Putting a Riff Sample In a Separate Box

    Transcriptions often will isolate a specific riff in a box, and then refer to that riff elsewhere in the score ( such as "Use Riff 1" ).  You can do this with MusEdit as follows:

Indent the riff lines as follows:

right-click in the top line of the riff

hold down the Shift key, then hit the down arrow key to select the rest of the lines of the riff

go to View | Line Appearance | Staff and Tab Line Indent and Spacing, and set the indent of the selected lines to a value such as 80 pixels.

while the lines are still selected, go to Actions | Set Staff Length and set a new length (choose "Current position of caret" if that is appropriate, or "User set length" and enter a value), and be sure to check "Only current (or selected) lines" in the bottom part of the dialog.

Draw a box around the indented lines

right-click in the top staff line, hit the Home key to put the caret close to the left end of the line, and hit the up arrow key to put the caret above the staff

if you are putting the box around mutually translating lines (Treble/Tab) click on or hit Ctrl+I to turn off mutual translation

click on the "Insert Bracket" button: 
                      

choose "Box" and hit OK

click below and to the right of the bottom indented staff line

right-click somewhere in the middle of the box and drag it into the proper location, and adjust the size of the box by dragging one of the small re-size boxes in the corners of the dotted box

if necessary, turn mutual translation back on by clicking on again

Note: If you ever want to select and change an extended object in the staff lines enclosed by the box, you will have to first click on the box and drag it out of the way, then select the extended object and make the change, then drag the box back into place.

Here is an example of a box around a riff:

     


( RiffBoxExample.med )