How tall is a staff?

• Mar 14, 2020 - 18:09

This is probably a dumb question, but say I wanted to make the size of my staff to 7mm, what do I set the "staff space" (sp) to under the Page Format Dialogue?

Is the size of a (5-line) staff 4sp? (The 4 "spaces")
Or is it 5sp? (The 5 "lines")
Or something else?

Thanks!
-- Morgan Resendes


Comments

Staff space is literally that - the size of the spaces between staff lines. So assuming a five line staff, there are four spaces, so four times the sp value is the staff height. Although, I'm not totally sure how the thickness of the staff lines is accounted for. I believe the staff space is measured from the vertical center of one line to the vertical center of the next, so increasing the thickness of staff lines doesn't affect the interior dimensions of the staff, but half the thickness of the staff line extends above and below that (and two halves make one whole). So technically, the height of a staff is four times the sp value plus the thickness of a staff line (as per Format / Style / Measure / Staff line thickness), if that distinction matters.

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