Chords Overlapping Bass Line

• Jan 1, 2015 - 21:26

Hopefully you can see this from the attached screen shot. While trying to notate piano chords across the grand staff I'm unable to continue down to the lowest notes on the bass clef. To compensate for this I choose another box, but rests I don't want to appear continue to display. I'm transcribing "So What" from my Real Book where a bass line is notated along with the piano chords. Any suggestions? Thanks. Test.jpg

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Comments

Sorry, I can't really tell from the screen shot what you are trying to do or how you are trying to do it. It appears you are using multiple voices - you have the low "D" in voice 1, the other bass clef notes in voice 2 (you should do this the other way around, btw, so the stems face the correct way). Did you you want something different? What, exactly? What do you mean by "choose another box"? Maybe you are referring to having chosen voice 2? That's the right thing to do if you want multiple voices, even if as I said, it should be in the other order (upper voices should voice 1, lower voice 2). Also, there was no reason to use multiple voices for the top staff - there is only one voice there, so you should enter the notes into voice 1. But I can't tell what any of this has to do with "lowest notes on the bass clef". Do you want to add notes below the D you already added?

BTW if you haven't already, you might want to read Voices in the Handbook?

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

So ....jpg Maybe this will be clearer. I've tried to have all the stems and ties facing in the correct direction according to the Real Book entry. You might notice in the first and third measures after the pickup that there are multiple rests displayed, or rests that shouldn't appear. I had to use separate voices to notate in both clefs. It seems as though extending the treble clef chords into the bass clef necessitates the use of a rest ( in the bass clef) to advance the cursor to the proper spot below where the higher notes lie. I hope that is a better explanation. Should I be building my chords from the bass clef up? Would that leave the cursor in the proper position? Thanks!

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In reply to by Michael M-3

Well, as I explained in my previous resoonse, you should not be using multiple voices in the *top* staff - there is no reaosn to. Enter everything in voice 1 for that staff, and it will be as it should be - no unnecessary rests. The bottom staff is already correct, except the rests for the upper voice are overlapping the notes in lower voice. So you simply need to move those up manually. Double click and arrow keys will do the trick.

I think part of your problem is thinking of the notes on beat 3 in the bottom staff as just being some sort of extensions of the notes in the treble clef. They are simple notes in the bass clef staff, so yes, it is perfectly normal that if you want a voice to enter on beat 3, you need to enter a half rest before it. That's true regardless of whether there are other staves, or indeed other voices at all. If you want something on beat 3, you need something on beats 1 and 2 first.

Now, if you want to create the *illusion* that the bass clef notes are part of the corresponding treble clef chords, then you can create that illusion by extending the stems and marking the rests invisible. This is not more correct than what you have now, but if if that's the look you want, that's how to get it.

In reply to by Michael M-3

Eliminate it? It is correct to have it - otherwise the voice would look like it appeared out of nowhere, and if not for the fact that the other staff happens to have the same rhythm, a person reading that staff wouldn't know what beat the voice entered on at all. As I wrote above, the correct thing is to move the rest out of the way by double clicking it and using the cursor keys (up). But it *is* possible to hide rests fwiw, same as any other element - select, then right click & set invisible.

For 2.0, rests in multivoice settings like this will automatically reposition themselves to try to avoid collisions. And setting things invisible will be accomplished by pressing "V".

The usual response to queries is "show us the actual score" but, in this case, "show us a picture of the original score" would be appropriate. If we can see what you want it to look like you might get some helpful pointers.

Unless you've got real big hands I wouldn't link the treble and bass stave chords, though.

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