Stem direction style

• Jun 28, 2024 - 01:15

Hello,

My #1 manual timesuck is going through each line of my scores note by note to conform my middle-note stem directions to Gould (i.e. contextual stem direction, usually flipping stems up). Musescore's "auto" direction conforms to what I believe is the more traditional style, but as many style guides go the other way (and because one of them is Gould), this seems ripe for either a preference setting that would change the Auto stem direction rules to a different convention, or for a style panel that would allow the user to specify direction rules themselves—or some combination thereof.

[Sidebar: the pain of the manual flipping task lies partly in the fact that stem direction is hidden under the Stem menu in the Properties panel, and has no keyboard shortcut. When using the arrow keys to move through notes (→, click, →, click etc.) there's no problem, but as soon as I → to a rest, I lose my place in the Properties panel (which switches to the rest), and when I get to the next note I have to click back in again. Obviously not everything can live at the top level of Properties and have keyboard shortcuts, but there are I have two or three regular tasks Iike this that require repeatedly opening a submenu and/or scrolling to the same hidden item. These are where global style settings are so helpful—hence this feature request!]

[Sidebar 2: the fact that THIS is my #1 pain point just highlights how marvelously feature-rich Musescore is these days. I spend several hours a day using this software and am in awe.]

Thank you,
D

Attachment Size
Screenshot 2024-06-27 at 5.08.16 PM.png 110.75 KB

Comments

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Or, if it's not a particular pitch, use some combination of left and right arrow, Ctrl+left and right arrow, and Alt+left, right, up, and down arrows to move through the score. Each time you hit a note that needs flipping, **x is the keyboard shortcut (a jm6stringer pointed out above). Once you learn your way around the different arrow key combinations for moving. you can do this as fast as you can press the keys.

The trick of Alt+left or right arrow is one I only learned recently and can be really useful. It cycles through EVERY element in the score: bar lines, dynamics, slurs and ties, etc.

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