Is legato missing from Musescore?

• Oct 2, 2020 - 21:03

Hey, I searched online but I could only find posts from a few years ago saying it wasn't implemented yet. Can proper legato-arches/bows/slurs be found somewhere?

I know of the slurs in the line menu, but they don't seem to change anything about the awkward playback I'm trying to make smooth. Also, hold-slurs, at least in theory, are different than legato-slurs, so I'd expect to find them in different places.

Also, this "–" line articulation was mentioned somewhere. It doesn't change the playback to something legato-y. Additionally, it would be sub-optimal, if we wanted to properly mark big legato-passages.


Comments

In reply to by mike320

I see. Any plans to improve upon this?

Also, it's vital to add a seperate legato-arch. It's simply not the same thing. For example, observe those two measures from Wagner's "Träume" from the Wesendonck cycle:
Wagner_Träume.jpeg
Top bow: legato
Middle bow: legato
Bottom bow: hold

The middle line shows why different bows/arches are important. Obviously you don't hold the notes that are targeted by the middle bow... even though they're still the same notes.
This currently is not possible because Musescore does not differentiate between hold&legato... as least, as far as I know.

In reply to by Mraco_o

I think it more that MuseScore just doesn't playback phrasing. A tie (hold ?)is a different matter, and is created differently than a phrase mark (slur).

I'm not sure any notation software could playback your example. There must be a reason.

In reply to by Mraco_o

As mentioned, the music notation program MuseScore does support the notation of slurs, and they will appear in your printed or PDF scores exactly as shown. It's true the computer-generated playback doesn't currently happen to have much effect - and for piano music, there really isn't much effect of them even with human players, most pianists would play a passage like that as legato as possible anyhow. Someday, perhaps with MsueScore 4, slur playback may be improved. For now, though, the slurs are there, they work perfectly for notation, which remains the primary purpose of MuseScore.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Ah, I always thought the slurs in the palettes were supposed to be ties (as i'm not too comfortable with the English terminology)

It's a little sad that they don't affect playback, it would be great if users would be spared of having to edit everything manually when they want stuff to be played in a legato-way.

In reply to by Mraco_o

You shouldn’t need to edit anything - the default playback is already pretty legato. As I said, slurs in piano music are more for show, most pianists - and MuseScore - already play passage legato by default.

But indeed, ties are totally different, added from the toolbar, not the palette, since they are an integral part of the notation of duration, not just subjective “serving suggestions” for expression.

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