Dead notes on a guitar score

• Aug 9, 2020 - 16:53

Hi, Many guitar scores feature dead notes (often shown as 'x') - obtained by lightly resting your left hand across the strings without actually pressing the strings against the fret. Only the guitar sting notes (EBGDAE for standard tuning) would be available as dead notes.

Is it possible to create such notes in the score of say an electric guitar in MuseScore? In other words if I were to place one of these notes in a guitar score, could I make it 'dead'?

Thanks
Henry


Comments

In reply to by henry coppens

This score was created in 2011. Back then guitars apparently only had a single sound channel. To update to a more recent guitar right click the guitar staff, choose staff/part properties then click the "Change Instruments"Button above the long instrument name. Select the Electric Guitar and the instrument will be updated to the instrument in your current version.

Since you have to click on the note then enter Inspector anyway to set the notehead as a cross, set the note Velocity to 0 or very low value ' this only affects the note you are working on. If you have a lot of such notes you can select several at a time and do the changes.

Hi Henry,

Thanks for your post. I've been wondering the same thing about muted guitar notes.

When I set an X notehead I'd want MuseScore to automatically sound the note with a quiet, largely pitchless "muted thump"—like Guitar Pro does—with no channel or velocity tweaks required.

A muted "thump" would be far better than manually choosing a lower velocity value, because note played at low (or no) velocity wouldn't convey the impression of a guitar "left hand" muted note.

scorster

In reply to by scorster

> When I set an X notehead I'd want MuseScore to automatically sound the note with a quiet, largely pitchless "muted thump"—like Guitar Pro does—with no channel or velocity tweaks required.

> A muted "thump" would be far better than manually choosing a lower velocity value, because note played at low (or no) velocity wouldn't convey the impression of a guitar "left hand" muted note.

Agreed. And for example, GuitarPro 7 does a really good job at rendering muted notes.

In reply to by scorster

>How so?

On Nov. 5, you quoted and replied to a Sept. 6 post that was authored by you; so when you agreed, you agreed with yourself.

As a comparison....
See my other comment where I quoted and replied to Dissonant Harmony's post (and agreed).
(No big deal - just a comment on semantics.)
;-)

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