"Make into system" command?
Hey guys—I've been quite enjoying MuseScore since I migrated from my old Sibelius 6. (When Avid did away with menus, they lost me as an upgrader.)
I've been finding almost everything I need, but currently one thing evades me:
In a two-bar system of piano music, I changed an 8th note to two 16ths, causing the second bar to jump to the next system. (It was quite a surprise, as the spacing was quite relaxed.)
In Sibelius, I would've simply selected the two bars and used the "Make into system" command (Alt+Shift+M) and the system would've been restored, applying spacing equally to both bars.
I couldn't find anything similar in the MS manual, or even anything about choosing the number of bars in a system.
So I looked online and eventually learned I could use the "compress" command, { (left curly brace) to shrink the first bar just enough to coax the second one back into the system.
Does MS have something equivalent to "Make into system", though? If not, have you considered it? It seems like it'd be very useful and often used, when you don't need or want to fuss with individual bars' spacing. Thanks!
Comments
You can use the { shortcut on the affected measures to reduce stretch. Preferably on both measures, not just the 1st.
""Make into system" command?"
That sounds to me exactly like a System Break in MuseScore:
https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/breaks-and-spacers
It's not out of the question that something like that would be added someday. but note, word processors don't work that way, and actually, for good reason. The problem with such a command - and it's a problem in Sibelius or any other program that tries to do this - is that there are a whole lot of factors that go into deciding how many measures can fit, a lot of different spacing settings that can potentially be adjusted. And it's also not clear what that command should do in cases where you try something ridiculous like putting 117 measures on a single system. So even if a program is providing a single command that means "I trust you to figure out which settings to adjust to make these fit, and I trust your decision as to what to do if that results in notes physically overlapping each other", that's a lot of trust you're putting in the program to make decisions for you.
Personally, I find it simpler to set spacing and minimum note distance (in Format / Style / Measure) to very low values - the tightest spacing I can tolerate - and then just add breaks as desired.
In reply to It's not out of the question… by Marc Sabatella
Marc Sabatella > It's not out of the question that something like that would be added someday. but note, word processors don't work that way, and actually, for good reason.
But proportional fonts are much different from music notation. Fonts have embedded kerning tables that contain all possible character pairs, so optimal spacing is predefined. (That's why it cracks me up when people manually double-space sentences.)
By contrast, music is always different—you can't possibly predefine spacing for all the combinations of adjacent notes and rests that can occur. And spacing algorithms obviously have a long way to go before they can create truly balanced, beautiful music without human adjustment.
Marc Sabatella > The problem with such a command - and it's a problem in Sibelius or any other program that tries to do this - is that there are a whole lot of factors that go into deciding how many measures can fit...
I find that, in general, MS leaves more space than necessary between notes—especially where accidentals occur, as it doesn't take into account how high or low those notes are, and insists on extra leading space before accidentals that aren't near the objects preceding them (and thus don't need the space). See my respacing example here:
https://musescore.org/en/node/326299
That's why I often wish MS would allow me to adjust horizontal spacing more freely. (It often won't let me move notes or rests to the left at all!) If I could do that, I could easily fit my music onto fewer systems (and thus, fewer pages) with an increase in legibility, if anything!
In reply to Marc Sabatella > It's not… by Andy Fielding
MuseScore 4 will have an improved note spacing algorithm that no longer adds unnecessary space for accidentals in measures that don't need it. I'm very excited about that!
Meanwhile, though, making manual adjustments is possible and if you're having difficulty, please attach your actual score (pictures aren't very useful) and describe the specific issue in more detail. Then we can understand and assist better.
And those of us who learned to type back with manual typewriters before these fancy computer fonts with their proportional spacing and kerning - old habits die hard. I know two spaces between sentences is how the young folk do it, but it's too much effort for me to break the habit, for too little gain, with too man other things to worry about instead.