Problems with symbols in individual instrument parts

• Mar 19, 2018 - 09:56

I inserted some breath marks in my score as symbols in my full score, but their positions moved when I created individual instrument parts.
score.jpg
In the figure above on the left, I used Clarinet 1 as an example. I inserted two commas in the full score in bar 2 (red circle) and bar 4 (blue circle). I adjusted their positions so that they touch the first line of the stave. Positions are adjusted with reference to the note that follows.
But when I created individual parts, the positions of the commas changed randomly, as shown in the corresponding positions of the red circle and the blue circle in the figure on the right. Though the positions of the notes following those commas are not changed at all, this change happens to every comma in every part.
How can I fix this problem? Do I have to adjust the position of every comma in every part?
Thank you!


Comments

Symbols are indeed treated as 'images' and can have different positional information in a part. Symbols are always relative to the notehead position

If you however insert real breath markings (under Breaths & Spacers palette in the advanced workspace), you wouldn't have this issue at all. You could even have them generate a pause on playback by using the relevant property in the Inspector

As mentioned, using breath marks solves the poroblem much better. But for the record, it is true that manual adjustments to positions in the score do not get propagated to the parts. Sometimes the same adjustment might make sense, but very often it would not, because the reason for the manual adjustment might not exist in the part (eg, a marking colliding with a staff below, or something due to the number of measures on a system or where the line break is, or any of a bunch of other things that will normally differ.

Thanks all! The reason for me to use symbol is, I want this particular shape for my breath marks, but when I select and insert it in the breath marks in the breath and pauses palette, it automatically becomes much thinner and less appealing.

In reply to by Raymond Cheung WM

In general, I strongly advise against deliberately avoiding standard notations just for personal preference. Much about how MuseScore lays things out depends on using the correct notation in the first place; this also applies to playback, export to other formats, etc. For instance, MuseScore does special processing to allocate extra space around breath marks, to position them properly and align them between staves, etc, to affect playback, and to export MusicXML - none of which happens if you circumvent this by using ordinary symbols. Plus, while you might like the thicker breath marks, this is subjective, and others may well prefer the defaults. It is almost never worth the effort and penalties associated with these sorts of hacks.

The font used by default in MuseScore is consistent with how many publishers do things, but indeed, if you prefer a different look, feel free to try one of the other fonts. As a last resort if you find you prefer the default font for most things but just can't abide the thinner breath marks, you could consider adding the breath mark, marking it invisible, then attaching the symbol and moving it into position.

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