Parameters for Stretch
using V2 RC
Absolutely loving V2 and my choir will soon have the best looking printed music of any.
I've just re-formatted a piece which went onto 5 pages, with just 5 bars on the last page. I used the option "layout/Decrease stretch" and that brought the piece onto n4 pages which is what I hoped for. However, there's room on the new page 4 for at least one more line of the music so the "stretch" has been decreased more than enough.
I just wondered if there was any parameter somewhere that I could amend so that the decrease (also increase?) stretch could be varied from max (what happens now) to min (ie no change).
Templates are brilliant, I have one choir member who has very poor eye-sight so after I've reformatted the music as A4 (using a standard template to get a common look) I simply open the piece, click on "Style/Load Style" and click on the template I've created for larger A3-Landscape and bingo, I have a copy formatted for Trevor with virtually no effort.
The more I use this software and examine the various options, the more I like it.
Well done to everyone involved.
Comments
Once I have (with stretch increase decrease) roughly attained a convenient layout I adjust using system breaks
Since you prepare sheets for choir there is now a split measure possibility which eases to have system breaks at lyrics breaks. Choristers, at least the ones who doesn't read notes at first glance, are usually fond of such a layout.
Thanks for the comments!
There is no single parameter that works as you describe, but the stretch commands work on a selection, so you could simply pick and choose where to apply it.
What I generally do, though, is apply it generously, then go back through and apply line breaks manually (click barline, press Enter) in places where I think I don't need quite so many measures on a system. In fact, for me, a score isn't complete until I've locked in all my line breaks like that - adding them even on lines where I am perfectly happy with the default number of measures. Which is why I added an option in Edit / Tools / Add/Remove Line Breaks to "lock" the current breaks by adding explicit breaks automatically.
Also, BTW, there is a standard of sorts called Modified Stave Notation put forth by RNIB (a British organization for the blind & visually imparied) that makes recommendations for various settings (staff line thickness, stem thickness, etc) for large print scores for the visually impaired. I guess the idea is, simply scaling up a normal score isn't ideal, but instead, some things should be adjusted. MuseScore actively supports MSN and provides options to create MSN through the settings available in Style / General. You might want to check out these links and see if there are improvements you could make to your template:
http://www.rnib.org.uk/information-everyday-living-home-and-leisure-mus…
http://musescore.org/en/tutorials/modified-stave-notation
In reply to Thanks for the by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the details about MSN, I will follow that up. Basically, that's what I've done for my A3 versions, increased the "Space" parameter plus a few others but hadn't thought about slurs, ledger lines and so forth. I hadn't realised just how much can be varied within MuseScore so I'll look carefully at the MSN spec and try some experiments.
Thanks again for the input.