Section break with repeat and no delay on the first pass
On a score with several movements separated with section breaks, if a pause is configured before playback of the next section, how is it possible to avoid the pause the first time if the section ends with a repeat? I have tried to add a first and second ending with the break after the second time, but since they are identical, it is not correct. So I have tried to make the second ending invisible, which works, but unlike what happens when other elements are made invisible, the free space is not reused, making the staff shorter.
Is there another way to achieve the same result or a way to make the staff longer?
I include two examples, one with the visible second ending and one with the second ending made invisible, showing the shorter staff, at the last measure of the second movement on page 3.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| VIIIe Sonate.mscz | 43.87 KB |
| VIIIe Sonate_2.mscz | 43.9 KB |
Comments
Known issue, see #32696: Section break causes pause before repeats and jumps during playback
I don't have an answer. So you are welcome to stop reading. But I do have some thoughts.
I have used notation software for quite some time now. I long ago gave up on the idea that one score could serve as something that I could pass out to musicians and provide the playback I wanted. For what I want, it isn't possible. Not that I want anything odd. But I do want lots of expression without having to spend time adjusting velocity. I'm not interested in posting to the .com site. So I have two scores. One for musicians and one to get the playback I want.
In your case I see 3 possibilities:
1. Find a different way to simulate the look of a system break. A pause and indentation. I have no idea if that is possible.
2. Use your idea of identical endings. The musicians will get over it. Musicians are not stupid, nor do they spend time wondering about identical endings. They probably won't play them the same anyway. I imagine they will put a very slight hold on the last note. To play musically is their job after all.
3. Write out the repeat. Gasp, scandal, I know.
In reply to I don't have an answer. So… by bobjp
I agree. I already do this for Big Band scores, which I use to generate audio files that are used by some as backing tracks when learning their parts. For this, I use a second separate file with three additional measures for a countdown, because the sound used by MuseScore for the metronome countdown is horrible. I also often unfold the repeats because there are often parts that some instruments have to play one time only, or with different dynamics, such as f-ff, meaning forte the first time, and fortissimo the second time, something which seems to be missing in MuseScore.
Fo baroque music like Boismortier sonata 8, there is another problem. The first movement is normally written with a mid-measure repeat, which makes it end with a 2/8 measure, which is completed by the 4/8 first measure of the second repeat. This is obviously not how it should be played the second time, when the last note should rather be at least a dotted half, making the last measure of the movement a full 6/8 measure, and possibly even longer. In that case, the problem is entirely solved with a first and a second ending, which are different. It's not the way it's traditionally written, but it's absolutely correct. The problem is with the second movement, which has no different endings.
The solution would be very easy if we had the possibility to make a measure visually disappear like it is possible with most elements. But with a measure, although it is not displayed, we get a blank space which makes the last line shorter. Being able to make this line as long as the others would be OK, for example by allowing a line to exceed the right margin, which would put the blank space in the margin. But this doesn't seem possible.
I tried to make a part with the same two instruments, in the hope that it would be possible to have different section breaks in the main score and in parts like it is for page and line breaks. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. What is possible for lines and pages isn't for section breaks. My intention was to have a no delay section break on the "graphic" part and a 5-seconds delay section break on the audio part, but nope. Changing one automatically changes the other. Why is it possible to have a page break on a part that doesn't occur on the main score, while it's not possible for section breaks? I don't know.
Another possibility would be to have a no-delay section break immediately followed by a delayed one, but this creates an empty section (well, almost empty, since it contains only a section break) and it is not possible to have an empty section will a null height, so the result is a huge empty vertical space between the two sections.
In the end, the simplest way to get the intended result would be to allow a line to be longer than others and exceed the right margin.
Obviously, the solution is, like you say, to have two different files. The only drawback is that it wouldn't work on MuseScore.com, but who cares!
The workaround is to use replace the 2nd volta with a skipped measure with invisible and small contents (volta 0 will always be skipped in playback) and then use a negative horizontal frame to make the staff lines overlap.
See this capture of the method and attached example.
Side note: if you have jumps in your score that thus depend on a correct repeat count; you'd also need to set the play count of the invisible volta0 measure to 1 instead of the default 2 for repeats.
In reply to The workaround is to use… by jeetee
Thanks a lot! That's exactly what I was looking for. I didn't know frames could have a negative width. Nor did I know about volta 0. That's great!