First MuseScore experience
Posted: 17 Mar 2024, 10:34
Having used Lilypond for engraving music for years, I decided to give MuseScore (today 4.2) a try for a piece we are going to play at our next summer concert. It's not very long, 74 bars but with 29 instruments, among these, 2 harps. I've a relatively bad x-times printed/copied score, the instrument parts are handwritten, quality from good to bad.
Compared to my Lilypond workflow, the process is very much different. In Lilypond I wrote common elements on separate files as well as the music. From there, I could generate any instrument part, parts of the score or the complete score as needed.
In MuseScore, you work on score level where normally one instrument is one part. Now, in this case, I need to combine many instruments to fit the music in the score on one page in a readable size. This means, I’ve combined Flute 1/2, Oboe 1/2, Clarinet 1/2 etc. For this, I haven't yet found a good solution comparable to Lilyponds \partcombine which combine two (or more) instruments into one stave merging common rests and music whereas it’s identified if it’s a2 or “a due” and when there is only one instrument, automatically write Flute 1 above the stave etc.
As a work around solution for MuseScore, I’ve therefore generated single instrument staves as well as combined instrument staves, increasing the number of instrument staves in the score to 38. Now, for the score, you can hide which instruments you don't want to see, still having them available for the instrument parts so that's ok. However, this approach is risky and error prone as you must remember to correct errors in two places.
The default score and instrument layout in MuseScore is not as good as in Lilypond, but it’s relatively easy to change as you need it. If you have made a lot of layout, page setting or style setting changes and lost track of what you’ve done, you can reset everything to default again, but then you loose all manually performed changes and you have to start over again.
I’m not yet that far, but it’s possible to generate “personal” templates which probably can cover many of the desired changes but working on the first piece, I’m still experimenting to achieve what I want. Hence, to keep track of the changes performed, I’ve to document these in a separate list
In Lilypond, all “tweaks” are parameter controlled and these can be kept in a separate Lilypond file, and if there is a need, use a parameter to define if it is for an instrument or the score so it’s quite easy to keep control over them.
Except for Capella, I’ve not used any WYSIWYG engraving software so I cannot compare to other tools like Sibelius, Finale, Dorico, etc.
This is a first summary of my MuseScore experience after maybe 2 months of active usage. I also have some engraving questions but this is independent on the software used and will be a separate posting.
Compared to my Lilypond workflow, the process is very much different. In Lilypond I wrote common elements on separate files as well as the music. From there, I could generate any instrument part, parts of the score or the complete score as needed.
In MuseScore, you work on score level where normally one instrument is one part. Now, in this case, I need to combine many instruments to fit the music in the score on one page in a readable size. This means, I’ve combined Flute 1/2, Oboe 1/2, Clarinet 1/2 etc. For this, I haven't yet found a good solution comparable to Lilyponds \partcombine which combine two (or more) instruments into one stave merging common rests and music whereas it’s identified if it’s a2 or “a due” and when there is only one instrument, automatically write Flute 1 above the stave etc.
As a work around solution for MuseScore, I’ve therefore generated single instrument staves as well as combined instrument staves, increasing the number of instrument staves in the score to 38. Now, for the score, you can hide which instruments you don't want to see, still having them available for the instrument parts so that's ok. However, this approach is risky and error prone as you must remember to correct errors in two places.
The default score and instrument layout in MuseScore is not as good as in Lilypond, but it’s relatively easy to change as you need it. If you have made a lot of layout, page setting or style setting changes and lost track of what you’ve done, you can reset everything to default again, but then you loose all manually performed changes and you have to start over again.
I’m not yet that far, but it’s possible to generate “personal” templates which probably can cover many of the desired changes but working on the first piece, I’m still experimenting to achieve what I want. Hence, to keep track of the changes performed, I’ve to document these in a separate list
In Lilypond, all “tweaks” are parameter controlled and these can be kept in a separate Lilypond file, and if there is a need, use a parameter to define if it is for an instrument or the score so it’s quite easy to keep control over them.
Except for Capella, I’ve not used any WYSIWYG engraving software so I cannot compare to other tools like Sibelius, Finale, Dorico, etc.
This is a first summary of my MuseScore experience after maybe 2 months of active usage. I also have some engraving questions but this is independent on the software used and will be a separate posting.