Trombone Range Problems

• Sep 19, 2014 - 13:42
Type
Graphical (UI)
Severity
3
Status
closed
Project

Musescore 1.3 on widnows 7

Treble Cleff trombone, played an octave up from what it actually is, this therefore shows that notes are out of range when they are not.


Comments

Severity

Could you (or someone else) check whether this is fixed already in 2.0 Beta 1 or later nightlies?

If you need it fixed in 1.x, you couild edit instruments.xml yourself. 1.x won't recveive further fixes

I am guessing you created a score for trombone then simply changed the clef, then tried to enter notes an octave above where they sound? If you do that, it will also *play* an octave too high. You need to tell MuseScore this is a transposing instrument - right click an empty spot in the staff, "Staff Properties", and set the transposition to down an octave. Actually, I am guessing you also want to treat it as a Bb instrument - meaning actually an octave and a major second. You can do this too. With the "Concert Pitch" button off, you can enter / view notes at written pitch, or with "Concert Pitch" on, you can enter / view them at actual sounding pitch. And in both cases the highlighting of out-of-range notes will be correct.

Please let us know if this solves your problem and we can close this issue. If not, then please psot the score you are having trouble with and the steps we would need to follow to reproduce the problem.

Trombone is usually in Bass clef????

Unless you are using UK Brass Band notation in which case that is a completely different use case, and you would need to set up a special case in instruments.xml for it.

I'm tempted to mark this as "by design" but I will hold off until I we find out if the OP is trying to produce a UK Brass Band Trombone score.

There are a range of reasons why trombones play also in Treble cleff, the instrument actually has a huge range and most people that take trombone to higher grades - around grade 6 and above - will have to play pieces in treble cleff. It is not a problem that I encountered myself, it was encountered by a friend who is a grade 8 trombonist when writing a score. I will speak to him about Mark's suggested solution.

Thanks,

I don't know what you have done here, but creating a trombone score from scratch writing a set of notes in the top part of its range then changing the clef from bass to treble does not result in the behaviour you describe.

Please provide clear, step by step instructions on how to reproduce this problem.

Fwiw, the standard clef to use when trombone parts get too high is tenor clef, not treble. But parts are not written an octave higher than they are intended to sound. And indeed, there is a good chance that such parts are outside the "amateur" range. You can use the settings in Staff Properties to control what Muses core thinks of as appropriate amateur or professional ranges, or turn off the warnings entirely in your Preferences.

Unfortunately he doesn't take part in testing. And although it is true that tenor clef is often used, treble clef is still used and what's important is fixing the issue, not whether or not he should have used treble or tenor. I will see my friend tomorrow and speak to him then.

I knew about all the suggestions you gave and said them to him before reporting but I felt I should post as it seemed more like an actual coding problem . And the reason I can't give much info is that I completely agree with what you both have said so I now don't really understand what problem he was experiencing. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Apologies for confusion.

Yes, I agree treble clef should work, but our point is, it *does* work when used correctly. If you wish to enter notes an octave higher than written, you need to use the transposition facility to *tell* MuseScore the notes sound an octave lower than written, or else use the special version of treble clef with the "8" below it. That is what you should tell your friend.