Is it possible to make this in MuseScore?

• Feb 18, 2023 - 13:32

I have a little hobby project where I'm recreating my physical sheets in MuseScore so I can have them available digitally and not have to bother with physical sheet music at my piano. However, I've gotten stuck with this one particular score. This is the first measure:

Screenshot 2023-02-18 141940.png

So, as far as I can tell from this, the composer has split the score into three separate voices, where the top one is played in the right hand, the bottom is played in the left hand, and the middle one is alternately played by both hands. The voices represent the distinct parts of the score, while the staves represent which notes are played by which hand. I might be wrong, but here's how I see the voices:

labeled.png

Here are the issues I'm having:
1. I haven't been able to find a way to have one note of voice 1 in the bass staff while still connecting all the eight notes with seamless beams.

  1. I've found no way to split the voices like this without having a lot more rests than the score. He just has a eight rest to lead in to the second voice, and another eight rest where the first voice has a note in the bass staff. When I do it I get a dotted quarter rest before the voice 1 note in the bass staff, and a regular quarter rest after it. In his version he achieves the same by just having that note have an upwards stem in addition to the one connecting it to the beam, but I can't find a way to do something like this myself.

  2. The singular note in the third voice is also supposed to be held throughout the second measure. I assume his con pedale marking is what's doing this, but it seems in musescore the only way to achieve this is to tie to dotted half notes. This isn't a big issue, but I still think his version looks cleaner, so if it's possible I'd like to do that.

The voices become more important later in the score, so I kind of have to do this using three separate voices. So, is this achievable in MuseScore? Or will I have to adapt it?

Comments

• Feb 18, 2023 - 15:28

"You mean it was suggested to you in this thread?"
The part that "I can tell", isn't that there are three voices. As you say, I learned that from the other thread. What I personally figured out, is how the staves and voices are used to distinguish discrete parts and which hands should play what. And that this is why the bass clef has a note that belongs to the top voice.

When you quote someone you kind of have to quote the entire thing they said. Cutting out a lot of it changes its meaning, so you're essentially attempting a "gotcha" for a statement I never made. In the other post I said I decided to just simplify it to two voices and deleting the rest, but I later figured out this didn't work for other parts of the score, and that some rests couldn't be deleted. So here I am trying the three voice approach, and struggling to make it work. New problem, new post, even if it's about the same subject. At least that's what makes the most sense to me.

"Are those images copies of the original or your attempts in MuseScore? I find the whole note starting on the 4th eighth-note beat a bid odd"
They're copies of the original! I'm not quite sure what note you're referring to when you mention a whole note starting on the 4th eighth-note beat, though. I only see eight-notes and a half-note, and the half-note starts on the first eight-note beat as far as I can tell.

Reply

• Feb 18, 2023 - 16:24

To answer your question, yes, it is possible. Nothing adding some beams, hiding some rests, and multiple voices can't solve. The oddest thing was the short tie (or is a slur?) in the bass clef, but that was not difficult. See attachment.

That said, if I were looking at this as an editor, there are several changes I would make. First among them is the half-note in the bass clef with the short tie/slur. I can't think of any reason not to make this a dotted half-note since we're in 3/4, and the tie/slur just adds noise to the score. There are ways of notating this that would be simpler and clearer, and I don't think it needs to stay as it is.

Attachment Size
Example.mscz 24.8 KB

Reply

• Feb 18, 2023 - 16:35

Right, thanks! And yes, I was considering doing the half not as a tied dotted note (as it's supposed to be held throughout the second measure as well). It's a change that to me reads better without adding much clutter.

I really like how clean the beams look though, so that's mainly what I wanted to replicate. I see you solved it by keeping the bass clef top voice note as part of the second voice, which in hindsight makes total sense. It doesn't need to be in the first voice in the actual software file, as long as I can add the upward stem to show that it belongs to the first voice.

Thanks, this was very helpful!

Reply

• Feb 18, 2023 - 19:03

Ah yes, sorry, my bad! I did mean the eighth rest. I've tried playing around with those settings, but nothing I do seems to work. I've tried selecting all five notes, just the note before the rest, just the note after the rest, both the note before and after the rest. No matter which beam settings I choose, I can never seem to connect the two notes before and after the rest. The best I can do is connecting the three notes before the rest and the two after like this:

Screenshot 2023-02-18 200304.png

Reply

• Feb 18, 2023 - 23:34

re1 and 2:

> seamless beams.

what is seamless beams? can you explain more?

I think it'd help to know musescore's voice feature and what musicians usually refer to as voices are distinct and separate concepts. The handbook 3 voices page is recently updated to explain the difference more clearly.

Musicians say voice they refer to SATB etc, they are pitch/tone based, and mainly serves for partwriting/voice leading purpose. Each instrument/vocal part can be represented by unlimited voices, and that instrument/vocal can have one or more than one staffs. eg in an closed SATB, there are two staffs, a T note written on a beat without a S or A note is perfectly fine.
Stem direction : T is usually written on the top part of the Bass clef, stem direction pointing up.

Musescore does not have a feature for you to input voices data and manipulate for you intelligently per se, it is a software that aims to mainly allow creation of visually sensible engraving and create acceptable playback.

Musescore's voice is a software feature, each staff that contains a clef has exactly 4 voices. Unrelated to number of staffs one instrument/vocal part has. Voice 1 is like the ground floor of a multifloor building, v2-4 is like the high floors. Using v2-4 without v1 on either one beat is not recommended, ie writing v3 note on any beat without v1 note is not good. see handbook beginner's pitfalls.
On this basis , working measure by measure, select which note to notate on v1 accordingly, I wouldn't use musescore's v2 and v3 on bass clef wihtout v1 as on shown your colored image.
Stem direction : automatically chosen, but when they are against how you wish, as they often do in complex scores like in your case, change them manually by using the "direction" property, or tapping keyboard "X".
Hide rests: Unused v2-4 are automatically hidden unless you write notes or rests on them. v1 is usually not hidden as it's the foundation of a sensible engraving . When v2-4's content are displayed against your wish, you can always make them invisible by unchecking "visible" or sometimes simply deleting them. invisibles won't print out , unchecking "view>show invisble" to hide them on computer screen.

agree with @underquark in that the 4th eighth-note beat is odd and can confuse a reallife pianist.

re 2: use palette to change "the beam of rest" like @chrismassa1 suggested

re 3: pls try uncheck "visible" on notes/dots/tie etc

Reply

• Feb 18, 2023 - 23:56

When I say seamless beams I literally just mean a beam that is continuous, as in, there's no gap in it. If you compare screenshots of what I've done with what I posted in the original, you'll see that where the original has one beam across the 5 notes and eight rest of the measure, my version has two beams. One across the first three eight notes, and one across the last two. The eighth rest splits them.

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.