Getting Musescore to correct bar length
I am attempting to produce my first score in Musescore 3. The piece in 4/4 begins with a crotchet on the fourth beat. Somehow I have done something to make Musescore make this opening bar two beats long, rather than four as are the bars throughout the rest of the (very simple) piece. I have been unable to rectify it by inserting extra rests - when I do, the existing rest and crotchet in bar 1 are pushed into the following bar and overwrite the notes (and lyrics) already there. I notice that Musescore is showing a small grey rectangle above the troublesome bar, in both treble and bass staves.
I need to include a regular opening four-beat bar since the music involves a repeat ie back to bar 1. I have seen an earlier response to someone who had a similar problem which talked about dealing with corrupt files etc but I doubt that is relevant here: I have not incorporated any pre-existing material, only made the blank score according to the manual and entered notes via both mouse and keyboard method. All has gone swimmingly, apart from this problem.
Hoping someone out there may have a simple solution!
Thanks for your time.
Joe
Comments
See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/measure-operations#duration
In reply to See https://musescore.org/en… by Jojo-Schmitz
Many thanks Jojo. I have solved my problem with your help, tho will take a bit longer to master the handling of opening bars: I found the system continued to change the actual number of beats as I added rests etc. But I'm a rank beginner and have time to learn what I need.
In reply to Many thanks Jojo. I have… by joedthwaites
You wrote "I found the system continued to change the actual number of beats as I added rests etc."
It seems you are probably in insert note mode. That should only be used when you actually want to lengthen bars (for a cadenza for example). Most of the time you should use the default "step time" note entry mode, then MuseScore will maintain the bar length according to the key signature. See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/note-input#note-input-modes
If you have time to learn, I suggest you use some of that time to read the rest of the handbook. You will find out what MuseScore can do and where to go (the handbook) to remind yourself of how to do something when you need it. In fact even if you don't have time to learn, reading the handbook once through will save time in the long run.