Staff spacing.
While I love learning and using this software, I have encountered a problem that my 73 year old brain cannot seem to wrap around. I'm trying to adjust the distance between staves on each seperate page of my score with no luck. I have spent a good bit of time perusing the user's manual and tried going into the "Format" toggle...but still am unable to figure out how to do this. On a three-page score, the first page is nicely spaced but the second and third are way too far apart. Is there anyone who can help me out?
Comments
Please attach the score you are having problems with otherwise we are guessing what the problem is.
One tip that may help is to add page breaks earlier in the score to even out the number of staves on each page. See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/breaks-and-spacers
For example if you have 6 staves on page 1, 6 on page 2 and 4 on page 3 add a page break at the end of stave 5 on page 1. This will push the sixth stave onto page 2 and that probably push the current 12th stave from page 2 to page 3. Now you would have 5 in page 1, 6 on page 2 and 5 on page 3. You may want add more page breaks or put them in different places to, for example get 4 pages with 4 staves each. Final layout is always a case if fiddling with system and page breaks to get a pleasing result.
In reply to Please attach the score you… by SteveBlower
Thank you, Steve! What a marvelous help you have been. I will work with your suggestion and if I continue to have trouble, will attach a copy. I'm writing a 7-piece Christmas work for my small choir and soloists. I do so enjoy this software! I will let you know how this all pans out!
In reply to Please attach the score you… by SteveBlower
Hello again. I'm attaching a piece I'm working on for Christmas. As you can see, the first two pages seem to be spaced well. After that, however, the voices within the systems are needlessly wide apart. I need to space not only the staves from each other, but the voices within the staves. This is a short piece, yet takes up 5 pages. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
In reply to Hello again. I'm attaching a… by Olive Balla
Try this:
Select the 5th measure and press the 'Enter' key to place a system break. This will put the piano intro. on its own line, getting rid of those empty voice measures.
In reply to Try this: Select the 5th… by Jm6stringer
Super helpful. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I'll see how it works.
In reply to Hello again. I'm attaching a… by Olive Balla
You're looking at this backwards. The fact that the spaces are more widely spaced on the pages 3-5 isn't the cause of the music being spread over 5 pages - it's the result of it. In other words, MuseScor epouts as much music on a page as can physical fit. but then if that would leave some blank space, it spaces the staves out to fill the page like any professional music engraver would. In other words, even if you did go through and cram cram the staves closer together, you're not going to fit more music on the page - you'll just have weirdly crammed-together staves at the top of the page with a bunch of weird empty space at the bottom.
The only way you'll be able to get three systems onto those last pages is to have bigger paper or smaller staves. Your staff size is already pushing the small end of what's readable, but with a staff space size of 1.2 mm, you can get that down to three pages.
The suggestion of adding a system break to allow the piano intro to be a system all by itself is good and does save some space, by not requiring the first system to show all staves just for the same of that one last measure.
In reply to You're looking at this… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you, Marc. The learning curve is continuing upward. I appreciate your time and expertise.
I'll give this a try.