Removing auto-added rests - rhythm adjustment

• Jul 21, 2019 - 17:00

Hi.
I'm new to Musescore and am using it to compose my first tune. I've created an outline tune and wanted to change the rhythm by making some crotchets dotted. When I do that I automatically get a quaver rest added to the bar immediately after the dotted crotchet, which bumps a quaver into the next bar (by splitting the last crotchet in the bar).
I'm looking for a way to remove that rest so that I can adjust the note-values of the whole bar myself. Is that possible?


Comments

The basic note entry in MuseScore has the philosophy that every measure (bar in the UK) has the number of beats indicated by the time signature and the user wants to keep this. Having said that, MuseScore is not adding any rests when you change the duration of a note, it simply replaces rests with notes and notes with rests.

It sounds to me that it would be easiest to simply reenter the measure since the rhythm is changing in ways that are not easy to adjust later. If you show a before and after example I, or someone, might come up with a good workflow.

I think you might be a little confused about what is happening To be clear: nothing you do will ever move a note to the next bar. And adding a dot to a note will not add any new rests - on the contrary, it steals time from the next note or rest, but leaves everything else at the same time position. Changing a minim to a crotchet will, however, add a corresponding rest to avoid unintended side effects like notes you didn't touch suddenly changing their time positions.

If you attach your score and describe what you are trying to do in more detail, we can assist better.

I have been struggling to replicate this issue in a new demo score. I have discovered that my problem is related to the link between lyrics and notes. When there are no lyrics, everything works as described, and indeed, as you'd expect. When there are lyrics, however, the situation becomes more complicated and the system appears to try to balance the syllable count with the beats in the bar, hence the un-movable rests. Deleting the lyrics, getting the note-values adjusted, and re-inserting the lyrics seems to restore order.
Thank you for the explanations, though. I found them both clear and helpful.

In reply to by daveuk

Actually, the presence of lyrics do not affect what happens to notes in any way, but I suspect you were noticing the other way around - how the changes to the notes affected the lyrics. It's not that there is any special attempt to balance anything, it just that lyrics stay with their notes where possible even though this may no longer make sense. And this does indeed mean sometimes you need to re-enter lyrics.

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