Can my scores be salvaged?
Two scores of mine have befallen unfortunate fates, the first score can't open, and the second score behaves strangely upon opening. The circumstances are as follows.
1.While writing the first score, I had a game open in another window. Both MuseScore 3 and the game were open, when my computer decided to bluescreen and restart. Every attempt to open this score since then has not been successful. Scherzo Brillante in D flat maggiore.mscz
2.The second score is a copy of Franz Liszt's Eine Faust-Symphonie (first movement, orchestral version). I picked the instruments and began sight-copying from the PDF to .mscz. I copied up to the "Meno mosso misterioso" part when the score called for a "divisi" in the strings. I went to "Instruments" and added new staves for the instruments that called for it. I continued copying up until a little after "Affettuoso, poco Andante" until I noticed that some key signatures were missing on the new staves I added, so I adjusted accordingly. The result of this is that every time I open the score now, the notes on the First and Second Horns (I & II) behave weirdly and shift pitches every time I open the score after saving & exiting the app, but they only behave weirdly beginning after "Affettuoso," (some C notes are notated an octave lower and the notes altogether sound the wrong notes.) The measures before "Affettuoso" appear to be fine, but when I correct the notes after "Affettuoso" and save & exit, the notes become incorrect again and act weird when I try to alt+shift the notes, which can be corrected by MIDI input, but then become incorrect again upon saving & exiting. Is there any hope for my scores? Liszt Eine_Faust-Symphonie.mscz
Comments
I should note that I disabled Auto-backup a while before these occurred, which in retrospect was quite unwise.
In reply to I should note that I… by jeronjoseph
One more thing I forgot to add, is that there is an instrument change in the Horns some pages after "Meno mosso misterioso" which is written as "alle Horner wechseln in E" which may have contributed to the bug.
For Scherzo Brillante in D flat maggiore.mscz see #271185: Scores corrupted beyond repair, containing nothing but zeros :-(
I don't see anything wrong with Liszt Eine_Faust-Symphonie.mscz
In reply to I don't see anything wrong… by Jojo-Schmitz
Would you mind saving a copy of my .mscz and linking it? It might open correctly for me if it opens correctly for you. For comparison, here's the results I'm getting when I open my .mscz.
The IMSLP PDF:
![fliszt 1 and 2 horn parts Affettuoso.JPG]( "fliszt 1 and 2 horn parts Affettuoso.JPG")
And here's my copy when it opens. You can see the lower left corner and see that the notated G in the Horns sounds as C, when it should be sounding as B, since it was transposed to E some pages before. This area is at Measure 180 if you ctrl+F.
![fliszt faust symphony mscz copy.JPG]( "fliszt faust symphony mscz copy.JPG")
In reply to Would you mind saving a copy… by jeronjoseph
edit: see https://musescore.org/en/node/334513#comment-1138877 for solution
In reply to The problem originates from… by msfp
Interesting development, I attempted to copy everything onto a new .mscz (since that was what fixed another issue in another score in which Mr. Schmitz also commented on) but that method appeared to be unable to fix the problem. I opened the new copy and the same problem popped up: some C notes notate themselves an octave lower upon opening, and the notes altogether sound the wrong notes. Perhaps I stumbled upon some super specific circumstances that lead to this bug? This could be related to key signature changes or instrument changes or some combination of both. Such a shame since I really love this symphony. Eine_Faust-Symphonie attempted copy.mscz
In reply to Interesting development, I… by jeronjoseph
Did you try use the correct Key Signature at measure 1?
In reply to Did you try use the correct… by msfp
I picked C major in the New Score wizard, I did not add open/atonal at the first measure to the horns, trumpets, and timpani, or the succeeding key signature changes after that, but the problem persisted.
In reply to I picked C major in the New… by jeronjoseph
edit: read below
In reply to Do you have scanned score of… by msfp
for example look at measure 72
In reply to Do you have scanned score of… by msfp
I download a PDF from IMSLP and am using that as reference.
I'm not entirely sure what "wrong atonal key signature" is referring to. I picked C major in the New Score wizard and laid out the pages, time signatures, and key signatures to copy what I did before.
I laid out the key signatures before I copied the work, and after copying I put the key signatures over the ones I already put just to make sure, and funnily, when I redundantly copied over the C major key signature at "Meno mosso misterioso" with another C major key signature change, the instrument change to E in the horns changed the resulting key signature from E flat to D flat. It fixed the one measure in the Horns before "Affettuoso," but the measures after "Affettuoso" that are still broken.
In reply to Did you try use the correct… by msfp
I suppose Liszt intended the beginning to be chromatic by using augmented chords. There are no accidentals at the beginning of the PDF to indicate any key signature.
In reply to I suppose Liszt intended the… by jeronjoseph
I think you are correct in musical theory sense, I once did something like this and regret.
Musescore's internal programming use tonality(Major and minor) to calculate DO RE ME and transpose. Using the Atonal Key Signature will mess up transposition, which you use later in Horn. I do not use that Key signature and I do not understand why it exists.
For that score I messed up, I ended up start a new one instead of correcting key signatures and notes, you have to try your luck .
In reply to I think you are correct in… by msfp
See my other comment - it's absoutely correct to use open key signatures for horns, which historically are notated without key signatures at all. MuseScore handles the instrument transpositions correctly - the notes are transposed according to the interval of transposition defined for the instrument, but the key signature is not. This is all exactly as it should be.
In reply to See my other comment - it's… by Marc Sabatella
Well, guys, it looks like the "issue/bug" for the Horns was just my lack of observation. I found the culprit. The 4 Horns were grouped onto two staves. At some point, I added an instrument change in place faithful to the PDF. It turns out the instrument change should not have been on the bottom of the two staves, it should've been the top staff. I appreciate you guys' input on the Faust score.
In reply to Well, guys, it looks like… by jeronjoseph
Good to hear! must've blamed the wrong guy then. It's nice to know all those work didn't end up wasted. love this piece still remember the happiness when I found a ?two? piano transcription earlier on musescore.com (nowhere to be found now). so much easier to analyze harmony digitally on a section interested me then. Wow that imslp pdf has 338 pages, how much time you've spent on this so far?
In reply to Good to hear! must've blamed… by msfp
I'm not usually one to keep track of how long my copies take. I only remember the amount of time that my copy of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor took, and that was ~5 weeks, with some days' breaks included because my shoulders were burning some days. Mind you, I was copying virtually all day for that score, and the score included a piano with some lively chords and no shortage of arpeggios. The symphonic scores, not including a piano, I have a less hard time with because it's usually two notes to a part, not including some of the stops in the strings.
I've learned to pace myself because jumping back between two scores with my eyes for a lot of the day doesn't really make my brain comfortable, but I'm managing that. So I guess I've been doing 1-3 hours of copying each day with the Faust score when I'm not doing anything else.
In reply to Interesting development, I… by jeronjoseph
I should add that I didn't copy the measures starting from one measure before "Affettuoso," so they can be freshly notated and saved, but upon exiting and opening the score again, the problem once again emerged.
EDIT: missing word.
But see also How to recover a backup copy of a score
I'm not sure why your score has Atonal Key Signature, I didn't mean to accuse you, I believe you did not add it. I save your score as .mscx and open as plaintext and see it is there. I messed up my score once, I'm pretty sure I did not click it too. I hope everyone refrain from using that signature.
Try this Eine_Faust-Symphonie fix 2.mscz
If you are interested in making a truthful transcription(place key signatures where Liszt intended) and save Faust from his curse, this is my way of doing it (@jeronjoseph: At the time of writing I'm confident of this approach because it works for me. But now that Marc Sabatella pitch in, his opinion makes me think again, While I'm wrapping me head around how to notate transposing instrument properly, you should ask for his opinion about usage of Atonal Key Signature. He is a developer and designer from the company, I'm just a user, you should definitely listen to his opinion first)
(I'm not good at transposing so you can see my stupid trial and error doing this, my fix I did Horn Trumpet Tuba Paukan, plz check, I may miss )
(natural still remain in this gif coz it's demo to show you, I save time by going back, when you do it, always start from beginning measure 1, check the mscz it's gone)
In reply to I'm not sure why your score… by msfp
To be clear: open/atonal key signatures definitely have a purpose and they work well for that purpose. People shouldn't refrain from using them - only, refrain from using them if they really mean C major.
Open/atonal key signatures are the norm in atonal music (hence the name), where you don't want a key signature even when transposed, as it would create the illusion of a key that does not exist and would likely lead to reading errors as it makes it harder to track the accidentals. Open/atonal key signatures are also very common in music that isn't atonal but simply doesn't have a clear or consistent enough sense of key for key signature to be helpful. And, historically, they are normally used for horns - even in music with a very clear center that is indicated with a key signature for all other instruments, horns are normally notated with no key signature. To create this effect - a different key for horns than everyone else - you need to press Ctrl while adding the key signature. Similar for timpani. Sometimes also for trumpets.
So it's actually quite correct if this particular score uses the open/atonal key signature for these instruments.
I haven't had to occasion to use MuseScore lately so this comment may be out of date. The software has had the problem where files get corrupted and people lose work, at least until they read the handbook which describes where the backup is kept. But sometimes the backup was corrupted.
It happened to others so much that I adopted my own backup scheme. I kept my filenames with a version number at the end: mymusic-v1.mscz, mymusic-v2.mscz, etc. The version got bumped up whenever I did significant work. I kept all versions until I completely finished with the piece.
And I kept a backup copy of all this in the cloud.
Or at least tried to.