Very good to everyone! How are you? I’m Ismael Vallejo from Clave de Mi and this is video number 4 of the MuseTube course, the course in which we are learning MuseScore from the most basic to the most advanced.

In the previous block, we were looking at everything related to installing MuseScore, both for Windows and Linux, as well as, within version 4, knowing how to install it with and without Muse Hub.

Now, we start a new block, already getting down to work with MuseScore.

Specifically, in this video we are going to see how to create a basic score so that, in a few minutes, you will be able to run the program, create a score, quickly know the necessary and essential elements, and be able to save it.

From here, yes, we will begin to delve much deeper into each of the aspects and functionalities that MuseScore has, and as I already said, we will see it for both version 3 and version 4 because, as I already said, there are certain differences that I would like you to know from the beginning.

So let´s do it and go to the computer.

We are going to start with MuseScore 4, which is the latest version, and when there is a difference, we will go to 3.

To run it, we simply have to double click on the icon that the installation has generated for us.

Once opened and in the welcome window, as you can see there are many elements, but in this case, as I have already said, we are going to focus only on the creation of a score.

And it is that in MuseScore 4, we can create a score in four different ways.

The first and easiest way is by clicking on the “New score” button.

The second is by clicking on the bottom button that says “New”.

The third is from “File” -> “New”.

And the fourth is through the keyboard, pressing “Ctrl + N”.

With any of these options we will arrive at the score creation screen.

Once on the screen that opens, we have two options: “Create from template” or go manually to “Choose instruments” and add the instruments we need for our work.

In our case and to make it easier we will go to “Create from template” and in the “General” category we have: “Treble Clef”, “Bass Clef” and “Grand Staff”.

We are going to simply choose “Treble Clef”.

Although from the “Next” button, we could configure the structure of our score much more , we will see that in subsequent videos.

For the moment, we are going to simply hit the “Done” button, to start with our new score.

And here we have our first newly created score.

It is obviously blank: it has no title, no author, no notes, everything is silent…but we are going to complete it little by little.

And the first, main and most important thing is, how do we enter notes? Although we will see this in much more detail in later videos, tell you that the easiest way to enter notes is by clicking on the measure where we want to enter them and either from the east button of the “little pencil” or by using the “N” key, we see that we automatically enter the “Note input” mode.

This has made the “Quarter note” automatically light up as the default figure to introduce, so if we wanted to introduce a quarter note, it would be as simple as moving over the staff and clicking on the desired position.

In this case, for example, I am going to introduce a “G”.

As you can see, the “G” has automatically been introduced and the next position has been illuminated to introduce new notes.

In this case, for example, I am going to introduce a “C”.

Likewise, if we wanted to change the figure, it would be as simple as doing it from the “Note input toolbar”.

For example, I am going to select the “Half note” and I am also going to introduce it in a “G” for example.

Although in future videos we will see in more detail how to enter notes from the keyboard, quickly say that with the numbers from 1 to 9 we can change figures.

If you pay attention, as I press the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, I change between figures and to We can introduce the notes with the letters from A to G, being “A” the “A note”, the ” B” the “B note”, the “C” the “C note”, etc…that is, according to the English notation.

On the other hand, in order not to leave it here and to tell you some more things that can be very useful when creating scores, it is to talk about the “Palettes” tab.

As you can see, there are a lot of elements available to add to our scores.

As an example, I’m going to add a slur between these three notes.

If I select the first one, “Shift”, and the last one (in this way I select all three), and I go to “Articulations”, I can click on “Slur” and we see how it is automatically added to us.

Another important tab within MuseScore is the “Properties” tab which, for all of you coming from MuseScore 3, is what we knew as the “Inspector”, and which we will now also see.

The “Properties” tab allows us to make certain adjustments to each of the elements, so depending on whether we click on a note or on the slur, we see how the menu changes.

In this case, and so that you can briefly see how it works, what I am going to do is change the position of the slur.

Right now it is automatically, but we can put it manually so that it goes “Below”.

As I already said, the “Properties” menu will change depending on the element we click on.

For example, if I click on a measure (this one, for example) we see that the menu changes again and gives us the possibility, for example, to insert a measure.

If I click on “Insert measures”, I can tell it to insert a measure “Before selection”, or what is the same, “At start of score”.

And as we see, it adds it to us.

In the same way, I can click on the bar that I just created and, using the trash can button, delete it.

Although really, the easiest way to delete a measure is not that way, but to click on a measure and from the keyboard, press “Ctrl + Del”.

By the way, if we get confused and want to undo the last operation we can do it with “Ctrl + Z”.

As you can see, it has recovered the compass that I had deleted.

With this we have already learned the basics of creating a score, but this would be useless if we could not save our work.

To do this, we must click on “File” -> “Save as”.

 When we do it, by default it will ask us if we want to save it in the cloud (which we will talk about later), but if what we want is to save it on our PC, it is as simple as clicking on “Save to computer”; In this way we can save it on our computer and put the name we prefer.

Likewise, you can see how the extension is “.mscz”, which is the typical MuseScore format.

Eye! This format is both version 3 and version 4, however if we make a score and save it with MuseScore 4 we won’t be able to open it with MuseScore 3, keep that in mind! Now, to save, we simply have to click on the “Save” button and, automatically, we see how the title has already changed and is called: “Partitura prueba”.

Likewise, as I said and although we will see it in future videos, we can also save it in the cloud, so that we can choose to create a “Private” score, a “Public” score or that is not listed (“Unlisted”) in any of the above.

As I already said, in this case I am not logged into musescore.com, and even so I will explain this in much more detail in future videos.

Finally, and if instead of saving it in “.mscz” format, which, as I said, is MuseScore’s own format, we want to export it to any other type of file (for example, MP3, PDF or image), we can do so.

from “File” -> “Export”.

Here, in the “Format” tab, as you can see we can choose a lot of different formats.

In this scenario I’m going to save it to PDF and just select it, click “Export” and in the same directory where it was, click “Save”.

If I now go to said directory, I will see how automatically I have saved both the “.mscz” format, and I can open it with MuseScore.

Be careful! Do not be guided by the MuseScore 3 icon because if I try to open it, as I already said, it will give me an error.

It is because, by default, on my PC I still have the scores opened with MuseScore 3, hence this icon.

Likewise, I also have the PDF file that I can open and read.

As you can see here, I have the document we just created in PDF format.

Finally, a recommendation that I propose is that you always have updates activated by default, so that from “Edit” -> “Preferences”, if we go to the “Update” tab, you have the check that says “Check to see if a new version of MuseScore is available”, as they are continually releasing new versions that fix bugs and add improvements.

Don’t worry, because the update is not automatic: every time there is one when you open the program, a window will appear informing you of the new version, explaining the new improvements and features and giving you the option to update.

Likewise, if you want to know if you currently have the latest version available, it’s as simple as going to “Help” -> “Check for update”.

As you can see, it is informing me that my version of MuseScore is the most up-to-date.

On the contrary, when running MuseScore 3, we see that things change a bit.

In the background , an already created score appears, very similar to the one we have created in MuseScore 4, that is, in treble clef, and a window called “Start Center” opens.

In this “Start Center” window, the “Create New Score” button also appears, or we can close it directly and keep the one we have.

To create a new score, we can also do it from the button that appears here (which in MuseScore 4 has disappeared), from “File” -> “New” (same as in MuseScore 4), or with the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + N”, just like we did in the other version.

As you can see, this has changed a bit, but if we go to the next tab, we see that we can also choose instruments or different templates.

To make the example similar to the previous one, it would be simply to choose “Treble Clef”, we would click on finalize and we would have a score similar to the one we had created previously.

The way to enter notes is exactly the same: we click on the compass (before it was a “little pencil” and now it is an “N”), and here we can also introduce the notes we had.

To introduce the slur is slightly different, since now it comes in the “Lines” part.

And what is different, and I would like to dwell on it, is that there is no “Properties” tab here, as we had in MuseScore 4.

As I said, in version 3 there was what was called the “Inspector”, which it is very similar to the new “Properties” tab of version 4.

To see the “Inspector”, we can do it from “View” -> “Inspector”, or by pressing the “F8” key, so that we can show and hide it .

As you can see, it appears empty, but as soon as you click on any element, the information automatically appears.

Same as before, for example, we can change the address; where it says “Auto”; we can put “Down”.

Depending on whether you work with version 3 or version 4 you will have, as already, the “Inspector” or the “Properties” tab.

Regarding the updates, obviously and in the case of version 3, if I tell it to look for them, it will obviously find version 4.

But as I already said, since I have both versions, I prefer to leave this one in version 3.

And even Here’s today’s video.

As you can see, it’s also a fairly simple video, but it’s the base on which we’re going to cement all the training on MuseScore.

For all of you who have no idea about MuseScore, by just watching this video and in a few minutes, you will be able to: create a score, add notes, add elements such as slur that we have seen, save it and export it.

As I already said, very simple operations but which are the basis of everything that will come later.

In the next video, we will delve much deeper into the user interface, seeing all the menus that MuseScore offers us, the differences between version 3 and version 4 (which it seems not, but there are some), so that, once After you’ve finished watching it, you feel comfortable enough to know where everything is (even if you obviously don’t know how to use everything the program gives us yet).

And up to here.

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See you in the next video.

See you soon!