Bach Issue

While it's possible to notate piano music on three staves - and MuseScore allows you to hide staves when they are empty, too (Style... > General ... > Score > 'Hide empty staves' - it's a very unusual format and rarely necessary or desirable.

I recommend you look at the many versions of this Bach Prelude that exist in the public domain and compare how the passages in question are notated. In general, there are four options for entering notes that fall significantly above or below a staff: (1) use ledger lines; (2) enter a temporary clef change; (3) use ottava lines for notes that go well above the treble clef or below the bass clef; or (4) use cross-staff notation.

If you're unfamiliar with how cross-staff notation works in MuseScore, this should help:

https://musescore.org/en/handbook/cross-staff-beaming-0

The title 'Cross Staff Beaming' is a bit deceptive, as it doesn't apply only to beamed notes. Any note or rest can be moved to the opposite staff by selecting it and using CTRL+SHIFT+UP or CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN.

I'm aware that I haven't given a truly direct or detailed answer to your specific question, and that's deliberate because this is definitely not one of the very rare situations in piano music that lend themselves to notation on three staves.

Hello Juan,

If I understand your question correctly there is a way to temporarily change a particular segment of a stave with any desired clef, as the baroque composers often did, to avoid unwanted ledger lines. You simply open the clef window and drag the clef you desire either at the beginning of the particular measure(s) you want to change and then reinsert the original again. In my experiences you need to write the music in one clef first or you can change as you write but you can't pre insert the desired clefs throughout the entire piece if the inserted clefs need to fall somewhere other than at the beginning of each measure. You can actually just drop any of the clefs just before the note where you want the new clef to appear. Then you can change it back again by dropping the next desired clef. This will realign the already written music or next note in relation to middle C. You may need to select the note just after the insertion point before inserting. Its been a few weeks since I've used it but it definitely does work.

I've done this recently by trying to emulate a readable version of the clefs Bach originally used in the 2 & 3 part inventions. Bach used the c clefs much more judiciously and often switches our usual bass and treble clefs with whichever c clef suited the register of the work as needed. In fact the "C" soprano clef is customarily used in place of our modern "G" Treble Clef. If I am able I will try and attach the PDF I created of Bach's invention #1 using his original clefs so you can see an example. I think I may have forgotten a few accidentals. I still need to proof read this one. C Clef Inv. No 1 C Maj.pdf

Enjoy, Garrin