Replace tied notes by full notes values automagically

• Jan 1, 2015 - 07:50
Reported version
3.0
Type
Graphical (UI)
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
closed
Project

Display the highest note value while editing.
I would like to set a scenario (Sorry if I do not use the correct terms - English is my second language and I have no formal training in Music Theory):
While editing a piece of music, I used two half notes in a bar. I decided to add a quarter note in front of the two half notes (there are some 30 bars following). I used the cut and paste. The result is that many half notes changed (correctly) into two attached quarters over the bar line. I then realized that I want it on a different place, cut the notes, delete the note and pasted the notes. The attantcd quarters remain, in stead of changing back to 'n half note.
Would you consider to correct this in future?
Thanks.

GIT commit: a925ae0

Attachment Size
1.png 896 bytes
2.png 830 bytes

Comments

If I understand correctly, you are asking for a function to automagically replace two tied quarter notes by a half note when possible.

If such a facility were added, I think it could go a lot further than just cleaning up ties. It could also figure out where ties need to be created - like a dotted quarter starting on beat 2 of a 4/4 bar should be split into quarter tied to eighth. It could also figure out when rests need to be broken (half rest start on 2 in 4/4 needs to be rewritten as two quarter rests), and maybe improve a few beaming situations where our automatic scheme can't get it right because there isn't enough context (although of course we have gradually become much better here).

Although there are a few places where the "rules" leave some things up to personal discretion, it should probably be possible to write an algorithm to sort this all out pretty well. An interesting challenge for some day! I'd see it working within Edit / Tools - a "respell rhythms" command.

such a split of dotted quarter starting on beat 2 of a 4/4 bar into quarter tied to eighth would need to adjust lyrics too, add a melisma to any last syllable or move the lyrics dash to the next position for non-last syllables.

True. But the scenario I was thinking about is where a half note (and therefor a single syllable word - should you use lyrics) is moved. I seldom use lyrics.
Another possibility is that there is the possibility to select the whole score and change tied notes (in the same bar - of course) to the higher value.
I did not use lyrics yet in Musescore 2. In 1.3 they tent to leave words with a cut and paste.
Thanks

Yeah, lyrics could be pain to get right. Although the way this is currently implemented, it might not be as hard as you think. Melisma is not actually stored note by note; instead, the syllable that starts the melisma just has a "ticks" field that records how long the note is to be held. Similar for hyphens - we just record if a syllable is a single, beginning, middle, or end syllable. The actual lines are calculated and drawn as necessary during layout. So In theory, as long as the true lengths of the notes doesn't change, just converting between ties and single notes would not require special handling.

But between the possibility that there is more than meets the eye there, plus all the special handling that is required for even the simplest operations on ties and tuplets, I fully expect that actually rewriting the rhythms would probably be harder than the algorithm to decide what needs to be rewritten.

I second this. I spend hours "respelling" rhythms sometimes. I click the note that needs split, change it to whatever portion should occur first in the tie, go into note input mode, re-enter the note or chord for the second portion of the tie, then go out of note input mode to tie the notes together. Does anyone know of a more efficient way to do this? I run into a lot of syncopated stuff that needs split due to the rhythms.

The easy way is to simply enter it correctly in the first place :-). I guess maybe this is a score imported from some other program where it was not done correctly? If not, how did it get into this state where rhythms need respelling?

Marc
This is not the case. I wrote the music, then entered the lyrics word by word. The last word was attached to a half note. I then decided to enter a quarter note at the beginning of the score. The mate (half note) then changed into two quarter notes. I realized the misstate after saving and quitting Musescore and re-opened it. When deleting the quarter note, the score moved back. The half note stayed two quarter notes.
My suggestion was that when this happens, the two quarter notes should change back to a half note.