Remove dotted rythm

• Apr 9, 2019 - 13:00

Is there an efficient way to remove a dotted rhythm in MuseScore? What I'm doing is this:

  1. Select the first note
  2. Remove its dot
  3. Deselect the first note (necessary for the next step to work reliably)
  4. Shift-select the following note (with its lyric, in a box)
  5. Cut
  6. Paste over the new rest made by 2.
  7. De-select the pasted note
  8. Re-select the pasted note (yes, necessary -- to remove the box)
  9. Double the length of the pasted note

That's a total of 9 clicks/keystrokes to achieve what is effectively a single edit. Am I missing something? I've dozens of these to do

(BTW, none of that works on multiply-selected notes or instances; they have to be done one at a time.)

(BBTW, after that operation the lyric on the first note is sometimes displaced to the right (despite X: 0.00sp). The only fix there seems to be to select the lyric and Ctrl-X/Ctrl-V it back onto its own note -- yet more clicks and keystrokes.)


Comments

My procedure looks like this:

  1. Select the dotted note;
  2. press "." to remove the dot (a rest appears in its place);
  3. press "N" to enter Note input Mode (the pen in the top-left lights up);
  4. select the short note;
  5. press Shift+ArrowLeft to move the short note to the space of the rest (must be same duration for them to switch their positions);
  6. press "N" again to exit Note Input Mode (the Pen icon goes dull again);
  7. change note duration of the short note to the longer value (this consumes the rest that has shifted to the right).

This also works with lyrics, no need to select them, just manipulate the notes.

I'm guessing that you have have a type of specific scenario in mind, like converting a dotted quarter transformed to a half note.

If so then, in the simplest of situations, you can:

    1) select the dotted quarter
    2) click the half note duration icon in the main toolbar

I see that there's likely some added complexity when lyrics are involved.

Can you post an example score with measures showing before and after?

scorster

In reply to by The Tango Guy

Ah ... a very clear explanation.

So in example 4 (in the attached image):

a) you want the last 1/8 note moved leftward "into" the rest
b) you want the note's face value duration set a quarter note— just like the initial measure.

I've been in this situation many times. I select the final note, cut, select the rest, paste, set the duration to a quarter. Tedious indeed.

I'd like to see a function that nudges the temporal position of either "note edge".

Let's say the proposed Note Edge Nudge (leftward) was assigned to a f15 function key, then you could select the final note in your example, and a single f15 press would provide the solution. (And NEN is a pretty decent acronym!) The user would just need a setting that defines the distance the note edge will move. Of course that actually means increasing the note's written duration ... and accomplishing that with the least amount of ties.

Thanks, seems we're on the same page here!

I found this old thread via a Google search for something like an automatic function or plugin. I would call it "De-syncopate" or something like that! But it doesn't seem to exist yet.

Also, I wanted to point out that you can shift notes and rests in Note Input Mode if the notes and rests have the same duration. In Note Input Mode, Shift+ArrowLeft/Right moves notes around within the current bar. Not many seem to know about it.

If you want to move more than one note, change all note in a bar to let's say 8ths, and then do this Shift+Arrow thing. The handbook describes it here:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/editing-notes-and-rests#moving-note…

There is also a bunch of other Shortcuts you can use to avoid cut&paste:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/editing-notes-and-rests#making-chan…

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