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Topic #7: Timeline in MuseScore

Topic #7: Timeline in MuseScore

Very good to everyone! How are you? I’m Ismael Vallejo from Clave de Mi and this is video number 7 of the MuseTube course, the course in which we are learning MuseScore from the most basic to the most advanced.

In this case we are going to talk about the “timeline” It is true that I could have included this part even in the previous video, in the score navigation part, but I preferred to make an independent video (although it is true that it will be very short), so that all those who directly want to see what is the timeline they can access without having to see all the previous part.

Let us tell you that the timeline is one more tool that MuseScore provides us to be able to move or navigate through the score.

I have to say that I personally do not use it, but since in this course, as I already said, we are going to cover all the tools and functionalities that MuseScore gives us, I am including it anyway, so that you know it and you can decide if you use it or not.

So, as I already said, it’s going to be a very short video, very short, but quickly we’re going to see what this timeline consists of.

Let’s go to the computer.

To see the potential of this tool, I preferred to choose a score that is long, that has many changes in time signature, tempo, etc….In this way, you will be able to see how the timeline gives us information on the structure of said score.

Therefore, we begin by opening Corelli’s Sonata in F, which is the one I have chosen for this example, and once we have it open, the first thing we have to do is show the timeline.

To do this, we can do it in two ways: from “View” -> “Timeline” or by using the F12 keyboard shortcut, which allows us to hide and show it.

As you can see (I’m going to zoom out a bit so you can see the size of the score) it’s quite an extensive work, so the timeline is good for us to structure the different parts of the work in our heads.

But first I am going to briefly explain the structure of the timeline.

We can say that it is divided into four parts: in the upper left part (which would go from here, from the “Tempo” label) to “Measures”, we see different labels that serve as a reference for the different points in which the timeline shows us.

it will mark something: well, tempo changes, time signature changes, different rehearsal marks, key signature changes, etc…In the upper right part, the values ​​of said labels are indicated.

To give an example, for the “Tempo” label, that is, for the tempo changes that the score has, it tells us that we are going to start with a “Grave” label and that, at some point, we are going to change a tempo ” Allegro”.

Now we will look at all this in more detail.

On the other hand, in the lower left part we see the different labels of the different instruments that we have in the score.

Since it doesn’t look very good, with the mouse wheel we could go up and down to see the different instruments, but in this case, since there are only three (the trumpet voice and the two piano voices), I prefer to expand the line a bit of time so we can see them all.

As you can see now, you can see perfectly the staff that corresponds to the trumpet in B♭ and the two staves that correspond to the piano voice.

Finally, in the lower right part we have a representation of all the bars of the score represented by a square, that is, each square represents one of the bars of the score.

As you can see, there are some that are in a darker gray and others that are in a lighter gray.

Those in light gray represent measures on hold.

As I already said, we are going to see all this in much more detail.

To start, as I said, the upper part, in the “Tempo” part we can see the first “Grave” label, which corresponds to it.

If we click, we see how the score itself selects it directly for us.

On the contrary, if we click on “Allegro”, it will automatically take us to the measure where said label is.

We can extrapolate this same example to the rest of the labels.

For example, the 4×4 at the beginning, the 4×4 in the middle, the 3×4 at bar 50 and if we now zoom out and make the timeline smaller by pressing the “Ctrl.” and with the mouse wheel, we see how the score is really much wider than it seemed.

To give other examples, we see how we also have the symbol for 1♭ at the beginning of the score (don’t trust that sharp, as you really know the one that is tuned in C is the piano, while the trumpet is in B♭; from there, that sharp).

And just like that, we have the different special barlines, which are not the typical ones, that are also marked on the timeline.

On the other hand, and to give one more example of a rehearsal mark or of jumps and markers, we are going to include, for example, in the first bar, a rehearsal mark (which we mark in this way), we see how it automatically appears there the A and we could, for example, in an invented way in any measure, put a B and we see how automatically, in the timeline it is updated.

To give one last example, I am going to add a bar break, saying that in this bar there is a “Da Capo” break.

We see how, automatically, the “Da Capo” symbol has been placed on us and it is also updated on the time line, indicating that there is a “Da Capo” there.

Finally, the lower part, as we saw the light gray squares, are silent.

As you can see here, we see a lot of measures of silence that correspond to the white squares while, if I go to the first dark square, we see how there are already notes.

On the other hand, as you are seeing, I can click on any square on the timeline and it automatically takes me to the measure represented by said square, so, as you can see, in the end the timeline is nothing more than the representation of the score in a timeline represented by the more general labels of the score, while the lower part is nothing more than a representation of the bars made up of squares.

By the way, I haven’t said it either, but it is possible to configure the order of the labels using the little arrows that appear above and below.

For example, you could lower the “Tempo” down or leave it as it was.

Another thing that I haven’t commented on either, and although I really don’t see much use for it, is the possibility of selecting bars from the timeline itself.

By pressing the “Shift” key and making a box around the different little squares, we can see how these bars are selected.

Automatically, we see how the indicated bars are the same ones that I have indicated with the box on the timeline.

And here is today’s video.

As I said, it is a very short video since the timeline really does not require a great explanation.

In the end, it is a small tool that MuseScore provides us.

Some of you will find it very useful and others, like me, will hardly use it at all.

But still, one way or another, if you want to become a MuseScore expert, you must know all the tools it provides us; from those that you use continuously in your day to day to those that we know are there, and although at first we are not going to use them, we never know when they may be useful to us in the future.

So nothing, I say goodbye for today.

Simply and as always encourage you to subscribe if you are not, to activate the bell so that you do not miss any of the videos that I am releasing almost twice a week and now if you feel like leaving a like or a comment with any questions you have , you know that without problem, I will try to answer you as soon as I can.

See you in the next video and see you soon!

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