This chapter discusses the appearance of notehead in Musescore.
One aspect of music notation systems is notehead scheme. A scheme is a set of rules used to decide notehead shape's meaning, some of them are supported in Musescore. Supported schemes relate notehead meaning to a note's:
The most widely used scheme is very likely the only one known to many musicians. It is referred to as "Normal" in Musescore and is the default settings for new staff. Details of the nine schemes available in Musescore are covered in Notehead schemes.
These two-way relationships are usually strictly one-to-one, but could also be loosely one-to-many. Shape note solfege is like a variant of movable-do solfege. For example, in one type of "shape note notation", a triangle must be used to notate a relatively pitched "C4", but triangles are also read as relatively pitched "C"s or "F"s only, and triangles must sing "Fa" or a syllable agree upon by singers on-site. The loosely related shape note solfege notates interval perception way better than "Normal".
Shown above diamond notehead can be used for harmonic notes in guitar, violin etc; and slash notehead for guitar strums etc.
Final display of notehead shape in Musescore is determined by three factors: the notehead type factor, the pitch factor, and the duration factor (or note-value, rhythm).
Note pitch may affect affect notehead shape, depending on the scheme. But it only happens on notes that do not use an overriding Head group property, see "Notehead type factor" section.
The duration factor is determined by note's duration, to edit duration see Entering notes and rests and Editing notes and rests chapters. It also can be visually overridden for individual note, while keeping the real value and playback intact.
Options available for notehead type factor depends on staff type:
Notehead scheme determines the notehead shape for every note on a staff, unless overridden by individual note's Head group property. When Notehead scheme is not overridden, notes' pitch may affect notehead shape, depending on the scheme. "Normal" Notehead scheme does not use pitch to determine notehead shape. When a note use an overriding Head group property, note pitch information does not affect notehead shape at all.
On standard staffs, when "Normal" notehead scheme is used, Musescore assigns the first (circle) option (named "normal") to the note's Head group property automatically by default.
On percussion staffs, when "Normal" notehead scheme is used, depending on the instrument (like snare or hi-hat, not the "drumset" Musescore Instrument), Musescore assigns one of the four options automatically to the note's Head group property by default. They are boxed with pink rectangles in the images below, the four Inspector: Note Head group text options, correspond to the four items in Notehead palettes.
Do not confuse the first (circle) option named "normal" with the "Normal" notehead schemes. The circle option will not be discussed anywhere else inside this chapter to avoid confusion. The second option shown below is named "cross" is also known as "ghost note or dead note" by musicians.
In Musescore, you can assign custom noteheads onto notes on Standard staffs and Percussion staffs but not on Tablature. There are six methods to change the notehead type factor and duration factor.
These three methods changes notehead type factor of notes on standard staffs, and only works when each other are properly configured, read and understand the three level in the overview first.
To change notehead type factor on percussion staffs, see Drum notation: Drum input palette. Only some items in Noteheads palette work on percussion staff.
To change a note's duration factor:
There are six methods to change "pitch".
"Normal" and some notehead scheme (see Overview) relates vertical position to pitch:
Some notehead scheme (see Overview) relates notehead shape to pitch information, or loosen the relationship between note vertical position and pitch.
To move notehead(s) horizontally to the other side of stem, use one of the following:
(Note: Contrast this command with X which move notehead horizontally and vertically to other side the stem and beam)
Other properties for notehead, see Inspector: Note
There are 6 font options for notehead set in Format→Style→Score. Notehead does not use style profiles (Layout and formatting).
Noteheads palette are displayed with Bravura font.
When two notes in different voices, but of the same written pitch, fall on the same beat, one of two things may happen:
MuseScore uses the following rules:
Note: If two unison notes occur in the same voice they are always offset.
To turn offset noteheads in opposite voices into shared noteheads :
In a small minority of cases (where the smaller value note is dotted) this workaround is not applicable, so use the following alternative:
By contrast, in the next example, white notes cannot share noteheads with black notes, so are offset to the right:
To create a shared notehead, change the black eighth note's head type to match that of the white note or, pre-3.5, make it invisible (as explained above):
In certain cases, a shared notehead, when pasted to a tablature staff, may result in two separate fret marks on adjacent strings. To correct this, make any extraneous tablature notes invisible by selecting them and using the keyboard shortcut V (or by unchecking the "visible" option in the Inspector).