Deleting rest/extending duration of note

• Aug 24, 2012 - 22:30

Hi, all!

If I have, say an eighth note and an eight note rest, but want to get rid of the rest and make the eighth note a quarter note, how do I do this, please? MuseScore doesn't seem to allow me to delete the rest, and if I make the eighth note longer, it pushes the rest of the measure into the following measure.

Thanks, much!

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• Aug 25, 2012 - 02:20

Thanks, much, for the reply! I just surfed again about "changing note duration" in MuseScore, and it sounds like it's just very difficult. In my case, I imported a MIDI file, in the hopes that I could at least approximate the duration along with the pitch. But it just seems that MuseScore isn't really capable of somewhat easily allowing a MIDI score to be edited with the correct note duration.

For example, I'd like the first 3 notes to be a triplet, but when I select them, and go to Notes, Tuplet, Triplet, I get a 16th note and 2 16th rests for the first triplet, and then 2 other similar triplets for the remaining 2 notes instead of what I'd like to be just one triplet.

I've been playing around with the Sibelius First software, and had very good results importing the MIDI file. Not nearly as much editing to be done, and the editing that did need to be done was very easy - select the bar and tell it you you want it re-notated as triplets and , voila, you're done.

Thanks, again, for your input! Your suggestion fixed my immediate editing issue, but I think overall for what I want MuseScore won't make sense for me.

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• Aug 25, 2012 - 07:38

Not sure what you mean. Changing duration is exceedingly simple., Click note, press key corresponding to new desired duration.

But indeed, triplets need to be entered from scratch, and MIDI import doesn't recognize them. So if your music involves lots of triplets,MIDI import won't be a good means of entry.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:58

In my trials of editing Waltz for Debby, I messed up and now a pair of half notes have become 32nd notes with several associated rests following. I have no idea how to revert if back to the half note value. Please excuse my ignorance, as I'm completely new to Musescore, and I'm just trying to learn how to use it. Previously I had version 1.2 which was not compatible with some of the posted scores. Now I have upgraded to Linux Mint 17 and have Version 1.3. Following Marc's instructions I was able to get rid of some of the extra (unneeded) rests, but I'm obviously still facing some confusion related to editing an existing score.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:06

I downloaded the Waltz for Debbie transcription from the Musescore website. It seems to be loaded with unnecessary rests. I would like to remove some of them, but I don't know how to do it. Normal functions such as selecting and deleting don't seem to work. I tried selecting the rest and pushing "0" (zero), but that does not work either in certain cases.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:16

Deleting a rest doesn't make musical sense. A rest is already silent, so how do you make it more silent than silent? :-) And in any case, each measure needs to have the correct amount of beats for the time signature; deleting a rest would leave the measure short.

Instead, what you presumably want to do is *replace* the silence with sound, leaving the length of the measure unchanged. So that is what you need to do. Meaning, don't think in terms of "deleting rests" but in terms "replacing them with notes". Simply enter the note(s) you desire on top of the rest, or extend the previous note to be longer (which is what was needed in the case being discussed here), or whatever. The specifics depend on the situation. Feel free to post the score you are having problems with and describe what you are trying to do.

EDIT: actually, if you are referring to the arrangement by "raduaz", most of those rests are totally correct. Without them, there would be no way to know on what beat the second note comes in on. This piece uses multiple voices, and usually each voice needs to be complete in terms of number of beats or there is no way to make sense of it. However, the rests here could definitely stand to be positioned better so they don't overlap the notes in the other voice. You can do this via Edit Mode - double click and use the arrow keys. However, the rests starting in measure 10 are a result of the score having been entered incorrectly. There is only one voice at that point, but unfortunately, the notes were entered into voice 2 rather than voice 1, so MuseScore thinks it needs to show both voices. Select the region, Edit / Voices / Exchange... to swap voices 1 & 2, then you can delete the voice 2 rests since there is nothing in that voice.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:16

It's not a question of sounding or not sounding a pitch. From a visual point of view the "score" is cluttered with many rests that in my opinion just don't need to be there. The score in question is the piano arrangement of Waltz for Debbie that is available for download on the Musescore site. Presumablly these unnecessary rests are related to some alleged musical line that drops out. To me one should notate sound, not obviously unneeded extra silence.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:20

See edited post above - I added the stuff about the multiple voices while you were typing your response.

Most of the rests are totally correct / necessary because there *are* multiple rests. The ones that are not are the result of an error made when entering the score, but you can correct that error by moving the notes in that passage into voice 1. The rule is - if there is only one voice, you should use voice 1. If you use voice 2, the rest for voice 1 will always show, because it is the "main" voice that must always be present and complete. Whereas if you use only voice voice 1, no rests need show for voices 2-4.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:25

Yes I've just lookd at that score - it is rather a mess :)

The problem is that the engraver hasn't moved any of the rests to the position they should be in.

The rule is that you cannot delete rests from Voice 1. If you want to suppress their display you have to hide them. This is because MuseScore uses VOice one to provide its timebase, and each bar must be full.

It is possible but usually not advisable to delete rests from the other voices, but if you do so you will find problems with subsequent editing of that bar in note entry mode.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 16:56

Actually, when I look closer, I'd say the entire piece is entered backwards - the main melody is in voice 2 and the secondary chords are in voice 1. That's also why stem directions are off in many places - looked like he fixed a few by hand,

Doing a Select All and then Edit / Voices / Exchanges Voice 1-2 fixes most of the problems, then allowing you to delete the dotted half rests in bars 10-16 (although some are tricky to select - could help to zoom in, or temporary transpose down an octave with Ctrl+Down to move the notes out of the way). Similarly for the full measure rests at bars 28-36, etc.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 17:24

Now that I have created a mess in measure 19 perhaps I should just forget it and go back to entering the notes into a lead sheet I had started on for "But Beautiful." If I try a global edit of Waltz for Debby it would mess up what I have done so far. Obviously a person entering a score should have a fair understanding of what the musical intention of the score is in the first place and how Musescore relates to the objective. I am a true believer in Musescore and do believe that it will become "the standard." in near the future, in much the same way that the "Pianteq" piano voice will replace the mechanically complex accoustic piano in the not too distant future. Infact I see a marriage between Musescore and the Pianoteq, as it will be a new form of player piano that is far better than anything in the past.

Never mind about answering the note duration question. I selected the note(s) in question and clicked on the half note in the "notation bar" and it flipped back. Pray to ISIS that the pitches did not change magically.

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 20:45

As I understand the start-topic person and the others want to 1) get notes after a MIDI input and 2) edit its duration (as well as rest's duration) by hand. I.e. we discuss how to move (to shift) all the content (or its part, for example) "horizontally" in voice #1 along the stave ignoring strict musical meter.

Yes, the Handbook Basics tell us "Note entry in MuseScore replaces the existing notes or rests in a measure with your new notes". But we want to insert as notes as rests by hand freely and at any place of a stave. We ourselves take responsibility for final result as well as in other Misical editors, e.g. NoteWorthy Composer.

As I understood (correct me please, if I'm wrong) Marc Sabatella offered to work with two voices and exchange it to solve the problems with the "rigid" measure which does not allow anything to remove without replacing it with something another... . But it seems to be only a roundabout way (which cannot be used if there is one voice only). The better one, IMHO, is to temporarily disable (switch off) automatic control of the number of the beats in a measure to enable user to insert/delete all the notes/rests he wants. We're talking about quite a skilled user, why do not let it him?

As to me I'm extremely excited about this program, but such a limitation does not allow me to use it fully and so I have to work with the old version of NoteWorthy Composer :((

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• Oct 1, 2014 - 21:43

Horses for courses Alexander.

Before I become a confirmed MuseScore user I used Finale for music engraving.

In Finale you can switch off exact entry and enter the music how you like.

IME, however, it was just as easy to get into a tangle with that method, then the strict time method uses by MuseScore (and Sibelius). It was actually usually more difficult to sort out the mess in Finale, and I usually ended up deleting the bar and starting again.

Personally I think a scratchpad tool would be nice where you could play around with rhythms until you got what you wanted and then paste the result into the main MuseScore window.

I can see that having to keep to strict time values would be a culture shock coming from Noteworthy, but if you persist with MuseScore you will get used to it.

Unfortunately the strict time method is so deeply embedded in the code that it would take a complete re-write to change it.

Of course if you were able to write the code yourself, you would be able to submit it to the MuseScore community for their views and judgement.

We desperately need more coders on the development team.

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 00:33

Thank you, dear ChurchOrganist for the answer and explanation about program's code features that would not permit to be more free in inserting notes/rests. But maybe it's possible to make the shift for all the content by 1/8 or 1/4 or even 2/4 to the beginning/end of a song? Now if we try to read a midi file in MuseScore it doesn't ask us about unbeat before the real start of a piece :( How can we correct music in this case? Even if a midi file has only 1 voice? Just now I have no decision...

Yes, I just started learning MuseScore and found a lots of its charms in comparing with NWC. But some its features=limitations are as a bug for me :(

I understand that the project needs more coders but just now I have to learn MS well as a user and only after a while I could be useful as a programmer.

Recently I found a good program that can convert midi to sheet music (for printing only!) and creates 2-staves sheet for piano perfectly! ( midisheetmusic.sourceforge.net). MuseScore cannot do the same yet - it produces only one voice. My first idea was to add Midisheetmusic's functions to MuseScore - it will be perfect midi reading and then editing! Maybe the author of Midisheetmusic could be involved into the MS developers team?

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 16:52

Thank you very much - I've just started... and stopped as I couldn't find exe-file in archive - only cpp-files for compiling and linking. Alas, there is no portable exe-version too :(

And I'm unable to make executable file myself as C/C++ IDEs are not installed at my PC. Only python, pascal, forth, some others and web-developing tools.
So maybe after some time...

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 05:55

If I understand you correctly, you want to take a series of notes and move the whole passage earlier or later. That's extremely easy - select the passage, cut, click the desired new starting location, paste.

BTW, MuseScore 2.0 Beta 1 can try to figure out multiple voices on MIDI import. You might want to give it a shot. There is no way it (or midisheetmusic) could ever be *perfect* - much real music is far to complex for any program to figure out completely just from MIDI - but I think you'll find the current state of 2.0 to be a huge improvement over 1.3.

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 17:35

Dear Marc, thank you for your advice, it really works even if I need to move the whole passage of 4-8 measures every 1/8 note. I asked the question because I've got a lot of short notes divided by rests (after MIDI input) and in addition bounded with ligatures.
And moving passage before/after each rest takes too much time. Of course, it's possible to edit all the passage as needed in spite of wrong beats and make movement after it is ready. But this requires some knowledge which is the same (IMHO) as a simple deleting/inserting notes/rests as we edit characters in a usual text processor (we must calculate the total amount of beats inside a measure and sometimes create a barlines) . But if this method requires to rewrite all the program code - let us forget about it at all!
Nevertheless thank you once more for the adviceы as well as for MuseScore 2.0 Beta 1 suggestion. But right now I could find at Github only c-plus-plus distribution and as I have not a compiler I have to wait untill an exe-file will be put on the main MS site.

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 05:50

To be clear, I didn't suggest using voices as a general solution to a problem of entering rhythms. I was talking about one very specific score that *already* used multiple voices, but used them *incorrectly*. The way to fix the problem involves fixing the score to use voices correctly.

Anyhow, I don't understand what limitation you are perceiving in MuseScore. If you really want to have the wrong number of beats in a measure for some reason, you can do that, via the Measure properties. but surely most music should have the correct number of beats in all measures by default.

if you have a particular score where are having problems entering what you want, feel free to start a new thread, attaching a copy of the score you are having problems with and a good description of what you are trying to do, and I'm sure someone will be happy to show you how it can easily be done.

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• Oct 2, 2014 - 18:13

Ones more thank you for advices. I never suggested to "jump" from beat to beat in measures, I'm agree about most music fully. You understood my problem well, thanks, and now I know how to overcome it :)
As a newbee I'd like to read forum first and when I have a serious problem then, ofcourse, I'll start a new thread.
I was already convinced that the MS community is very active and helps in case of problem. Once again many thanks to you, Marc, and to all those people who replied!

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