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Topic: Merging Staffs (Read 2383 times) previous topic - next topic

Merging Staffs

I have two staves (Tenor and Bass) in my NWC file which I would like to print on a single staff.

The layering facility works well up to a point, and does show both sets of notes.  However if the notes are (e.g.) beamed quavers, or indeed single quavers, the printed output shows the beam (or the decorated vertical) at different places from each original staff, so the printed score looks as if they are semi-quavers.

Is there a way round this?  I would be happy to move the bass staff en-bloc and merge it with the tenor staff, but there does not seem to be a facility to do this.

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A related point.  In a fairly long piece of choral music, Sop and Alto sing the same, so I would like to merge the sataves.  But after 3 pages they sing different tunes & timing and slightly different words.

Is there a way to say that the staves should be merged initially, but revert to their separate identities (and lyrics) after a certain point?

Thanks  -  Andrew M

Re: Merging Staffs

Reply #1 –
One way is to set note stems upward on whichever voice is higher on the staff, and the other downward (with Shift+Up/Down).
If you don't want to have stems pointing in opposite directions, you'll have to merge the notes.

Re: Merging Staffs

Reply #2 –
I think the only way you could do what you want is to force a page break where you want them to be split, and then print the first 3 pages with the parts layered.  Then, unlayer them, and print whatever pages that you want them split.  Other than this there is no way to split them in the middle, that I am aware of at least.  Maybe put it in as a wish list item?

~Adam White
~Composer/Percussionist
~Colorado State University

Re: Merging Staffs

Reply #3 –
I don't think there's a way to force a page break, just line breaks.  I think the best way is to make it two separate song files, one for the unison section, and the other for the divisi.

If it turns out that your unison section ends in the middle of a page, you can set the page margin for the second file so that it has a whopping big top margin, sufficient to clear the unision staves.  When printing the second file, you should be able to print just the first page, which will appear below the unison parts.

You're going to have to tinker a bit, because you'll need to be creative to get the divisi part to print where you want it to, but I think it will be do-able with trial and error.