On March 21, 2025, Muse Group released MuseScore Studio 4.5.1. MuseScore Studio 4.5, released on March 14, featured improvements in the areas of percussion, engraving, text handling, and input. Several features were designed specifically to appeal to Finale users switching to MuseScore Studio, and to revamp the entire experience around percussion.
The MuseScore Studio 4.5.1 update addresses some issues related to those improvements and other fixes, as well as minor feature improvements.
Here are the fixes in MuseScore Studio 4.5.1, as provided in an announcement on the MuseScore news site.
Engraving
- Space between a dynamic and an expression (e.g. within “p dolce“) now scales correctly with staff size
- Increased distance between a partial slur and partial tie on the same note
- Partial ties now extend past breath marks and notes or rests in other voices
- Fixed corruption in parts when a time signature is inserted between tied notes
- Making higher instruments visible in a part no longer duplicates jump markers (e.g. “to Coda”, etc.)
- Fixed centering of dynamics between staves when horizontal space is limited
- Fixed horizontal spacing after hiding an instrument
- Fixed layout of courtesy time signatures for which autoplace is disabled
- Increased gap before barline for hairpins created by dragging from a dynamic
- “Show text” property of glissandos is now properly preserved on saving and loading
- When a large time signature is hidden, its parentheses are now also hidden (affects MuseScore.com and continuous view)
- High Floor Tom and Low Floor Tom have exchanged position on the General MIDI Percussion staff
Interaction
- Selection filter setting is now properly accounted for during a range selection
- Entering a pitch in ‘input by duration’ mode now turns off ‘toggle rest’
- Partial ties can be copied and pasted
- Creating a hairpin by dragging from a dynamic can now be undone in one step instead of two
- Hairpins can now be removed via the dynamics popup by pressing the same hairpin button again
- MIDI notes can be staggered when entering chords in input by duration mode
- If you’ve opted to use the legacy percussion panel, it now appears when note input is activated
- More special characters can be typed with AltGr and Ctrl+Alt on Windows
Stability
- Fixed crash after note input on deleted staff
- Fixed crash when Shift+clicking on a page number
- Fixed crash when editing partial ties
- Fixed crash after copying a tie in the score and selecting it in the parts
- Fixed crash when adding a time signature to a score with voltas and system markings
- Fixed crash when a lyrics hyphen is entered before a repeat barline
- Fixed crash when opening the layout panel
- More reliable fix for crash when pasting into a tuplet
- Fixed an issue where a black screen occurs on startup on macOS
Other
- Fixed playback after undoing an edit to a chord symbol
- Slur and hairpin properties are properly exposed to the plugin API
- File format icon images are now square (i.e. same width and height) on Linux
More details are provided on the MuseScore 4.5.1 Github page.
MuseScore instruction now available from Notation Central
There are many MuseScore resources out there, but the best way to really learn the software is through customized instruction. Personal instruction sessions in MuseScore are now available from Notation Central.
Whether you’re just getting started with the software and need a general overview, a more experienced user looking to take your skills to the next level, or an advanced user in need of customized advice, look no further.
You’ll schedule an appointment with Steve Morell, an expert MuseScore instructor.
Steve is an expert MuseScore user, saxophonist, pianist, engraver and contributor to Scoring Notes, the authoritative web site about music notation software and related technology. Steve is a graduate of the famous Berklee College of Music and founded a sheet music startup called NiceChart that allowed music directors to customize arrangements automatically to any instrumentation and individual player proficiency.
Appropriate for beginner to advanced MuseScore users. Book 1 or 2 hours at a time now.
Learn more
For full coverage of MuseScore Studio 4, please read our comprehensive reviews of MuseScore 4, MuseScore 4.1, MuseScore 4.2., MuseScore Studio 4.3, MuseScore Studio 4.4, and MuseScore Studio 4.5.
For the latest information about compatibility for Finale, Sibelius, Dorico, and MuseScore, as well as links to the latest news and reviews about product releases, please see the Scoring Notes Product Guide.
