Alignment mayhem
I'm shooting this message out into the dark. I hope you're able to fix the many issues happening with alignment. Here's what I'm running into:
I'm trying to prepare parts and score for a reading this week, and they look terrible despite my best efforts. I feel quite embarrassed to turn this in for an assignment, let alone possibly put these parts in front of professionals. I have manually adjusted every single dynamic, tempo marking, and tempo fluctuation in every single part because they do not line up automatically.
For any element where I've neglected to uncheck the box that says sync alignment with score, the layout will not continue to look the way I leave it when I make further adjustments.
I stayed up for hours correcting the tiny little misalignments that make my parts impossible to read. I am quite frustrated because I just spent about 16 hours this weekend aligning details on my parts all weekend because the automatic alignments don't work only to find that my adjustments didn't save because the adjustments I made to other parts ended up affecting the first ones I fixed already. By fixing other parts, I was (unknowingly) unfixing the parts I had already fixed.
Seriously. I can't begin to describe my frustration.
Why don't the dynamics align underneath a staff automatically in the first place?
Why do the beginnings and endings of rit/accel not go to the same beat on the parts and the score?
Why can't I lock all elements of a part once I've proofread it, so no adjustments to other parts ruin the work I've already done?
I have recorded a few screen recordings and videos, but I can't get them to upload. All I have to share with you is the musescore file. Give me an email directly if you want more details from me.
I appreciate all the work you do, making musescore free. It is still better than Finale (which I was using before), but this is still not how I want to be spending my weekend correcting things I've already corrected.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Et Concepit de Spiritu Sancto (Orch ).mscz | 2 MB |
Comments
Right around bars 115-116 in the flute and violin1 parts and score. What is going on with double and
/or invisible markings? There are other similar places that cause misalignment. Please list a particular spot that is a problem.
Good day to you,
Disclaimer: I mean no offence, I would have written way worse. I've would have written nothing, actually: I have not been taught to orchestrate. And I'm not trying to be rude or commanding at any point. I come from a culture where it is ENOUGH to use verbs in tjeor 2nd person formal plural form and capitalise respective pronouns (You, Your, Yours) to pass up as polite. Something tells me that my poor attempts in overpoliteness would be too lengthy, cumbersome for me, or even straight offensive ("I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but, I wonder if you would mind helping me a moment, as long, as it's no trouble, of course".jpg)
I have looked at your score. I can say a few things from my 500+ hours experience. I have never composed or engraved any orchestral work (just some string section arrangements from Rakov's orchestration manual and some reengravent of pieces with piano accompanement). So take all of that with a grain of salt.
1) One trick is Ctrl+R. This is a shortcut found in Menu-Format at the top left. The other is Ctrl+A. It allows you to see what is altered in your parts. The third is Ctrl+Shift+Right or Left.
1.1) Go to your flute part. Ctrl+A. You will see that that mp in 11th bar is orange. that means that it is altered. Click on it and press Ctrl+R. It will snap to the wrong beat. So, it was applied to the wrong beat and you have readjusted it with your mouse.
1.1.1) Ctrl+Shift+Right two times to move it to the right beat. Or use your mouse to move it to a new position on that violet transparent beat ruler and then press Ctrl+R to snap it on its new default position on that beat.
Go yo your main score. find the same place and do the same thing. Synch the place in the part with the main score. https://youtu.be/ailUD3wBBrM
1.1) Save a copy of your score. Select some staves in the main score. Ctrl+R. Go to a part. Select the same staves and synch it. The score's appearance will usually (usually!) improve.
2) Do you have everything checked out at Menu-View-Show? It would be very helpful to.
3) I see that you are frustrated with tempo markings being placed above strings. Check this (https://youtu.be/-I-InDHIzdQ?t=228) or take a look at the picture attached to this answer of mine. https://musescore.org/ru/node/376083#comment-1289610
[4) There was a question about "MOLA Guidelines for Music Preparation". It was since deleted.]
5) What is that you have tried to do with those rehearsal marks? As I get it, you were trying to mark every system with a large number encircled with a rectangle. Go to Menu-Format-Style-Text styles (at the very bottom)-Bar numbers. Set it up as 14pt bold with rectangular frame of the thickness 0.16 and the padding 0.5.
Offset Y=-3.0. That's it! You may consider "applying it to all parts". (https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/score-size-and-spacing#Actions This link deals with Page settings and not Style but the buttons in the picture attached are the same)
6) RMB on a bar. So called "Right click context menu" will appear. Stave/Part_properties//Hide_when_empty = "Always" for every staff of every instrument. That might take a while to do."
7) You don't need applying 2 tempi to the places with "a tempo" or "tempo primo". Double click on that crotchet=60 marking. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C. Double click on "a tempo" in bar 45. Paste the text on its end. Go to properties tab- Check "Set specific tempo" and set it correctly. Ctrl+R. Delete the unwanted tempo. the score I have attached has the bar 45 corrected.
8) I can see the interior of the bar no. 88. Delete those tempi.
9) If something covers some other thing then go to the main score, find the place in question, reset it with Ctrl+R and synch it. You can synchronize a part AFTER going over your score. It is not necessary to Synch every element one by one. Or you can open View-Selection filter tab and synch only text elements or something.
10) So many unvisible markings... Edit-Preferances-Advanced, Change the colour of invisible elements to bright them up and make it easier to clean.
11) RMB on a hairpin. There are two useful options: snap to previous and next. It is quite helpful to know that.
12) To delete all rehearsal marks, click RMB on one. Select-More. Press OK, All rehearsal marks will be selected. Delete it If you want to.
13) Click on a dynamic or a text. Dragging it with Ctrl or Shift pressed will help retaining it horisontal or vertical position.
And now to some backseat driving from someone who've been watching Thomas Goss a bit too much.
1) Every page of every part must have the name of the piece, the composer and the instrument written on it. Please, be sure to add it https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/header-and-footer https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/project-properties
2) Trombonists, bass trombonists, trumpets, contrabasses and percussionists need their stave space to be increased. 1.75mm * 4=7mm, but they need like 8mm or 8.5mm. https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/score-size-and-spacing#scaling https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/parts#applying-styles-to-parts
3) Will the musicians use tablets or will your parts be bookletted? It seems that the conductor will use the tablet. See the item 6 above.
4) 2 staves for bassoon take a lot of space on conductor's score. I have created a part that combines both bassoons (https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/parts#create-a-new-part) and they could be easily placed on one stave. score attached. Look at "two bassoons" part. I have changed the Format-Style-Text-Stave-Size to 12 points to make "1." and "2." more pronounced. https://youtu.be/owDxvIQK4mE?t=181
4.1) Even then, some jumps (bars no. 70, 73) are not healthy for the players (IMHO. I don't know whether bassoonist worry about such jumps tiring their embouchures as much as brass players do). Dynamics in 46 are underspecified. Please, consider watching https://youtu.be/6eFKACaBU5M
4.2) Other parts can be condensed like this as well. Clatinets will still need divisi staves though. Use https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/implode-and-explode to facilitate it.
5) Your braces look kinda wrong. Use brackets, not braces. Brace cellos and basses with a bracket too. https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/brackets
6) Niente... Well it is possible on cello. Well, very fancy and a bit unpractical.
7) Rename your parts. You have "Clarinet" and "Clarinet in Bb (2)". And use this as well: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/4/parts#renaming-duplicating-and-dele… (rename "Flute(1)" into "Flute 2/Piccolo". And other parts too.)
8) Should you choose to condense your parts, remember to set up their "long names" to 2 oboes, 2 clarinets etc. I am hesitant to give a youtube-link to a non-musescore video, but that's what the first page of your score is expected to inform conductors and librarians about. R
9) And consider adding word "time" and "V.S," (Volti Subito) to your vocabulary.
PS. About 4 and 9. Mola recommends this: "Do not create wind parts with multiple instruments on a single staff; for instance, flutes 1 and 2 should be separate parts. <...> String parts should be
created with one part per section. Avoid dividing the music for the string section into multiple parts unless
necessitated by multiple and continuous division of the voices. Complicated string divisions should be
written on separate staves. The barline should be continuous between these separate staves."
I don't know, Considering how much alike are bassoon's parts maybe would it be fine to print 1 part(1)? Do bassoonist use individual notestands(2)? Is a2 marking reserved for conductor's score only(3)? Does it ever get used in parts(4)? If it's yes(2), yes(3) and no(4) then the answer is probably no(1).