Need ability to extend arpeggios to other voices and staves

• Oct 25, 2020 - 02:06
Reported version
3.5
Type
Functional
Frequency
Many
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project

In #65806: Allow correct playback of cross-staff/voice arpeggios there is a request for proper playback of cross-staff/voice arpeggios but there is limited ability to extend the arpeggio symbols to other voices and staves.

Currently you can extend an arpeggio to another staff below the current staff in the same voice only by either pressing ctrl+shift+down arrow or shift+down arrow. These arpeggios are visibly extended with the limitation that they must be in the same voice only. This should be extended so the user can add the arpeggio to staff 2 and use ctrl+shift+up arrow to extend the arpeggio to staff 1.

What is lacking is the ability to extend an arpeggio to other voices. You cannot truly extend the arpeggio to another voice on the same staff. You can drag the end or press arrows and ctrl+arrows to move the end visibly but the anchor remains where it started.

This has accessibility implications as well. A blind user cannot tell how many times to press arrow or ctrl+arrow to extend the arpeggio at all to even make it look correct. I suggest that shift+up/down arrow move the end point and anchor to the next voice on the same staff. I suggest that shift+down arrow increase the voice while shift+up arrow decrease the voice since voice 1 is typically filled with higher notes than voice 2. This matches the visible rather than numerical order of voices.

Workarounds should be self-evident in this description and do not apply to accessibility.

Relates to #288373: [EPIC] Arpeggio issues and #277496: [EPIC] Accessibility issues/suggestions


Comments

I think #65806: Allow correct playback of cross-staff/voice arpeggios refers only to playback. There are cases where the arpeggio extends from voice 2 in staff 2 to voice 3 in staff 1 with the possibility of more voices in staff 2 and clearly voices 1 & possibly voice 2 & 4 in staff 1. There is no way to tell the arpeggio that you want voice 3 & 4 in staff 1 and voices 1 & 2 to be covered by the arpeggio at all. You can only extend the arpeggio to the same voice in a different staff. That's where there is a workaround but it's not preferred to make voice 1 or 2 stem down and voice 2 or 4 stem up to accommodate this notation. MuseScore plays it as though the arpeggio is only on staff 1 on the only voice it is applied to. This is a complex fabricated example. A recent example I saw had the arpeggio extend from staff 1 voice 2 to cover voice 1 of staff 2.

I agree there is probably overlap but I wouldn't want the issues here ignored while fixing the other issue.