Playing chords
is it foreseen un future release of mscore play the chords simply witing down them?
let me try to explain: I'm vocalist ( modern) should very useful for me to ear just the chords .. actually I have to write down two scores one for voice ( for melody) and one for piano ( for chords);
on the piano-score I have to write " all the notes " for earing the chord
in the upper side of score (of piano score) I usually write the name of chord i.e. A7+
the point is: should be possible in the future to ear the chord "just" witing the name ?
many thanks
Comments
MuseScore doesn't have a certain roadmap, so the direct answer is 'no it's not forseen'. However, since chord names are a very essential part of sheet music, I concur that it could get some more focus. Your request has been posted one year ago on the mailing list. A half year after that, it was posted again by Lasconic who analyzed the way Sibelius and Finale handle chord names and the playback of it.
As far understand it, MuseScore is still far from playing chord names. It involves refactoring and quite some time and testing. The more potential testers we are, the better. But I can't speak on behalf the development of this feature. Fingers crossed ;-)
In reply to chord name playback by Thomas
My fingers are definately crossed.
Thanks.
I really would appreciate this function too...
For my experience in programming (I'm old fashioned though) it should not be a big issue, since musescore already parse chord names as you enter them... Playing them is just a step away! :)
Thanks for the great job all the developers do!
In reply to +1 by [DELETED] 17396
This feature would be also useful to me, especially as a quick time-saver for teaching purposes (i.e. students can enter chords for chord progressions and hear them back rather than manually needing to enter the notes.)
Even playing back maj, min, dim, aug and dominant 7ths would be a good start.
In reply to +1 by [DELETED] 17396
I thought that they were pretty much treated like lyrics -- just text tied to notes or rests. In that case, it would be a very big programming job indeed.
Another thing to consider would be a conversion from chord symbols to grand staff notation. That would render them playable, and give you full flexibility to edit them if the automatic conversion doesn't quite do what you want.
-- J.S.
P.S. -- I just tested it, I was able to enter random nonsense text as a chord name. There's no checking for validity, let alone parsing.
In reply to Does it really parse chord symbols? by John Sprung
MuseScore does parse chordnames and compare them to a list of known chordnames. The parsed chords are the only ones to be transposed, exported correctly to MusicXML and affected by the chordname style (Edit global style -> chordnames). The list of chordnames, stored in the chords.xml file, contains one spelling for each chordname.
Implementing playback means finding at least the right rythm... And of course it will raise crazy expectation like support for music styles, inversion, octave, conversion to grand staff etc...
In reply to MuseScore does parse by [DELETED] 5
Lead sheet notation is inherently incomplete compared with grand staff, because it's intended to leave much of the interpretation up to the player's creative judgment. That's why they're called "charts" -- They specifiy the major points you're supposed to visit, but the route you navigate from one to the next is up to you. (The critical thing is that everybody in a band makes the same changes.)
That's why I think it would be best to start with a conversion to grand staff, which could then be edited. It would be a convenience for getting started, saving a lot of keystrokes, but I wouldn't expect it to be a finished score.
Starting with a lead sheet, a treble staff melody line and chord names, the conversion would create a bass staff with the chords written out:
Rhythm: Each chord would start at the same time as the melody note or rest to which it is attached. Its duration would extend to the next chord, or the end of the measure, whichever comes first. (The user can copy, paste, and perhaps tie later on.)
Inversions: Root position, unless a slash is specified. If the slash note isn't in the chord, use the inversion that gets the rest of the chord as close as possible to the slash note.
Octave: Pick the position that uses the fewest ledger lines, and doesn't overwrite the melody note. (The user can shift the ones that don't work well that way.)
With tweaks, you'd get a playable version. You could save a copy and delete the bass line to get back to the original lead sheet.
I know that would be a lot of programming work, and I'm sure that there are items that are both easier to do, and higher priorities.
-- J.S.
In reply to MuseScore does parse by [DELETED] 5
I think "dumb" playback - plain, root position, closed voicings, played as whole notes or half notes or whatever - would be very straightforward to implement. It could practically be done as a plug-in, if the architecture supported it. However, that type of playback is so musically useless I really question whether it would be worth the effort. Instead, one could export to MusicXML and then import to a program that *specializes* in musically useless accompaniment. That's the path I'd be looking to make sure worked.
What Finale does is no particular rhythms, and indeed doesn't seem to follow any sense of voice-leading etc., but rather just plays chords when they occur, until they encounter the next one (the chord-playing instrument can be defined).
This is better than nothing and can be quite useful.
Finale also has an Auto-harmonizing plugin which can be quite interesting at times as well, but I would imagine this would be a huge job. i.e. it actually puts notes into the score within the selected 'style', rather than just playing chords.