Actually good engraving settings in regard to bars and lines
I don't know why but the way to set the number of bars within a line and the number of lines within a page is needlessly complex. I feel like it's important that the end-user is able to quickly create readable scores rather than the mess that is the default right now. I was hoping the engraving improvements in Musescore 4.1 would address these issues, but I was solely disappointed.
We should be able to set a maximum number of bars per line and a maximum number of lines per page (I'd suggest 4 bar's and 8 lines as default) within the styles menu (under page). This is much more intuitive than using sp numbers.
There should also be a tickbox for every bar to be of equal width rather than sized based on what is inside the bar (THIS SHOULD BE ON BY DEFAULT). Because the bars keep resizing, it is a nightmare to get them to equal size. When the bars are of equal width, they are much easier to read and looks much tidier.
On top of this, people may have lines with only one bar or two and it would be good to have a quick way to resize these bars to the same size as those in the rest of page rather than working the very janky horizontal frames (which for some reason adds to all parts; which makes them a nightmare to use), this could be controlled via the previously mentioned tickbox or via a click+drag on the rightmost barline.
I have to spend literal hours on every chart and every part score within the chart changing my scores to match these desired setting (mostly spent by pressing SHIFT + [ or ], adding in line/page breaks, fighting with the horizontal frames). I can't get it perfect however due to how bar sizing works.
I've Included an example score showing what the bars sizing/spacing should be, how less than 4 (or the maximum) bars per line should look (after adjustment) and how the staves should be spaced.
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Comments
"There should also be a tickbox for every bar to be of equal width rather than sized based on what is inside the bar (THIS SHOULD BE ON BY DEFAULT)."
Absolutely not! Sorry, but you won't find much sympathy or support for that view. Bar width varies widely in music, because the contents of a bar can rapidly fill up the space (e.g. with hemidemisemiquavers / 64th notes).
To help achieve what you are looking for you can try the following:
1. 4 bars per system: Format > Style > Bar > Minimum bar width (increase)
2. 8 systems per page: Format > Style > Page > Min. system distance (increase)
But the general advice is that formatting only becomes important after all the notes have been input.
In reply to "There should also be a… by DanielR
Thanks for the feedback, I've never seen 64th or 32nd notes, and I would never write them in. I'm from a jazz background where sight reading is always the priority, that's why I suggested these features. Yes, I agree write the notes in and then tidy the score, but I don't think it should take the majority of anyone's time in Musescore. Those suggestions for bars and systems have been very helpful, is there a way to save them as default or as a template?
I'm not sure what "mess" you refer - the spacing and other engraving defaults are extremely professional in MuseScore 4.
You mention equal width bars, which is absolutely not recommended at all and not used by any major publish except in the field of lead sheets and children's music. But for those specific purposes, MuseScore 4 makes this pretty easy - Format / Style / Spacing ratio, set to 2.0. Now you'll have direct proportion note spacing (instead of the more standard logarithmic spacing), and as a side effect, your measures will be mostly equal width. Some slight adjustment here and there might be needed for measures that are especially crowded.
Leaving right margns ragged as you have done not right justifiying measures - is another absolutely no-no. This is virtually never done in published music; not sure why you are calloing thiis "good" engraving. The only cases where measures should ever not be right justified is the last system of a piece, or an educational worksheet showing measures out of context for illustrative purpsoes. In both cases, simply adding a section break will allow MuseScore to not right justify (and then you can stretch from there to get the width you subjectively prefer).
I'm not sure which type of music you are engraving so you may have other needs than music printed for publication, e.g. classical music.
A book outlining good practice for engraving is "Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide To Music Notation" by Elaine Gould. There are, of course, other books available, but this is the one I'm using when an engraving need arise and I need to override a default.
Now, I'm not a MS power user and normally use another program but this is not the issue and as far as I can see, MS does it quite well.
A few comments to your suggestions:
". . maximum number of bars per line and a maximum number of lines per page (I'd suggest 4 bar's and 8 lines as default). . "
Absolutely not, this must remain automatic according to good engraving rules and, by the way, 4 bars / 8 lines per page is nothing. For a piece of music i'm currently engraving (see snapshot below), this would mean an increase of the page count from 16 pages for one instrument (violin 1 in this case) to probably 40-50 pages let alone it would look ugly and not readable. Of course the automatic "layout" should allow overrides, but this is provided by MS.
". . . tickbox for every bar to be of equal width rather than sized based on what is inside the bar (THIS SHOULD BE ON BY DEFAULT)"
No, this would make the engraving ugly and on the contrary, much more difficult to read. Likewise, this would be against all good engraving rules. So, again, this must per default remain automatic with the possibility to override.
I cannot comment on your whatGoodEngravingLooksLike.mscz because I cannot open it on my mobile.
There are cases where you have to intervene manually and where you have to override the automatism, a few examples:
Page turns should occur where the music has a pause (applies only to odd page numbers)
Number of bars for the last system. As Marc mentioned, here you have to "play" with stretch etc to get more than just one or two bars in the last system. As I said above, I'm not a regular MS user so I cannot, "out of my mind" tell you how, but the capability is there.
In reply to I'm not sure which type of… by TomStrand
Good observations here, and the recommendation for Behind Bars is a very good one. Interestingly, I was just listening to an interview with Gould yesterday, and she was specifically talking about the need to go out of your way make measures widths not the same even in music where the rhythmic content might be the same in each measure. The idea is to prevent the eye from getting in a sea of too-similar measures. Professional engravers will try to ensure barlines don't align from one system to the next, at least in parts (not so much an issue in scores).
Again, lead sheets work a bit differently. Some facebook editors favor equal measure widths to allow the chord symbols to be spaced more naturally. Actually, I would bet that this practice developed more out of convenience in the days before music software, when inexperienced copyists like the college students who created the original "Real Book" might simply divide the system up into four measures before writing in the notes, to make their jobs easier. But over time rhythm section musicians reading from these came to appreciate the practical value of it. So now even some professional facebook editors make the same choice. Makes reading the notes harder, but the chords easier. To me, even for lead sheets best results are obtained by not aiming for precisely consistent measure widths, but to nevertheless not allow too much variety in measure widths either. A spacing ratio somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 is probably ideal for that type of music.
For most other styles, though. the default 1.5 works well, and if anything is on the large side especially for scores or parts where you are concerned about reducing page count. This setting combined with the minimum notate distance allows for considerable flexibilty.
Ok, I've received lots of feedback on these suggestions, and they all seem to come from a place of classical music engraving, and the reception of these is mostly negative. I do not have a background in engraving nor classical music but rather have background in jazz performance.
Most of the music played is not distributed by a company, it is done by the musicians themselves, especially more so in smaller ensembles. Therefore a lot of music is engraved by the composer. Alongside this, jazz charts (and other similar forms of music) are designed to be as easily sight read as possible. An analogy for this is like reading in cursive vs a font like Arial or Helvetica, obviously one looks nicer but the other is far quicker and easier to read. This is why I am suggesting these optimisations, as they aide in sight reading as much as possible. I should also mention that in my local area this is the standard practice for jazz engraving and has been shown to be highly effective.
To further explain how these aide in sight reading:
- Number of bars per line
- Allows for easy tracking where the music is within the form, also allows to more quickly discuss details
in music where bar numbers/rehearsal marks are not provided (ie "5 bars after G")
- Lines per page
- Similar to the above, it allows for structure to easily be organised through the pages (ie inhead on one
page, solos on the second page and outhead on the third)
- Equal width bars
- A grid structure allows the reader to find bars much more efficiently, in the same way that bar
numbers can aide in finding certain parts of the music. When this consistent across many charts this
can be even faster because the reader will know (for instance) the 6th bars is always 2nd line, 2nd bar
and so on.
- Ragged barlines (as I've seen them called in the comments)
- This is useful for maintaining the grid (or equal width bars) when section lengths do not correspond
to the grid itself. For example, four bars in a line, but a 7 bar section. Obviously, you want the next
section and rehearsal mark to start on a new line, but to avoid any confusion on the bar lengths it is
better to have ragged lines then to extend the bars (again we are looking for sight reading efficiency,
not rules by companies of a bygone era and industry).
To finalise, I want to mention that even if people disagree, this is still a convection used by a wide variety of musicians, composers and arrangers who I'm sure would love to see these features in Musescore. I do understand that the Musescore team appears to prioritise the 'classical vernacular'; but it would be nice to see features that allows musicians to engrave their music in the way the way they want, rather than being forced into rules used by a minority of Musescore users (that being classical composers). Even if these features are not default (as I have suggested for some of them), I do think they should be available, because they enable a higher range of possibility for engraving and also increase sight readability.
In reply to Ok, I've received lots of… by MusicMan848
Just an edit, a lot of this aligns with Marc's latest comment. But it is not just about reading the chords but also the structure/form. In terms of making the notes harder to read, this is definitely a valid point, however (not trying to argue against a professional engraver), having wider spacing between lines can help
In reply to Just an edit, a lot of… by MusicMan848
"We should be able to set a maximum number of bars per line and a maximum number of lines per page"
Somehow I overlooked an obvious menu option which already exists for bars per system, and I can't see that anyone else has suggested it either:
Format > Add/remove system breaks... > Break systems every 4 bars > OK
In reply to Ok, I've received lots of… by MusicMan848
Actually, the basic principle of good erngraving are not really different between classical jazz, but there are a few conventions that are specific to the case of lead sheets, as opposed to other forms of jazz charts, because in those specific cases, you often want to optimize spacing for considering chord symbols as opposed to just notes.
So for that very specific case, simply increase the "Spacing ratio" in Format / Style / Measure as I already explained. A value of 2.0 will mean half notes get twice the space of quarters, etc, and this will then allow all measures to have more or less equal width and the chord symbols to have proportional spacing.
In practice, though, while amateur college students doing things by hand back in the 1970's often made the mistake of simply dividing the systems into equal-width measures, this was never good practice even then, for the reasons I also explained. A perfect grid makes reading more difficult, because you tend to lose your place on the page if the barlines line up exactly. And the compromise to note spacing required to get proportional chard symbol spacing are not good either.
So I recommend a value of more like 1.8 or so to find a compromise (specifics will depend on the piece). You're looking to find a good balance between spacing of chord symbols, spacing of notes, and spacing of barlines.
And then, simply add breaks every 4 bars. Most charts will need exceptions, like for pickups, voltas, codas, etc. But "Format / Add/remove system breaks" works on selections, so you can go one section at time to add the breaks every 4 where appropriate and then have a fifth bar where needed (or whatever other exception) manually.
But for instrumental parts in an ensemble piece, really it's not at all advantageous to have equal width bars at all; it's quite counterproductive in fact. Again, people without access to notation software may have done it that way in their handwritten chaters for simplicity, but that doesn't make it good. So except in cases where chord symbols are involved, you shouldn't be trying to force measures to be other than their natural widths.