help notating percussion
I am trying to notate an orchestral percussion part--suspended cymbal and tam-tam, written together on a one or two line staff. I've read the handbook entry on drum set notation, but I'm just not grokking it. (I've notated them as separate staves/parts, but for the sake of space would like to combine them.) Please, please, walk me through it.
BTW, the sound file for the tam-tam is . . .well, . . .
Comments
It would help if you posted your score as you currently have it, otherwise it's hard to guess where you went astray. But basically, as described in the Handbook, you should create a staff, then customize the drumset in Edit Drumset, choosing for each pitch which staff line and voice you want. Then you can enter the notes normally left to write. It's not clear if you are struggling to create the drumset definition to enter the notes, or in either case what specifically you are not getting right.
In reply to It would help if you posted… by Marc Sabatella
I guess the difficulty I'm having is at the "Edit Drumset" stage: I'm not finding the instruments I'm looking for listed. Also, I'm planning to make the note-entry on a computer keyboard (shortcut keys, I guess), not a midi.
Here is the score: the cymbals and tam are already on separate lines, I'd just like to learn how to create them on one single line.
BTW, do you guys ever take a day off? or even sleep?
In reply to I guess the difficulty I'm… by wfazekas1
:-) It helps there are so many of us...
So, did you try to use the Edit Drumset here? It doens't seem like Should be just a matter of starting with one staff and adding a definition for the other pitch. If you go to Edit Drumset for the tam tam, you'll see it is using pitch 52. Do it for cymbal and you'll see it is using 57. So, just add a definition for 57 to tam tam, or for 52 to cymbal. You can then choose how you want them to display - on, above, or below the staff line, what kind of head, what voice, etc.
In reply to :-) It helps there are so… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, when I get a chance (probably tomorrow morning) I will try this.
In reply to :-) It helps there are so… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you, that got me over the learning hurdle. Of course it didn't help that the instrument is listed as "tam-tam" in the Choose Instruments menu, and "Chinese cymbal" in the Edit Drumset one--even though I know that they're (basically) the same. Still doesn't sound like an orchestral tam, though--I'll have to explore some of the alternative sound files (through the mixer channels?).
In reply to Thank you, that got me over… by wfazekas1
"Tam-tam" is the name of the instrument; but "Chinese cymbal" is the name of the sound that General MIDI provides that comes closes to being a tam-tam (not close at all). General MIDI provides only a hundred-ish sounds, some of them aren't even instruments, but MuseScore needs to support many hundreds of instruments, so it chooses the closest match for the playback sound it can.
You could probably find a specialty soundfont with a real tam-tam sound, but you'll need to download and install it first before you can select its sounds in the Mixer.
In reply to Thank you, that got me over… by wfazekas1
Here's what I use. You have to add it as a pitched instrument rather than a drum for it to work.
This will help you, https://www.midi.org/specifications-old/item/gm-level-1-sound-set. You need to know which channel has the sounds you want. When you assign a sound you need to know which channel it is assigned to in the "General MIDI Level 1 Percussion Key Map" section of this table. I would add one of the instruments or the other, then edit the drumset and add the other one. I would also use the 1 line staff and make the default one on line -1 and with stem up and the other on line 1 with the stem down. This will actually put them immediately above and below the line. You can assign a shortcut to each, I would suggest A for the top instrument and B for the bottom instrument. I would also set the notehead group to normal no matter what the default is when you add the instrument.
As for the sound, you can play with the mixer. There are a lot of drum sound groups (orchestra and standard) to choose from. Listen to each until you get the best sound for both instruments.