creating opera score
Hallo, I searched to see if I could find this clearly answered, but was not successful. I apologize if this has been answered and I missed it.
I am about to try to transcribe the first act of an opera that my father hand wrote. I have had success in the past using Musescore for creating a song book (simple voice & piano)
of his compositions. I am just not sure if this program can create a score for say a sextet or with main singers and chorus -as I read that there is a limit to four voices. I am not musically smart, more a typist trying to do my father a favor by getting his work into a printed rather than his hand written form. For now we are working with a piano score, so what happens when he works up full orchestration...forgive my ignorance, can Musescore do such?
thank you for your time and attnetion and suggestions.
gloria
Comments
Four voices is the limit *per staff*. It would be pretty rare to need more than 2. An opera score would normally have only one voice per staff, except for the chorus parts where there would be two. You can have as many staves as you like.
In reply to Four voices is the limit *per by Marc Sabatella
Thank you. I think I am confused about voices and staves. I will get an opera score to look at to make sure I understand what I am trying to do. And then search handbook and the guide book I bought to figure out how to do it with this program.
I just didn't want to get started if there were program limitations that would end up frustrating the endeavor.
Thanks again.
g
In reply to Thank you. I think I am by gloker
OH MY! I just noticed that you are the author of the guide book that I purchased!
THANK YOU for taking your time to respond!
g
In reply to OH MY! I just noticed that by gloker
You're welcome, and thank *you* for buying my book! :-)
To clarify terminology:
A "staff" is that thing with the five parallel lines. Could be for a flute player, a violinst, or a singer. MuseScore supports as many of these as you want.
A "voice" is an abstract concept that doesn't specifically have anything to do with the human voice, but instead refers to a way of representing multiple parts (such as the Soprano and Alto parts on a choral score, or Flute 1 and Flute 2 in an orchestral score) on a single staff. This is where the limit of four comes in, but it would virtually *never* happen that you actually wanted to put more than four separate parts on a single staff - it would be impossible to read!
In creating an opera score, you would normally have one staff per singer, except for the chorus, where you might have two staves total for all four parts (Soprano & Alto sharing the top staff, Tenor and Bass sharing the bottom). Then also one staff each for the various instruments in the orchestea, or two staves for piano.
In reply to You're welcome, and thank by Marc Sabatella
The only one time I saw an score with more than 4 "voices" per staff, was in some hand-written original version of the Moussorgsky's "Pictures of an Exhibition". It was intended for piano, but it is absolutely impossible to play, but the pianist would get hands with more than 5 fingers, hahahahaha!!!
Whatever... With MuseScore you can put more than 4 notes per staff at the same time (something called "chord"). But it is intended to some instruments only (piano, guitar, harp, etc.)
In reply to You're welcome, and thank by Marc Sabatella
Okay, since I did make the song book for him - (voice and piano) using Musescore a couple of years ago...I understand a little. So there must be some way to link staves to the same measure - forgive my ignorance if this is obvious- so -say the soprano and piano share one staff, but the staff with -say the bass baritone who sings at the same time but with different notes will appear below the correct measure of his duet with the soprano...can you direct me please to the pages in your book where this is explained? It seems that I need to know how to link staves for corresponding measures of the different parts. I mostly understand how to input notation, but only where measures run along together and not linked below...if you get what I think I need to know??
Thanks again for your time and attention,
Gloria
In reply to Okay, since I did make the by gloker
This happens automatically when you create the score. If you add more than one "instrument", the staves are automatically laid out in that way, so the measures align vertically. Same if you start from one of the templates that involves multiple instruments. You don't have to do anything special at all.
So when creating the score, just add instruments for Soprano, Baritone, etc, plus piano, and it will all just work.
In reply to This happens automatically by Marc Sabatella
FWIW MuseScore does an awesome job with opera scores.
The attached piano & orchestra scores (Toreador Song from Carmen, done in MS 2.02) aren't quite done (I have all the notes in, but haven't entered dynamics, hairpins, etc.) but still look incredible and play beautifully.
Most of it is solo for the baritone, but there are chorus parts as well.
There is one part missing in the orchestral version: for a triangle, which would go below the timpani line. I left it out for now, I can't find anything in the instrument selections that actually sounds like a triangle (whether it's called "triangle" or not).
There are some places where the default playback isn't quite right; in those places I set the "visible" notes to Not Play using the Inspector (F8) and put in "invisible" notes" that play correctly but don't match the original score as written. Go to "View->Show Invisible" if you want to see them.
Anyway, good luck transcribing your fathers opera! It will be an incredibly rewarding experience.
In reply to FWIW MuseScore does an by marty strasinger
Thank you for the example and pointing out a few aspects that will be helpful.
We aren't looking for playback as such, just printed scores instead of his messy hard to read hand written ones.
I appreciate all this help and clarification!
Gloria
In reply to FWIW MuseScore does an by marty strasinger
Triangle is gotten from the Percussion Set.
You have to create a new staff and choice Percussion without Pitch, and then choice Triangle.
You'll be allowed to put all the notes you want to that "infamous" triangle, hehehehe.
Greetings & Blessings!!!!!!!
Juan
In reply to Triangle is gotten from the by jotape1960
jotape, have you actually gotten an instrument that *sounds* like a triangle? On my PC, all of the supposed "triangle sounds" in both FluidR3 and Timbres of Heaven sound like something else- bass drum, timpani, or electronica.
gloker, apologies for hijacking your thread...
In reply to jotape, have you actually by marty strasinger
How did you enter those notes? I can confirm the exist notes do not play back as triangle, but if I enter new notes, they do sound as triangle. Looks like you maybe tried entering notes onto a drum set staff as other instruments then copied and pasted them into this? Or perhaps this was the result of improting a MIDI file, perhaps one with a non-standard percussion setup?
Anyhow, triangle definitely works as expected when creating the staff and entering notes normally.
In reply to How did you enter those by Marc Sabatella
I figured it out, and learned some things along the way.
(Again, apologies to gloker for hijacking your thread!)
To answer your question about how I entered the triangle notes, it was from my MIDI keyboard (an "acorn masterkey 49"), because-
* MuseScore (2.02, on a windows 10 PC) does not let me enter notes on the single-line triangle staff by going into Note Entry mode and clicking my mouse on the staff. I don't have any problems entering notes this way (mouse clicking) on a pitched instrument 5-line staff, not sure why I can't do it that way. I don't know if this is a bug or not; quite possibly operator error or ignorance.
* Since any key that I pressed on my MIDI keyboard entered the note on the line in the triangle staff, I assumed that it didn't matter which key I pressed. (WRONG!)
* Based on the advice from you & jotape, I entered a complete chromatic scale from my keyboard (attached). This happened to be using the triangle from "Don's Std Kit" Drumset from Timbres of Heaven soundfont (but I suspect I would get similar results from other soundfonts).
* Each key gives a different percussion instrument result. In the attached, you'll note that all of the note heads are standard ovals except for the high G#, which is an "x" head. Maybe it's a coincidence, but that G# sure sounds like a triangle to me.
* You might not get my exact same results with another soundfont.
Thanks again for your time & patience (and your excellent book!).
In reply to I figured it out, and learned by marty strasinger
OK, that explains things.
For entering notes on percussion staves, you might want to check out the documentation - the process is a bit different than for normal staves. See for instance page 271 ("Drum Input Mode") of my book, or "Drum notation" in the Handbook. To enter notes by mouse, you need need to first select the appropriate icon from the palette that appears below the score while inputting notes on a drum staff. That's because most drum staves actually can support multiple different "pitches" (MIDI drum sounds) displaying on the same line. For triangle, you'll see there are two choices: an "Open" and a "Mute" sound. Both display on the same staff line but with different noteheads. Each percussion instrument has its own special set of notes it can display with its own rules about which sounds appear on which lines with which noteheads. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts listed right above the palette icons.
When entering ntoes by MIDI, you do indeed need to press the corret key. MIDI is very specific about which pitches produce which sounds. If you want a triangle sound, you need to enter the appropriate pitch by pressing the appropriate key.
In reply to jotape, have you actually by marty strasinger
I always use:
GeneralUser GS MuseScore v1.442.sf2
FluidR3Mono.sf3
Timbres of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V.3.1 Final !X.sf2
As soundfont files into the MuseScore Synthesizer.
When I want percussion sounds, I choose the Percussion without Pitch item from the instruments choice window (in this case, the Triangle).
Then I go to the mixer and I choose the option "Orchestra Kit", which let me hear the percussion sound from the FluidR3Mono.sf3 soundfont file (to me, it is better than any).
And then... Voila!!! We have the triangle sound!!! (See the attached file)
In reply to This happens automatically by Marc Sabatella
Oh my god..that is TOO easy!
And here I was telling my Dad that even though it worked great for his singer & piano songbook...I wasn't sure about an act of an opera!
I LOVE this program!
Thank you again...
So now I actually think I can do this for him!
g
In reply to Four voices is the limit *per by Marc Sabatella
Four voices comes in very handy when used with hidden rests to lay notes out exactly how you need to see them including spacing and stems. Especially useful for cue notes so that, on playback, they don't mess with the notes meant to be played or sung.
I use it often even though, to the reader, it looks like only two lines with cues.
It is rare that I ever need more than four voices per stave but sometimes I do. Encore supports eight.