Problem adding grace notes and articulation to percussion in playback.

• Jan 22, 2023 - 13:27

Hi,

I am trying to add some percussion to a piece I have written. It is a very simple pattern on bongos - but for it to sound correct when played back, the little triplet 'ruff' in there needs to be quieter than the rest of the notes. I've read the section in the manual on drum notation, but if there is a clue in there on how to do it, alas I've missed it.

The first thing I notice, a minor point, when entering the 'notes' for bongos, is that when I select high bongo (sound A) I get a cabassa sound and when I select the low bongo (sound B) I get a loud whistle. The sounds are correct when playing the score - it is only in note insert mode when selecting them that the sounds are incorrect.

My main problem is that I cannot find a satisfactory way to get the grace notes quieter that the main beats. Please see my example. All three bars give me the correct rhythm, however, without articulation the triplet sounds like a machine gun. I have used both tremolo and triplets and they sound the same - however none of the articulation symbols seem to work. I have tried both 'unstress' and 'soft accent' and neither seem to affect the notes. I have also tried the opposite approach, of making the whole measure 'p' or 'mp' and trying to accent the main beats, but this doesn't work either. The conga sounds have the same problem - as does a concert snare drum. I tried tried using grace notes - but I can't get them to group as a triplet. Have I missed something?

My third bar in my example works perfectly, using the dynamic symbols. The problem here is that if I try to use a repeat for subsequent measures, it repeats the rhythm but ignores the dynamics. The only way I have found to get it to work is the enter every bar in full complete with dynamics - but this makes for a very big and messy score for a very simple riff.

As a work round, I can create a part for percussion with every bar written out in full with repeated dynamics for playback - and create a separate part for printing out which is easier to read but which doesn't play - but it seems an awkward work around.

Can anyone suggest a better way of doing this?

Thank you,

Steve

Musescore 4.0.1 - Intel Core i5 3.2 GHz - 16 Gb RAM - Windows 10 PRO 22H2

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