how to split voices

• Nov 1, 2022 - 15:13

Hello
I tried to convert a pdf into a musescore file. Great! Does work!
But there is a "but": the different instruments of the score are all converted in different "voices" for a piano.
now If I want to modify any instrument the changes are global: I just want to "spilt" these voices so I could change each voice to a specific instrument (for instance voice 1 -> trumpet; voice 6 -> tuba and so on - afterwards I can easily adapt the tune so my question is just about "splitting"- )
how to do that?
thanks (sorry I am not a native speaker of english so I hope the terms I use are correct)


Comments

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am a bit confused about terminology (in french everything is grouped as "voice" of a piano... though I agree they are represented in different staves)
but copy/paste to a different score Just does not work : you can't copy from a stave and copy it to another instrument in a different score: the results are a set of notes all mixed up and they sometimes appear over different instruments ...
exemple: I just copy the first line and then copy it : see the corresponding result
(and this is the simplest : sometimes more garbage appears...)

In reply to by sittingBugle

I'm not sure why you'd be using a different score? Just create a new instrument in the same score.

It does work to create a second score and copy to that, but you'll need to be sure to match the key & time signatures, repeats, etc.

Your picture shows something else entirely, though - it shows multiple voices. Not sure why you are changing voices, or why you are copying to a staff that already has notes? Just copy the current contents of one staff to a brand new empty instrument, no messing with voices, no pasting on top of notes that are already there. If the import resulted in some notes being in voice 2, you'll need to move them to voice 1 first though, so you do at least need to mess with voices enough to fix that. Either before or after copying.

In reply to by sittingBugle

The paste is simply preserving the voices that were already there. So if the import used voice 2, as I said, you'll need to move it to voice 1. but if you're seeing two notes at the same time after the paste, then either you selected two notes, or there were already notes there. If there were two notes in the original using multiple voices, that's where you need explode.

In general, it's usually faster to simply enter music by hand than to attempt to fix all the errors introduced during attempts to convert pictures of music (PDF files) into actual music. AI technology just isn't as sophisticated as we'd like yet. And the skills needed to enter music by hand are easily learned; the skills required to fix the complex and subtle errors introduced by bad conversions are far harder to learn.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

well the real situation is not what you describe...
this said:
- I usually enter music and use the model from the pdf as a model for instance by copying measures (but they need to be cleared)
- musescore crashes each time I try to modify this mscz file (for instance when I want to clear some staves)

In reply to by sittingBugle

MuseScore would never add notes during a copy that were not already there. if you're seeing notes after the paste, I promise they were already there in either the source or in the destination. if you have a case where you believe it is otherwise, we would need to attach the two scores (the one you are copying from and the one you are copying to) and give precise instructions to reproduce the problem (like, tell us which measures from which staff you are copying in the first score and which measure of which staff in the second score you are pasting to). Then we can help you understand where the mystery notes came from.

Similarly, if you are seeing a crash or any other unexpected behavior, we would need you to attach the score that shows the problem and give precise steps that issue as well. We're always ready to help, but we need information to be able to do so.

In reply to by sittingBugle

I have opened your file. Which measures exactly do you wish me to copy, and where exactly do I need to paste, them, and then where exactly do I need to look to see notes I shouldn't be seeing? Again, in order to help, we need precise steps to reproduce the problem.

I don't see a crash on removing staff 2, but I do notice your score reports it is corrupted, so you need to fix those problems before you can expect reasonable results. Crashes in particular are to be expected on corrupt files. See https://musescore.org/en/node/54721 for advice on that. It could be the corruption is also related to the extra notes you are seeing, although that's somewhat more doubtful.

In reply to by sittingBugle

Note that in the "copy" picture you see all those green voice 2 notes being highlighted on that bottom staff as well (and some of their beams floating on the top staff)?
That means those notes are displaced (perhaps with cross-staff notation or just Y-offsets) to look as if they're on that bottom staff, but they're not; those notes are part of the top staff. It's why they're highlighted as part of the selection and it why they're copied and pasted when giving those commands.

In reply to by jeetee

Good point, I didn't notice that! And I can see the same in the score itself - if I select bar one top staff, the notes on staff 6 get selected as well. And yet, all the offers are 0, and cross staff notation isn't normally capable of displacing things this far. So it seems the PDF conversion program just created a huge mess that MuseScore cannot deal with well.

@sittingBugle
I opened you PDF. There are indeed many problems with it. Look at the last two notes of the second measure of the top staff. There is an extra beam between them. I selected it and it belongs to voice three. I added a flute staff, and moved it to the top. Then I C + P the first three measures of the now second staff into the new staff I just added. The result is what you got. Two lines of music. Voice one and three. The extra notes are from a line further down. In the new part, I can't select and delete voice three. I can't C + P notes from the part it came from. Plus there are many other problems with this PDF conversion.
So, it isn't you. You aren't doing anything wrong.
I would be very interested in seeing your PDF. I might be able to fix it. Why? Because the suggestion that it is generally faster to input notes by hand is faster than trying to fix a bad PDF isn't true for everyone. You can choose to use this PDF as a way to learn the faster keyboard method of input. It indeed might be the best way to go. Or you can learn how to fix problems that will certainly come up down the road. Starting with a better PDF. There are a few free converters that are better than the MuseScore PDF import. Audiveris might be one piece of free software to try. If you do this a lot, paid software might be better. But we want to avoid that if we can.
Good luck.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hmmm that's the problem.
curiously this music is played by numerous brassbands in southern France but scores are just copied and exchanged between brassbands. (funily the original score of this "spanish" music -it's a paso-doble - was written by a frenchman : Laurent Delbecq ...but I didn't find this original score).
So now I am trying to adapt it for a fairly small brassband

In reply to by sittingBugle

See if you can work with this file. I opened page one in my PDF tool. Then exported as a Music xml without fixing any of the numerous problems. Then I opened it in MuseScore and fixed lack of repeat sign at the beginning. But that's it. As you change Staff Properties for each line, you may need to fix octaves and keys.
But in general, this is a poor, jumbled, PDF to have to work from.

Attachment Size
ARAGONA 1.1. page.mscz 23.32 KB

Looking at your pdf file, you may have beter results with an OMR (optical music reader like Audeveris) by separating the pdf file into the parts and submitting each part separately to be converted.
The OMR has to convert "blobs of ink" into understandable music notation.
The "blobs of ink" on the full score are more densely packed compared to the parts:
Parts.png
When many noteheads touch each other, they can appear like a thick line to the OMR rather than individual notes. Barlines too close to, or even overlapping, note stems add to the recognition/conversion difficulty, as does resolution (dpi). etc.

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