Automatic pagebreak after at least 4 paused bars
Hi, in Sibelius the user can define several conditions, under which automatic page breaks in parts are realized. For example only after at least 4 paused bars and when the page is at least 60% filled. This helps the musician to have enough time to turn the page in concert and rehearsal. Are similar layout presettings possible in Musescore ? (Already requested in forum https://musescore.org/en/comment/808143#comment-808143).
Comments
Nothing like this currently. To me, this gets into serious AI territory and I have my doubts over whether it could ever work well enough to be worth the effort. In any case, it would be simple enough to write a plugin or tool that can examine a finished score and insert page breaks in relevant places on command. I'd be more comfortable with that approach than with something that does this automatically on the fly.
In reply to Nothing like this currently… by Marc Sabatella
Running this only on demand and not automatically is fine. Many user wont need it anyway. Btw: What is "AI territory" ?
In reply to Running this only on demand… by Legolas1309
AI=Artificial Intelligence
In reply to Running this only on demand… by Legolas1309
And I say that not because it takes AI to locate 4 empty bars, but because that's not nearly enough information to go by in deciding where to place page breaks. After all, what if there are no empty measures at all? You also need to take into consider how dense the music is when deciding how many measures per system to place, or how many systems per page. Also you may need to simply find an "easy" passage for the page turn. But you also need to balance how the placement of the page break on one page influences things on the following pages. It's really much more an art than a science, to the point where a couple of minutes of human time is almost always guaranteed to produce better results than any computer algorithm yet devised.
In reply to And I say that not because… by Marc Sabatella
I can only agree with this. Having done quite a bit of page turn optimizing I can say that this is true. For most instruments a 4 measure rest within plausible range from the end of the page is a hardly encountered luxury. String players have to consider themselves lucky to have one or even half a measure to turn pages; they don't always get even this much time in spite of the best efforts of the engravers. Trombone parts on the other hand have so many rests that there are too many of them to consider for the four measure rule. AI i now required to select the correct 4 measure rest...
In reply to I can only agree with this. … by azumbrunn
Hi all of you, thanks for your responses. Let me make my question more precise. I play the horn mainly in chamber music. My parts do have more notes and less break-bars than an orchestral horn part. I am annoyed every semester: We spend a lot of money for score and parts and I have to scan and layout them myself again, since most publishers do not take care of page turns in their parts. Up to now I always could find acceptable solutions in my horn parts. I generally prefer to realize the composer's ideas to the publisher's, who obviously don't employ playing musicians or/and are not competent to use a music notation software. In this point I am really surprised how the publishers spurn the music (that feeds them) and how they make themselves needless (Amazon's declared goal is to take over the complete book and notes publishers).
The technical points:
- The mentioned example in Sibelius offers automatic page turns after x (you choose) break bars and the page has to be filled at least y% (you choose) . And: At the end you choose, which sign (glasses or "v.s.") is to be written, when Sibelius cannot solve the problem. So this Sibelius feature cannot solve all problems, but it spares a lot of layout time with its proposals. Of coarse, final "fine tuning" is to be done by hand.
@azumbrunn: What do you want to express with your comment. Trombone players should not waste time in reading this - it's not their problem. On the other side of the line is the piano soloist in a piano concerto: A second person is sitting nearby to turn the pages. All remaining situations are between the two extremes, yes I agree and Sibelius, any other notation software or maybe a Musescore plugin in future will not be able to solve all page turning challenges. Yes I agree.
@Marc Sabatella: How I work with this Sibelius feature: 1. step: I choose 4 break bars and look how my part looks like. If unsolvable problems occur I choose 3 break bars and rrrrt ... after 100 msec a complete new layout of the whole part is proposed ... and so on. If no acceptable solution can be found, HI (Human Intelligence) is required. For example: 3 pages have to be opened side by side or the other hornplayer can play some of my notes, while I turn page or ... or ...or.. "AI" is stupid, but quick. Lets use its advantages, but it will never leave "HI" behind.
I only know Sibelius up to now. I don't know, if this feature is the best or how other competitors deal with this. Thanks for your patience ...
In reply to Hi all of you, thanks for… by Legolas1309
What sort of publishers are you generally encountering? My experience (violin, mostly chamber music) has been that the good ones (that I trust to honor the intentions of the composer: Like Henle or the old Peters and Breitkopf & Härtel) generally do a good job on this. And it is harder in violin parts than in horn parts, even chamber music parts.
BTW if you live int the Bay Area and need a violin for the Brams trio I'll be eager to join.
In reply to What sort of publishers are… by azumbrunn
@azumbrunn: For the ensemble I play in (2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2Clarinets, 2 Horns, 2 bassoons) there are only some few classical compositions. So we play mostly transcriptions and modern music. The publishers are very small, sometimes layouted by the composer him/herself. Far away from Peters and Breitkopf & Härtel. Btw: I live in the Bay Area. Wherefrom do you know ? Is it my bayuvarian english dialect ? Or did you crack my email address ;-) ? Anyway: For Brahms I need a violinist, a pianist and a big piano ... I love this trio :-)
@ Marc Sabatella: I think, it is not so complicated. Let me explain it with an example: Every music layout program has a procedure, which layouts the notes. You can configure it with systems per page, bars per system, notes distance ... .Lets call this procedure-xyz. For example: I have a part with 10 pages, 5 page-turns at the end of page 1,3,5,7,9.
- Step1: Procedure xyz will layout 10 pages without taking care of page turns. As it does it already today.
- Step2: Page-turn addon is configured for, lets say, 4 empty bars and page filled 60% minimum.
- Step3: Page-turn addon finds 4 empty bars in the lower part of page 1 and will add an additional page-turn, which is the same, as if I entered a manual page-turn. Continue at step step4. If no acceptable page-turn can be found, page-turn addon will add a sign like "v.s." or glasses or whatsoever to inform, that no solution could be found. Jump to step5.
- Step4: Layout of page 2 - 10 has changed. Procedure xyz (alredy existing) will make a new layout for page 2 - 10. Takes 100 msec.
- Step 5: Page-turn addon looks for 4 empty bars at lower part of page 3 ... repeat the loop until end of part.
- Final Step 6: If no acceptable solution has been found, the user has to decide: Do I accept, for example, 3 empty bars and, maybe, page filled 50% minimum ? Or do I have to apply human intelligence, like (mentioned above) 3 pages on the music stand or whatsoever.
For me this does not sound very difficult, however, I am not a software engineer. Feel free to correct me, when I am wrong.
In reply to @azumbrunn: For the… by Legolas1309
Just as a quick note: It is often advantageous to start the music on page 2 of a part. The rests often seem to appear at more convenient locations that way (maybe because the first movement is mostly the longest and densest of all; also if the repeated exposition of the first movement takes up more than a page you'll get a backward page turn if your start on page 1).
In reply to @azumbrunn: For the… by Legolas1309
To me the question is not whether an algoriuthm such as you describe is difficult to implement or not. To me the issue, is it worth the effort? i have a hard time believing it would produce results good enough to significantly reduce the need to override its results manually the vast majority of the time. Feel free, though, to post some published examples showing how the results obtained by professional editors could also have been obtained by an algorithm like this.