" scores, saving in scratchpad mode is a serious challenge (perhaps keeping the xml as it is and adding a section describing the state of the scratchpad).
But I insist: offering a mode in which save is not possible is a very poor user experience.
I do very regular saves (the laptop can fail, MuseScore can crash, ...) and not being able to do it would be a major inconvenience.
E.g. just this afternoon I was noting a long score and exceptionnaly I did less saves than usually.
Then, changing the actual bar duration of the first bar made MuseScore crash... and losing 15 minutes (not more fortunately) of work.
So the lesson is clear: always always always do regular saves.
In reply to I understand that if the by frfancha
You should never lose more than autosave time, 2 minutes by default
In reply to You should never lose more by Jojo-Schmitz
Well I lost 15 minutes
In reply to Well I lost 15 minutes by frfancha
You could have looked for these autosave backup files. Should come up automatically after a crash, when that dialog shows about recovering from the crash.
In reply to Well I lost 15 minutes by frfancha
The default autosave interval is 2 minutes, so unless you've changed that, you shouldn't normally lose more than that. However, if you literally never stopped for even a second during those fifteen minutes, I guess maybe the auto-save might not have been able to kick in? Actually, though, when I tried to reproduce that, I couldn't - even if I kept pressing a key repeatedly to make tons of edits, it autosaved after every two minutes. So if you can come up with a reproducible scenario where this isn't true, let us know steps to reproduce and we can investigate.
In reply to The default autosave interval by Marc Sabatella
I was busy not to the point that the autosave would be stopped.
15 minutes is the time between my last "true" save and crash.
Recovering was not working, I suppose due to the crash.
In reply to I understand that if the by frfancha
It's not that a score has to be "correct" - it's that t has to be "linear". The scratch pad exists outside the normal flow of time - it's just a temporary work area. Which is why I pointed out that its contents would not be able to dealt with in those other cases. Sure, we could extend the format to also save this temporary buffer somewhere, but such a file would not be meaningful for any of the other purposes I mentioned. And a file that is only useful for some of the things a file can normally be used for but not others is just asking for trouble IMHO.
So, yes, do regular saves, but each one would temporarily move you out of scratch pad mode. No reason in the world you should have to live there permanently. Like I said, work in batches.
In reply to FWIW, I don't think this is by Marc Sabatella
Scratchpad sounds great! My only question is about "While in this mode, any notes or rests you delete or change the duration of move all following notes". Does this mean that making a note longer or shorter does not affect the existence or length of any following notes, instead of the current overwrite mode?
If so, perfect! Thank you for this well-formed solution!
In reply to Scratchpad sounds great! My by 34e
The solution to the save while in scratchpad mode could (I think should) be to save an irregular measure as an irregular measure at that point. Making the scratchpad a dynamic measure that expands and contracts as notes and rests are entered, deleted, lengthened and shortened would be a method to allow for the much requested insert a note (and variations) that is often requested. Besides, it'll give us something to talk about on the forums besides "How do I enter a note?" :D
Since you discussed allowing for the scratchpad mode to extend beyond the current measure, let the solution to have later tuplets crossing measure result in measures being merged to "legalize" the existing tuplet. I realize at times this will result in several measures being merged, but it will be easy enough to fix it in scratchpad mode later by inserting or deleting beats to realign the measures.
In reply to The solution to the save by mike320
My concern with just saving the scratch pad as an irregular measure is that I think the original contents of the region should be preserved for as long as the scratch pad is active. That way you can cancel out of the scratch pad and not mess up what was there originally if you end up screwing something up (as I imagine would end up happening pretty often).
In reply to Scratchpad sounds great! My by 34e
That's the idea. If you have four half notes in the scratch pad (a total of eight beats), and you change the second one into a quarter, now you have a half note, a quarter, and two halves (only seven beats). Hopefully you plan to do something to take care of the missing beat before you leave scratch pad mode or you probably won't like the results, but anyhow, that's how it could work.
Sounds like what the original post is asking for is something like the option with a spreadsheet of e.g. "move cells up/left" when deleting a cell - or like the inverse of the "insert/overwrite" cursar option when editing text.