How do I enter 2 notes together on a 5 line drumset stave?

• Oct 16, 2012 - 20:29

I am trying to have a full measure with at least 2 voices playing together, but I can't get it done except for the first beat of the measure. Everytime I hit ctrl-alt-2 the input cursor switches to the first beat, I am able to enter a hi-hat on the same beat on top of the kick drum, but I can't do the same for the other beats in the measure.

Why?

When I hit ctrl-alt-2 having the second beat selected, the cursor just switches to the first beat again.

Furthermore, after I enter a hi-hat on the second voice on the first beat, it goes back to the first voice for the second beat.

Holding down shift while doing input doesn't work, it overrides the first voice.

Windows XP 6952215


Comments

also read the Handbook and watch any tutorials you can find on multiple voices in general. it is normal and correct that switching voices returns to beat one, as each voice has to be entered from left to right. if you want the hi hat on beat 2 in voice 2, you need to enter a rest on beat one first. you can always hide that rest if you like, but that really wouldn't be standard practice in multivoice music - it's more a special case technique.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

What you fail to understand Sabatella is that entering the second voice in the score does not move on to the second beat, it only does the first beat and then stops.

I have been using MuseScore for a long time, I know how to use multiple voices, but this drum input thing totally sucks.

Please read my whole post before giving me worthless answers like this one, not to mention the fact that you haven't even tried to re-create the problem yourself.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

So here's what happens in three screenshots that are tied together, I hope you'll understand them.

I don't have the time to film this for you, but I hope you can see that the note input cursor just either stays on the first beat or moves to the next measure.

Unfortunately for some weird reason the mouse pointer isn't being shown in the screenshots, but what I'm trying to do between those 2 first beats from the first and second measure is move the cursor towards the end of the first measure where I want to enter an other kick-drum quarter note, BUT I CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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In reply to by tonyjustme

Are you saying you want to enter a bass drum note on beat 4? You can't do that until you enter a rest on beat 3, so I am not sure how you are trying to move the cursor, but indeed, you can't get the cursor to beat four until there is something on beat three. It also isn't clear from the screenshot how you are entering those bass drum notes - using keyboard or palette, clicking in staff or double clicking the palette icon. Given this is a nightly build, it wouldn't surprise me if there are bugs, but again, more step by step detail would help.

However, I will take your screenshot and description at face value and assume what you are trying to create is this:

beat 1 - bass drum in voice 2
beat 2 - snare drum in voice 1
beat 3 - nothing
beat 4 - bass drum in voice 2

Is this correct? If so, the following works:

1) enter note entry mode
2) ctrl-alt-2 to switch to voice 2
3) select bass drum in palette
4) click in measure to enter bass drum beat one
5) enter two quarter rests to advance to beat four
6) click in measure to enter bass drum on beat four
7) cursor back to measure since it will advanced to the next measure by now
8) ctrl-alt-1 to switch to voice one
9) enter quarter rest on beat 1
10) select snare drum in palette
11) click in measure to enter snare on beat 2

Are there others way of doing this? Doubtless. You could force all the notes into voice 1, you could switch back and forth between voice 1 and 2 rather than entering all of 2 then all of 1, etc. But this was the first thing I tried. If you have tried something that doesn't work an equally detailed step by step would be helpful.

First of all, it is now clear from the screenshots that you are using a nightly build of version 2

Version 2.0 is not even ready for an Alpha release, and as all the caveats on the download page point out it is highly unstable, and is prone to random crashes and problems.

Consequently it is difficult to provide technical support for this - I couldn't enter drums at all without the application crashing with the particular nightly build I am using at the moment (not the latest version as there are lyrics formatting issues which don't seem to have been resolved yet).

Secondly the Support & Bug Reports forum is not the right place for discussion about nightly builds, it is for problems with stable released versions. If you are having problems with version 2.0, please post in the Technology Preview Forum

Thirdly, I know you are frustrated, but please try not to take this out on people trying to help you.

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

What a useless observation that it's a nightly. LOL

I've been a long time MuseScore user dude and have submitted many bug reports, so don't treat me like a kid.

Sabatella has been a pain in the ass a couple of times before for me, so I know what I'm talking about.

I didn't realise the difference between this forum and the Technology Preview one.

But anyways, version 2 will be released and we'll be talking about it in here, so, for me, it's not that big of a deal.

I'd actually encourage more people to use nightlies so that more bugs get ironed out.

If we all use stable versions and expect the developers to do all the work the end product will be of lower quality.

In reply to by tonyjustme

This is your backtrack and this is MarcSabatella one. Please show respect to everybody and in particular to one of the most helpful guy in this forum.

That's being said, asking "why" is not useful... If you are using a nightly to report bugs and if it doesn't work like you expect, it's better to describe exactly what you do, create a video, and try hard to explain how it doesn't work. Developers can't do all the work but they can't guess either and we lost a lot of time trying to understand bug reports...

I read your post 3 times and I might have an idea of what your problem is. If I'm wrong, don't yell at me... or say I'm treating you like a kid... just explain again... It took me time to understand and answer your question.
If you want to move the cursor at the end of the measure, you might want to add rests first? to add a rest, select your note duration and press 0. If this is the case, read the Voices page again and also the {{Note entry]] one.

A video to illustrate what I explained : http://www.screenr.com/DlV8

In reply to by [DELETED] 5

If you expect respect you should first give respect.

Sabatella has NEVER been helpful to me, he has always downplayed and downsized the issues I raised and that's why I don't like him.

How the h@ck am I going to add rests to a whole score? That is extremely unproductive!

The quarter note pointer should normally point itself over that double rest and when I click on it it should split the rest into 2 quarter rests.

But it doesn't, it just skips over the double rest.

And doing a video takes a long time and I don't have time or software to do that, so I'd really appreciate it if people would take me seriously rather than saying that I just don't know how to things when they clearly haven't tried to replicate the issue themselves.

In reply to by tonyjustme

> Sabatella has NEVER been helpful to me

For the record:

http://musescore.org/en/node/13229#comment-44965
http://musescore.org/en/node/13261#comment-45214
http://musescore.org/en/node/13258#comment-45282
http://musescore.org/en/node/13259#comment-45189
http://musescore.org/en/node/13315#comment-45562

etc (there are many more examples)

I am not sure where you are getting this idea that I am going out of way to be disrespectful. I am trying to help you understand how to use MuseScore. Please don't react so defensively to people trying to help.

As for creating a video, you don't need special software. Just visit screenr.com. It takes less time to create a screen shot video than to type a detailed post.

But FWIW, if you would rather psot instructions, please provide more detail as to *exactly* what you are trying to do, what buttons you are pressing, what you expect to see, and what you see instead. Again, based only on the brief summary in your initial post, I don't see a problem., You say that pressing ctrl-alt-2 goes back to the first beat - well, yes, that's what is supposed to happen when you switch to a voice that contains no notes or rests yet. As I explained, you need to enter them left to right. So if there is nothing on beat in in voice 2, there is nowhere for the cursor to go *except* beat one. If you are trying to say something else, please, again, provide more detail.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Do you ever read a whole thread before posting a response?

I already said that the problem with the second voice is not that it only defaults to the first beat, it's that it doesn't continue to the second one if I want to continue adding notes to the second one.

An example of what I'm trying to do is add a hi-hat to the fourth beat even though there is a half note rest on the 3rd and fourth beat. But the freaking pointer will only put it on the third beat, but I want it on the fourth beat.

Not to mention the fact that the rest is not displayed symmetrically in the middle of those two beats.

MuseScore should notice or "feel" that I'm trying to input a note on the fourth beat and split the rest into two adding a rest on the third beat.

Otherwise, whenever I want to add something to the 2nd or 4th beat I always have to edit the frigging rests on the 1st and 3rd beats which is annoying.

Even when there is a whole measure with just a big rest in it, MuseScore should be able to let the pointer post notes directly on any of the contained beats, not always just start from the first beat.

Heck, even TuxGutiar can do that...

Now do you see what I'm trying to say????

And entry mode has nothing to do with this, again you are totally missing the point because you're not even TRYING anything.

And just to clear up things, none of those comments were helpful.

You have negated the value of my bug reports previously, and you are doing the same now.

In reply to by tonyjustme

Ok... I got it... it's a feature request.

"MuseScore should notice or "feel" that I'm trying to input a note on the fourth beat and split the rest into two adding a rest on the third beat."

It has never worked like this. So if this is what you are looking for, no it doesn't work like this in the current nightly nor in MuseScore 2.0. It doesn't work like this for piano score either. So it's a feature request on the handling of voices that should be written. Currently the only way is to add manually add rests. If "even" TuxGuitar can do this, use TuxGuitar... I personally like the fact that you should add rests, MuseScore will probably "feel" wrong most of the time anyway. So I would not code for this feature request...

In reply to by tonyjustme

As lasconic mentions, yes, if you want to add something on beat four, you need to first have something on the first three beats. That's just the way standard music notation works. If you would like to redesign MuseScore to automatically guess where you are pointing and add the leading rests for you, then indeed, that's a feature request, and MuseScore is open source, so you are free to give it a shot or to try to convince others this feature would be valuable enough that they should try to implement it. But note that neither Finale nor Sibelius work that way, and for pretty good reason, I think. And insulting everyone who ever tries to help you is not conducive to getting people to make major experimental changes to the time--honored behavior of professional notation software to satisfy your requests.

And yes, I *am* trying, but I have been trouble understanding what you are saying. I did try to add a note to beat four first, and it works - you just have to add a rest to beat three. And that's why I attempted to help you by explaining this. Sorry if that isn't the help you wanted, but it's all I can offer - helping you understand how MuseScore works so you can do the things you say you want to do. I can't help you make MuseScore do things it isn't designed to do, and don't understand why you insist on insulting me for being unable to do that. All I can do is help you understand and use the software.

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