Hiding key signatures

• Dec 8, 2021 - 13:31

Is there a way to hide the key signature in the second and third systems? If I make one invisible, they all become invisible—and I didn't see Hide Key Signature in Staff Properties.

Thanks! <3

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Comments

You're asking about the 2nd and 3rd staff/staves NOT systems. The system is the name for all staves that play at the same time: The score file you shared consists of 2 systems, both of them containing 5 staves.

Just like you've unchecked show clef/time signature/barlines in the staff/part properties; you can also uncheck show key signatures there if you open up the "advanced" dialog there.

In reply to by jeetee

Thanks for the tip about being able to hide Key Signatures under Advanced.

What I really wanted, though, was to only hide it on "subsequent" staves (after the first one or any key change). Is there no way to do that? Don't people do that to save space and simplify the display in a way that doesn't completely delete that information from the score?

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Perfect, thanks!

Understanding how MuseScore thinks of "scope" is something I need more familiarity with. I guess since we're talking about multiple systems, the previous approach wouldn't apply. Of course, I'm not talking about "Pages" per se, either, since this setting applies across multiple pages. It's really about the Score in this case, though the setting is not on that panel. Maybe I have more to learn.

In reply to by reggoboy

It's something you sometimes used to see with handwritten charts back in the old days before notation software, not so much to save space as to simplify the process of drawing in equidistant barlines. Which was itself something done in the pre-software days just to simplify the process of spacing notes accurately across the page.

These days, such hacks are not needed. And the amount of space saved is almost never worth the amount of wrong notes produced by people reading music without proper key signatures. So I wouldn't recommend it unless you're working for a publisher that specializes in reproducing handwritten fakebooks and thus requires it.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for the reply.

I argue that it has valid use cases. I have a few scores I've worked on this week in Db, which have 5 flats. They are lead sheets with just slash notation. So there are no notes to read (and get wrong), just chord symbols. What is important, however, is to try minimize the # of pages: preferably 1, or 2 max. And since there is only one staff per system, you can fit a lot of systems on a page. But since there are 5 flats hogging up space on each system, removing the key (and time) signatures can make a huge difference in the ability to fit things onto one page. And frankly, it's less clutter and more readable.

Glad I learned how to use this! Thanks again!

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Re: a single beginning key signature on scores with just chords and no notes.

There exist folk guitar "chord strummers" gifted with great singing voices (not me) who only need/use a basic set of chord "fretboard fingerings". Some look to the key signature to figure out on which fret to place their capo so they can "play along" (transposing the chord symbols if needed).
(Ah... the good ol' days of coffeehouse "open mic night" :-)

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