Decrease measure strech

• Apr 26, 2017 - 00:11

Greetings!

I have read several earlier forums on this topic as well as consulted the handbook but can no longer decrease the stretch of a measure. Please see the attached score. Thank you very much!

Attachment Size
Stretch Inquiry.mscz 8.09 KB

Comments

Since you have one measure with a Line Break you can take all the stretch there ever was out and it will still take up an entire line. Remove the Line Break at the end of the measure.

In reply to by mike320

Sincere thanks, Mike, for your prompt and helpful reply.

Unfortunately, I do have other measures I want on separate lines, thus the reason for inserting a line break.

For example, I have two or three alternative voicings/melodies for a particular measure and I would like them each on a separate line so I can easily spot them when I am playing through a piece more than once. Or, I may have two or three alternative endings that I can more easily spot if I have them each on different lines. I put these alternative measures on a separate page and not within the score - like adding an addendum page to a 4 page score.

The shift + } command used to do this for me even with line breaks but no more.

Is there anything else you think I can try?

In reply to by Megan R

If you want only one measure taking up part of the line, then insert a Horizontal frame before the next measure. Delete the line break you have now and add it to the horizontal frame. You can then either double click frame and "drag" the blue square on the right side of it to expand it or use the inspector to increase its width.

If you can't see the horizontal frame, then check Show Unprintable in the View menu.

There was obviously more to the other scores where reducing the stretch worked, so the context would help to give you any more alternatives.

In reply to by Megan R

The { command works the same as it always has. The programmers have done nothing to change it. There was obviously something else involved that you are not mentioning or perhaps not remembering that allowed you to use it. For the { command to work there at least needs to be more than one measure between line breaks.

In reply to by mike320

Knowing that there has to be more than one measure to use the "shift +}" command helps, as did starting with a fresh test score. Other than using the above mention command when writing those original decreased stretched measures many months ago, I really do not recall having to do anything else but I will remember your instructions and use them in the future.

Thanks again, Mike.

In reply to by Megan R

It's definitely the case that if a line other than the last line of the piece has only a single measure on it and there is a line break after that measure, decreasing stretch does not have any visible effect, nor has there ever been a release of MuseScore where it was any different. It would be very non-standard in music for any line to end before the right margin, *except* the last line of the piece, and that is why creating that non-standard effect requires deliberate action - inserting a frame - and doesn't just happen any old time you reduce stretch.

In reply to by xavierjazz

A more direct way to disable the automatic fill-to-right-margin for a given system? Yes, I could see this having value.

Although, every so often some feature or other gets discussed in which it seems at first we are talking about something that applies to a "system" but would really need to apply to individual measures, since measures can freely move between systems. This seems like another example. One might think, I want this particular system to not be filled to the right. But if a formatting change somewhere earlier in the score causes the line breaks to change, then the notion of what constitutes "this system" gets fuzzier.

So I think it makes more sense to tie this idea to a specific measure. For instance, it could be a new type of line break you add to a measure. It would say, end the line here *and* don't fill to the right. Actually, it could be a regular line break, but properties you set in the Inspector.

Other things that might make sense to implement this way:

- a line break that says, "don't hide empty staves on this system" even with hide empty staves turned on (or, *do*, if it is turned off)
- a property you can add to a measure to say, don't consider this measure empty for the purpose of hide empty staves
- a way to drag a measure up or down to basically automatically add a spacer and increase or decrease the distance above or below that system (we can already do this to change spacing *within* systems)

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