MULTIPLE IDEAS OF IMPROVING MUSESCORE 3:

• Oct 12, 2020 - 11:43

1a. The lines of the musical staff in MuseScore 3 aren't numbered from bottom-to-up, BUT from up-to-bottom which isn't correct in music: all the musical pedagogy uses this bottom-up numbering. I have discovered this bug by selecting Staff properties - 2 lines staff option, which generates a musical staff with lines of F and D (in treble clef) instead of lines of E and G (considering C as having its own "0th" ledger line).
1b. A flexible elegant way to solve this bug would be actually to let the user choose from a separate menu what lines he exactly wants to use (F, D, B, G or E, in treble clef OR 1st line=E, 2nd line=G, 3rd line=B, 4th line=D and 5th line=F).
1c. Another argument would be that, If this bug would be solved, than MuseScore would be the ideal software to write scores using a modular periodic bilinear staff (MPBS) which I promote from some time (I was partially constrained to create my own software called LeadMuse for that purpose). See links below:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325877146
https://www.academia.edu/36909545
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328352315
https://www.academia.edu/38013818

  1. When I try to paste a chord symbol on a note in a tuplet, it generates the error "cannot intersect with a tuplet", although this shouldn't be a problem, as any composer should be free to choose any note from a tuplet for a chord change. Maybe the technical team will solve this issue in the future. I also suggest to implement the F2 keyboard shortcut for editing/”renaming” any text from any score edited in MuseScore: it is a universal shortcut used in all versions of Windows and it’ll be quite convenient to also implement it in future versions of MuseScore. This may be considered complementary to the double-click method for editing a text/chord etc (which I saw that it was solved in the meantime).

  2. When I choose the text of a chord symbol and try to BOLD it, the text of that chord disappears. I think it would be a useful feature to let the composer/writer/teacher choose some chord symbols to be emphasized with bold or even underline if necessary for him.

  3. The implementation of audio-chords (to be played directly from chord notation is great). It would be even greater if the technical team would create a notation for the basses of various chords only so that I can choose if one any beat the bass or the other notes of the chord are to be played. I’ve noticed however that there are many chorded songs on MuseScore site for which the player doesn’t play the chords: why is that? Even if those scores were chorded in older versions of MuseScore, why doesn’t the online MuseScore player interpret those chords in audio form, in the style of MuseScore 3?

  4. The implementation of rapidly finding any tool by a string of text is a great feature of Muse Score 3 (it spears a lot of valuable time). However, when any object from the score is selected, the specific palette of options (corresponding to that object) should be automatically opened (concomitantly with closing all the other palettes) (or the user should have this option in the editor, if wanting this feature or not).

  5. Let the user choose manually (by selecting a measure from a score and dragging it closer or more distant from an adjacent staff) the staff spacing between any two chosen adjacent musical staves (and apply that distancing rule for all the selected measures and staves. Having to insert individual staff-spacers is too laborious and time-consuming. This suggested feature is greatly implemented for example in Sibelius 7 and spare a lot of valuable time.

With all these features implemented, Muse Score will surely surpass Sibelius 7 in many ways!

Thank you in advance for implementing these features!
Dr. Andrei-Lucian Dragoi
www.dragoii.com
www.dragoii.com/gcp
www.dragoii.com/gci


Comments

Thoughts from a random user.
I read through your last thread about this.
1a. While I also learned to read from the bottom up. I'm not sure it makes any difference as far as using MuseScore. I can see a problem trying to implement your two line system. Yet I can see no advantage to teaching music using a system they will not see in the real world. I learned to read standard notation and how to play trumpet at the same time and am not scarred for life:-)

1b. I can see that being able to name lines might be useful. Without this, there are ways to make notation examples you want.

1c. It might be easier to just continue developing your own software.

  1. This can be a useful way to to respace staves in Sibelius, as a mouse user I find myself dragging staves by accident and have to undo this. So it's a wash for me.

There are many things that Sibelius does that I wish MS could. As I understand it, changes might be made based on what is possible and what will benefit the most users.

In reply to by bobjp

Dear Mr. “random user”,

You have an ironic tone which doesn’t honor you too much.

  1. I compose music for almost 25 years. Besides that, I also do programming for more than 25 years (being both an amateur composer and an amateur programmer) and that may be an advantage when analyzing MuseScore, don’t you think? Additionally, my profession is that of a MD pediatrician specialist so that I’m quite skilled in diagnosis (applied not only in medicine, but also in music and programming). If “you’re not sure it makes any difference” then think again with these additional arguments in mind too. I am glad that your recognize the two problems (the error of MuseScore in correctly numbering the lines for pedagogical purposes and not only for that) and the problematic implementation of choosing fewer lines in MuseScore. There are many pedagogical methods which start with notes c-d-e-f-g and dedicate whole volumes only to the huge number of combinations that can be constructed with these 5 notes. It will be an advantage (and gain of typographical space and pigment) if using just 2 lines when teaching these basic notes don’t you think? That doesn’t impair the teaching of the other notes but the eyes of beginner (frequently the children) won’t be distracted by the other 3 lines which are used yet. Didn’t you realize that my proposal are strongly relate to the eye efforts of the beginner reader and to ease those efforts so that children may be truly focused on music not on notation. Because many musically-skilled children lose “the battle” with standard notation system just because it is unnecessarily tiring especially for the beginners and children (but not only!). I’m a pediatrician very interested in new notation systems, pedagogical methods and to keep children close to music as possible: I hope that this makes sense to you now. What you mean by the “real world” in music is in fact a dynamical world which keeps changing; in the world of computers it may be one click a way to convert any score (written in any notation system) to any other notation system. NOT the notation system is truly important but the speed to which that notation system helps in memorizing/internalizing music and then emitting that music to the audience. The audience may not be interested at all in which notation system you’ve learnt a specific musical piece as long as your interpretation is exact, expressive and skilful. Thus, it is NOT about “being scarred for life”: is about valuable time (lost in memorizing a huge number of visual recognition pattern [the position of notes on the 5-line staff and N ledger lines) which may be invested in focusing on the audio music (in controlling the expression and the message) NOT on its written form which may hugely vary from one time and historical place to another. As I’ve written in the other older thread of mine from 30.01.2019:

1d. If this bug would be solved, than MuseScore would be the ideal software to write scores using a modular periodic bilinear staff (MPBS) which I promote from some time (I was partially constrained to create my own software called LeadMuse for that purpose). See links below:
The concept of a periodic musical staff (PMS)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330716995
LeadMuse
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325877146
https://www.academia.edu/36909545
My music catalog
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328352315
https://www.academia.edu/38013818
The G-clef instrument project
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335025363
www.dragoii.com/gci
The G-clef piano (GCP) project
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340582322
www.dragoii.com/gcp
GCP music catalog (GCP)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340582322

In a checkpoint conclusion, the pedagogical potential of MuseScore is huge and it is a noble approach to perfect this pedagogical potential and refine the programming behind it. I always think to a musical software also in respect to children and to ease their effort in “conquering” music.

1b. I’m am glad that you agree with me that an elegant way to solve the bug of erroneous line numbering in MuseScore would be actually to let the user choose from a separate menu what lines he exactly wants to use (F, D, B, G or E, in treble clef OR 1st line=E, 2nd line=G, 3rd line=B, 4th line=D and 5th line=F). I hope that the programmers will also agree with us.

1c. Trust me: It was EASIER to build my LeadMuse demo software than convincing some programmers and other member of the technical team on some of these issues. My LeadMuse was built to write lead sheets very quickly (by using a simple notation system based on numbers): it won’t be a bad idea at all for MuseScore to allow writing music from a text box that translates into notes (in real time) what you write in numbers. Maybe the MuseScore programmers would be open to such a collaboration (so to implement the facilities of LeadMuse into MuseScore). I dealt with some rigidity in the views of some.

  1. I use Sibelius from 2012 and dragging a staff by mistake rarely happened to me (because dragging a staff in Sibelius means to first drag that staff by prolong left mouse click): allow me to NOT believe your “excuse” and take it as an invented/artificial one with no relevance in this discussion.

With the hope that I’ve somehow broadened your views on musical pedagogy in general.

Best regards and health possible!
Dr. Andrei-Lucian Dragoi
www.dragoii.com
www.rg.dragoii.com
www.academia.dragoii.com

In reply to by andrushkkutza

Don't get me wrong. I read your posts with interest. Although because English is not your first language, it can be a challenge. I'm not sure you understand how your opening statement to me comes across. Nor your accusation that the developers of MuseScore are too proud to make your changes. Or how you tend to make various proclamations, and then hope that my views have been broadened. Or your constant need to list your credentials, experience, websites, and more in most of your posts.

In reply to by andrushkkutza

It's not clear to me what "bug" you mean. Why should it matter how Musescore numbers staff lines internally? What matters is whether you can create a staff where the lines correspond to the notes you choose - this has nothing to do with the internal numbering. All you need is a way to set the specific pitch of the top or bottom line, perhaps as a clef customization. This would be nice new feature to add, so if it's important enough to you, I do hioep you will volunteer to join the open source effort and implement it!

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Dear Mr. Sabatella,

It is sad that, after almost two years of our 1st discussion on this MS issue, it is still “not clear” to you: maybe your vanity inhibits your mind clarity? The fact that MS lists the 4th and 5th staff-lines when I choose a “2 lines”-staff is a BUG, simply because MS DOESN’T RESPECT the Western standard of line-numbering (from bottom-up) (thus it quasi-randomly proposes the last two lines of the staff instead of the first two ones AND/OR it doesn’t even let the user to choose what group of “2 lines” does he prefer): it is said that I’ve discovered (by an older thread https://musescore.org/en/node/281144) that you DIDN’T EVEN KNOW about this elementary pedagogical standard of Western music notation (I am glad however that some users also taught you a lesson on this simple basic aspect of musical pedagogy in that old forum thread). Who taught you elementary music? How it is possible that you’ve graduated elementary music without knowing this elementary aspect of Western music notation? I am sick of various clef/key-based workarounds of the problem, instead of correctly and elegantly solving the rigidity of the MS function of choosing those 2 lines (with huge pedagogical potential and applications, as previously argumented). As an MD pediatrician specialist working in a big hospital, you may surely imagine that I have more important things to do than repairing this bug of MS (which still persists after almost 2 years from January 2019, when I first reported it [https://musescore.org/en/node/281144]): I’ve reported this bug to you and other programmers with more spare time for music (which isn’t my case, although I’d like that). This update would surely bring more flexibility, elegance and pedagogical value to MS: I also say this because I observed that you also have pedagogical interests (and often publish various harmony lessons).
HOWEVER, be sure that this is my last reply to you: I’ve already given you too much of my spare time (in the last 2 years, in this thread and the cited older one) with no use and no finality! The time of an MD is much more valuable than you may think.

Regards!
Dr. Dragoi
www.dragoii.com

In reply to by andrushkkutza

Indeed, it isn’t clear to me how the internal representation of line numbers in way whatsoever affects anything at all, because no one has yet posted a simple, clear, and concise example to demonstrate how the choice of internal representation causes a problem. The passage of time had not It itself caused this happen. It require sometime to take the time to post such a simple, clear, and concise example.

But as it is, without such an example of how internal choices in line numbering in some way causes an actual real world problem, there is no bug to fix. We volunteer developers of MuseScore have limited spare time as well. So we usually prioritize fixing actual bugs that people are able to provide reproducible demonstrations of.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I think where our friend is confused is when he creates a 2 line staff. The result is the top two lines of the five line staff. He mistakenly thinks that MuseScore counts from the top down. Rather than the reality that MuseScore merely deletes the bottom three lines. He mistakenly believes that he can't write music on this staff. In reality the only thing that is affected is playback. He also mistakenly believes that children need to have notation dumbed down. I know of schools that teach the five line staff in kindergarten without problem. The whole idea of a two line staff is a step backwards and unnecessary. Perhaps he is confused by five lines. I suspect that most people aren't.

In reply to by bobjp

It looks like either you haven't read my RG articles dedicated to the LeadMuse (LM) soft and periodic musical staff (PMS) OR you are too narrow-minded to understand that, because the frequencies of notes are governed by an periodic-like octave-based base-2 exponential function (which may be graphed as a logarithmic spiral with an octave-based periodicity), music notation should also have octave-based periodicity of note-position visual patterns (for more conceptual coherence between audio music and written music): your opinions come from past and mine from your distant future (which personal opinions are sometime marked as spam on this thread by narrow-minded people with some holes in their characters).
Have a look on the notorious project on alternative music notation to open your narrow views blocked in the past.

Regards!

In reply to by andrushkkutza

Interestingly enough, just because you claim to be the future, doesn't make it so.

Please post a page of a Chopin Etude in your notation system. Perhaps a few sentences about why it is better. Please, only a few. If it takes an entire thesis to explain, then it may not be as simple or better.

And once again I would ask you to have an actual English speaker go over your posts. Your command of English is mediocre at best. Much of what you say comes across as rude. I'm sure you don't mean to appear that way.

You say that there needs to be a better connection between music we hear and music we see. I'm not sure I agree. Printed music, no matter what notation system we use, is not supposed to be heard. Much like music we hear is not intended to be seen, except in our imagination. In the name of simplicity, you make the whole process unnecessarily complicated. You present a solution where there is no real problem. Your desire to have neat mathematical answers and relationships seems pretty "narrow minded" (your words, not mine) to me. Music is not math. To limit it to math is to not understand what music is. This does not at all allow for the mystery and beauty that is music.
I see a note. I play the note. A first grader can do the same.
Using our current system I can easily read notes that someone 300 years ago set to paper. Is it perfect? Maybe not. Will it change? Maybe. But every time it does, everything written before has to be reworked. I'm not sure it's worth it.
You say the same things that everyone who promotes alternative notation systems says. Every one of them thinks their system is the answer. Every one of them hasn't worked out.

Besides, what keeps you from writing music on the two line staff anyway? You can still do that. Playback will not be correct, but you can still have printed music.

In reply to by bobjp

Dear Mr. “bobjp”,

  1. Why does MS deletes the first 3 lines and not the last 3 staff-lines? Simply because it actually wrongly numbers the staff lines. Besides that, why doesn’t MS let the user to choose which line he wants to preserve? (rhetorical question: because MS is still primitive in many ways). It is surely a minus of MS the fact that it doesn’t allow the user the choose what staff-lines he chooses to preserve (when choosing a staff with less than 5 lines).

  2. It is clear from my first thread that Sabatella didn't know about the bottom-to-up line numbering. Don't try to defense him: it is useless and unconvincing for me (besides it is essentially and generally unethical to hide the truth)! Time already proved that sad truth.

  3. My LeadMuse and PMS articles are in fact thesis-like paper and explain ALL the advantages of PMS: it looks like you still haven't read them, thus you are superficial in this discussion. PMS doesn't need clefs (just needs naming the first module from bottom up), offers a universal staff for any instrument (thus an easy transition from an instrument to any other regarding notation), it significantly accelerates the speed of reading and learning notation (thus giving time to concentrate on perfecting the interpretation) ETC. My playback is exactly in my PMS demo (it ISN’T transpository), because of a tweak. You may be sure that I can transform any score into a PMS-based one.

  4. I have published relatively many articles in international peer-reviewed journal (see my ORCID account http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2261-1350) and many preprints (see my RG and Academia accounts www.rg.dragoii.com and www.academia.dragoii.com) and my English was never a problem so: focus on the content and do not seek artificial problems in the English form of my articles and preprints. The fact that I’m not a native English speaker thus DIDN’T stop in anyway for my papers to be read daily worldwide. I have more than 10-20 reads totally worldwide on all my scientific papers.

  5. With specialized software, the rework of any score written in xml wouldn't be a problem and that software would be a batch converter, converting hundreds of files once to this PMS-based format.

  6. For the new generations, be sure that PMS would significantly simplify music notation and speed up learning plus the transition from any instrument to any other one (because one doesn't need to learn new clefs). Additionally, in my LeadMuse I’ve even proposed the integration of alteration signs in the shape of noteheads so that one may also abandon all key signatures in my PMS and simplify even more the musical notation.

  7. You may be sure that this is my last reply to you (already given you much undeserved time with apparently no use: sadly, I didn’t manage to surpass your vanity!): with the hope that I've somehow stretched your narrow views.

REGARDS AND BEST HEALTH POSSIBLE!
Dr. Dragoi
www.dragoii.com
http://dragoii.com/pms
http://dragoii.com/gcp/
www.academia.dragoii.com
www.rg.dragoii.com

In reply to by andrushkkutza

So here we go again; cross-topic argumentation of whichever and whatever. At least you've changed your initial reply to something more based on reason and as such I'll once again reply to your points. Maybe one day you'll be bothered enough to actually read the response and take it to heart. Who know, perhaps even reply with the relevant answers to questions posed?

> 1. Why does MS deletes the first 3 lines and not the last 3 staff-lines?
Because it was programmed this way.
> Simply because it actually wrongly numbers the staff lines.
As you've been informed many times, internal staff line numbering is irrelevant to your purpose.
> Besides that, why doesn’t MS let the user to choose which line he wants to preserve? (rhetorical question: because MS is still primitive in many ways). It is surely a minus of MS the fact that it doesn’t allow the user the choose what staff-lines he chooses to preserve (when choosing a staff with less than 5 lines).
Now that we all agree on. This is a good feature request! So go ahead and add it to the issue tracker as a suggestion.

> 2. It is clear from my first thread that Sabatella didn't know about the bottom-to-up line numbering. Don't try to defense him: it is useless and unconvincing for me (besides it is essentially and generally unethical to hide the truth)! Time already proved that sad truth.
Apparently you still haven't read the replies to your first thread; nor the ones I gave you in your recommendations thread. So I have no real hopes that you'll read this one either.
But in your original thread Marc agrees that the different line numbering makes sense. It's just that as a programmer we are very much aware that the way line numbering is presented to the user can be detached from how it is presented internally in the data model.

> 3. My LeadMuse and PMS articles are in fact thesis-like paper and explain ALL the advantages of PMS: [...] You may be sure that I can transform any score into a PMS-based one.
I personally see the possibilities in your PMS system, contrary to some of the other "new" notation systems that have come along here in the past years.
There is educational value in the positioning simplicity it gives.

> 4. [...]The fact that I’m not a native English speaker thus DIDN’T stop in anyway for my papers to be read daily worldwide. I have more than 10-20 reads totally worldwide on all my scientific papers.
Fair enough; we'll no longer comment on how your tone comes across.

> 5. With specialized software, the rework of any score written in xml wouldn't be a problem and that software would be a batch converter, converting hundreds of files once to this PMS-based format.
But MuseScore isn't PMS-specialized software. Again, I'm not saying that it can't facilitate this task (especially given it already having a batch converter plugin). But we won't break parts of standard notation to support PMS. If the feature to be able to choose which stafflines remain (thus which pitch they should represent), then I believe your major roadblock to be cleared?

> 6. For the new generations, [...] (because one doesn't need to learn new clefs).
This is just what you wrote in point 3, so see my reply there.
Additionally, in my LeadMuse I’ve even proposed the integration of alteration signs in the shape of noteheads so that one may also abandon all key signatures in my PMS and simplify even more the musical notation.
This might make it more difficult for programs that support standard notation and adhere to the SMuFL standard to display your notation. Although you can probably use a plugin to mark the normal noteheads invisible and attach your images on top of them..

> 7. You may be sure that this is my last reply to you (already given you much undeserved time with apparently no use: sadly, I didn’t manage to surpass your vanity!): with the hope that I've somehow stretched your narrow views.
Two more things:
First: someone who doesn't agree with your views isn't automatically vain or narrow minded; they might just have a different opinion.
Second: This isn't the first "last time" post of you stating how you've been wasting time. I truly hope that next time you decide you wish to waste time here, you'll do so actually reading the answers given to you and responding to the points and counter questions that matter (which means, not the personal attacks, if you so experience them).

In reply to by andrushkkutza

I am choosing to ignore your personal insults and will also choose to do you the honor of not responding in kind.

However, I'm still hoping to see a single, concise, and clear example of the problem. I have limited spare time as well. A simple short paragraph with a sample score and precise steps for me to follow - would take about five minutes to write up, tops, certainly far less than the time spent thus far, would help immensely more.

The best I can tell is the issue is, again not related even the slightest bit to the question of internal line numbers. The issue as I can best understand it absent a simple, concise, and clear example is, a two line staff with treble clef currently uses those two lines for D4 & F4. This suits the purposes of some custom non-standard notations just fine. But for your particular custom non-standard notation, it would suit you better if a two-line treble clef staff used those two lines for E & G. It would save you the trouble of needing to use the "Fix to line" setting in the Inspector (which would actually solve the problem for you for now).

If this understanding is correct, then all that is needed is a simple setting in the staff properties to control this. No rewrite of the internal line numbering data structures, just a simple spin box to add to the dialog and then factor in, so the user has control over this.

To some extent this is already possible using the staff type change element instead of staff/part properties. but, it does not behave as one might want for this particular special purpose with respect to clef position or ledger lines. Again, probably the current behavior makes sense for some particular unusual non-standard use case, just not this particular unusual non-standard use case.

If you would care to spend a few minutes writing up that simple request in the issue tracker as a suggestion - no need to add a lot of extra information, it's a simple enough request and doesn't require reference to a thesis to explain - then we can finally begin the process of considering and perhaps implementing this request.

If you can do so without further personal insults, that would greatly expedite the process.

In reply to by andrushkkutza

Dear "Dr"

It may interest you to know that I have some experience in the medical publishing world. I picked at total random one of the journals you publish in. It came up in a Google search. GS Journal .net. This journal claims to be peer reviewed. Not true. Actual peer review means that an author submits a paper. The publisher then sends this paper to other experts in the field. if enough experts find the paper credible the paper goes to a copy editor to have the English corrected and the paper is published. The GS Journal publishes your papers and and then other people write reviews. Not the same. The journals you publish in doubtless can afford a copy editor, so you have no idea how poor your English is. So please, stop already with the superior act.

Have you considered using Finale? It contains every single bit of sophistry you and I and everyone else can think of… and more! It's also even jankier than Dorico, which is just fantastic — especially if you love the UX design patterns of apps like PowerPoint and Dreamweaver. (Right?) For over thirty years, Finale has given you the power to do almost anything — which is why so many publishers, composers, and schools have chosen it for their music engraving needs. Don't just take my word for it — you can see for yourself what leading figures in the music industry have to say about this tried-and-true notation software. Don't delay — get Finale today!


DISCLAIMER: The preceding comment is meant only as satire and should not under any circumstances be taken seriously. If you needed this disclaimer… I'm sorry.

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