Editing drum parts by dragging the notes up and down

• Dec 28, 2020 - 17:04

Hi,

I just want to check before I add something to the 'Feature request' section.
I think it is not possible to edit drum parts (e.g. changing a high Tom to a floor tom) by dragging the notes up and down on the stave. is this correct or am I missing something?
At the moment it seems I have to delete the note then select the new note I want from the drum palette and then create the note on the score, which it rather time consuming. With most music notators you can move the notes up and down on the stave and change the instrument quickly that way.
I have discovered you can change them by dragging notes up and down using the piano roll though. I have two monitors so can have the piano roll open as well and edit the score that way.
Thanks for help

Comments

• Dec 28, 2020 - 17:10

It seems you are correct about not being able to drag notes on drum staves. You can use arrows to move them up and down, but where they move to is determined by the order that you defined the drum sounds, which is quite unintuitive in the default drumset.

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• Dec 28, 2020 - 17:15

Thanks to both of you. Yes the arrow keys do it, I knew I was missing something, as you say it goes through the drum map order, I can see that by looking at the piano roll as I do it.
I wish I could move the notes with the mouse, very quick then to edit the part. I'll put it in the feature request section.
Thanks for help

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• Dec 28, 2020 - 19:19

I agree dragging should work, but - I am not seeing how this could be faster than the arrow keys - quite the contrary in fact. Also see Repitch mode - depending on your reasons for needing to edit the pitches later this might be faster still. If you attach a sample score and describe in more detail how you are working and what changes you want to make to the score that currently have you wanting to try dragging, we can probably help you find more efficient ways of working.

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• Dec 28, 2020 - 23:20

My assumption was we are talking about notes already entered in the past, and now you are going through and changing some. Keyboard is just as likely to be handy as mouse, But indeed, people do drag notes on pitched instruments, and it's almost always less efficient there tool except perhaps in the special case of notes that are entered with the mouse and then changed in pitched immediately while the mouse is still in hand.

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• Dec 28, 2020 - 19:44

Hi Marc,
I think it would be faster because - for example say if I want to change a High Tom to a Floor Tom, using the down arrow its four presses, using the up arrow its 19 presses, whereas dragging it with the mouse is just a drag. Sibelius (sorry for mentioning! - I don't use it anymore) and Notion (just have demo version) allow dragging of drum voices.
One thing I used to do when using Sibelius for example, when writing say a fill with two beats of semiquavers, was to stick them all in on one line (e.g. snares) and then just drag the notes to the voices where I wanted them to be after.
If Musescore had a keyboard option to move the drum notes up and down the stave as well as moving through the drum map (with as it currently is with the arrow keys) that would be good.
I've attached a sample score and say if I wanted to change the fill in bar 8 quickly, dragging would be useful. Dragging in the piano roll works quite well though.
I'll take a look at Repitch mode and see what that does.
Thanks for your help
from
Richard

Attachment Size
Tissington2(advanced).mscz 27.87 KB

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• Dec 28, 2020 - 23:28

The thing is, pressing Down four times takes very very little time - a small fraction of a second - whereas dragging requires quite a bit of precision to be sure you release in the proper spot. This is doubly compounded in drum notation where you need not just the right line/space but the right specific note for that line/space.

Regarding your example, what exactly do you want to change that fill to? Personally, I'd probably use the palette directly - double-click each note in turn. No need to even switch to repitch mode if you're just talking about the sixteenths, although repitch is nice if the durations keep changing. But I do use the arrow keys for this sort of thing a lot too.

Anyhow, again, I'm not suggesting this feature shouldn't be added - just observing that there is almost always an equally or more efficient way of working already.

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 00:47

Personally I think dragging the notes is better, it’s what I’ve done with Sibelius for ages and I think it’s quicker especially if the score is zoomed so it’s easy to place. It would nice to have the choice though of which method to use, if you were already on the note with the mouse to select then a simple drag would be quick, if you were using the left right arrows to navigate then probably it would be quicker to just use the up and down arrows. Although I reckon most times you would go past the note/symbol that you wanted and then have to use the other arrow to go back, until you sort of built an auto pilot of how many times you needed to press to go from one note to another.
I don’t want to change that fill, I just used it as an example of the sort of thing I want to do, for example if I copied and pasted it to another bar and then wanted to change the drum order to vary the fill.

Another thing I do often is sit at my kit with a monitor where my music stand is and I check (by playing ) / edit the part. I have a mouse on a small table next to me - much easier to change the notes if I can just use the mouse by dragging.

Anyway I do think MuseScore is great, hopefully they’ll add this thing in sometime in the future.
Thanks
From
Richard

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 15:13

I do wonder about how Sibelius then handles the need for different noteheads on the same space/line in drum notation? If you drag that note, does it somehow cycle through all noteheads for the space you're moving to? (which seems difficult from an accuracy point of view).

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 16:12

I made a very quick video https://hidrive.ionos.com/lnk/7XYULWqS showing dragging the notes up and down on the stave. There is nothing fiddly about putting them in the right place. With the noteheads - when you change the head it then plays a different sound / voice. You can change the note head from a drop down or use a keyboard shortcut.
I'm not saying I like Sibelius, I don't, drives me mad but I'm hoping Musescore (which I do like) will adopt something like this for drums.

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 16:29

Yes thanks, I actually read this thread yesterday when I was searching for answers before I posted. I haven't fully checked out the 'placing a note on any beat' thing yet but I have noticed if I want to add hihat with voice 3 on beat 2 & 4 I first have to make a note (or rest) on beat 1 and then afterwards delete it.

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• Dec 30, 2020 - 07:00

You shouldn't ever need three voices to notate drum music; two should virtually always be sufficient. And normally, both voices would show all rests, deleting them would create confusion except in special cases. But in those cases, making them invisible ("V") is usually a better idea - otherwise it can become harder to edit the measure later.

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• Dec 30, 2020 - 22:29

In your example, to have a hi hat on beat 2 or 4, you wouldn't notate it as a crochet but simply add it to the existing dotted quaver chord. Duration is irrelevant in drumset notation; it's all about time position.

However, your voice assignments are nonstandard to begin with. Really, the cymbals and snare should be combined into voice 1, and the hi hat and bass drum in voice 2 (using the usual convention of hands stem up, feet stem down). In which case, voice 2 is then very simple: bass crotchet, hihat crotchet, 2 bass quavers, hihat crotchet - no chords involved. But voice 1 then needs to be redone a bit. To get the cymbal both into the same voice, beat two needs to be a quaver chord containing both, then 2 semiquavers: cymbal, snare. Same for beat four, and beat three would need a similar modification.

So, the standard notation for this rhythm would look like this:

Tissington2(advanced).png

By keeping everything to two voices, you not only avoid hard-to-read collisions between stems like your example has, but you also gain the benefit of simplicity as you only need to think about two separate rhythms rather than three or four. Plus, it will instantly be more familiar to people accustomed to standard drum notation.

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• Jan 4, 2021 - 13:08

Hi Marc,
I found this very interesting as its not something I'd overly thought about before. I realise by looking through my music that sometimes I had typed out music as you suggest above (and the logic of it makes perfect sense), especially when I had typed out jazz notation with the snare drum comping.
Sometimes I had done it as my per my attachment above. I hadn't really been conscious of which way I was doing it though and was surprised to see what I had done.
I did a quick survey of some of my drum books and there is a real mixture. Alot of them do as you suggest but interestingly the exam boards (Trinity Rock and Pop and Rock School) do it as per my attachment. Some books I found mix up the two and I even found one book published by Boosey and Hawkes that mixes up the two ways in one bar! I think there is some logic in keeping the bass and snare part together so that the groove is easily visually apparent and someone (e.g. a pupil) can easily see and sing the groove, whilst the constant 8th note ride pattern just keeps going on its own.
Sometimes I also found the bass drum having the stem up joined to the cymbal line.
I'd quite like to see what other drummers think but maybe I need to head over to a drumforum or facebook group for that!
Anyway, don't know if you or anyone else on here has further thoughts............
Thanks

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• Jan 4, 2021 - 19:33

I'd be very interested to see a published example that shows simple pattern like this done in three voices. There are indeed different conventions used in the world - some editors (especially French, from what I understand) use stems up / down to indicate left / right rather than hands / feet. And a few actually notate everything in one voice, which is also almost always possible for the same reason it's almost always possible to notate in two voices. But I don't think I've ever seen any professionally edited music use three voices for something like this.

But I really think if you do the math, you'll find at least 90% of all published drumset music worldwide uses the convention I described: stems up for hands, stems down for feet. And because 90% of music uses it, students are accustomed to seeing this 90% of the time, so it is extremely comfortable and familiar to virtually everyone. Deliberately changing to something that most people have literally never seen before does not aid readability even if it seems like it might be logical. Reading music is about pattern recognition, which relies on adhering to convention.

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• Jan 10, 2021 - 13:44

So I've done a little survey, for my own interest really and here's a link to a pdf with some different examples.
https://hidrive.ionos.com/lnk/ojYUL2Vk
My conclusion is that drum music is written in a variety of different ways and is done so that the music can be visualised and conceptualised as easily as possible in each individual case. Much depends on the groupings that are easiest to read. I think drummers just get used to looking at drum music written in various ways and don't really think about it, I know I didn't much, and rarely do any of my pupils ask about it.
I can't find any seemingly obvious examples where the Hihat foot is written in a separate voice from the Bass drum (as I was doing), although it might be and then rests are deleted but I suspect not.
I have noticed that my American books such as the Alfred ones tend to conform to the hands/stems up, feet/stems down convention more than books from other places do.
Anyway I found this little topic interesting.

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• Jan 10, 2021 - 22:48

It's absolutely true that different editors use different standards for drum notation, and sometimes they deviate from their own standards. But still, as you are seeing, there are a lot of pretty good generalizations one can make, and the idea that drums are virtually always notated in only two voices is something you can pretty much take to the bank.

In any case, to me the lesson is, if for some reason you decide not to use the particular standard used in the default MuseScore drumset definition (hands up, feet down), then simply customize your drumset definition to be more to your liking. Once you've done that, you should be able to very easily enter parts using just two voices.

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 16:45

And for the most part, there is little need for any given line or space to have four different sounds attached to it. Why? In Sibelius, If I choose a rock drumset, I don't want electric snare or conga. Open and closed hi-hat are noted on the same space and with open or closed symbols over them as needed. Or I can have any of several other drumsets. Dragging is possible because all the default sounds are in on voice. The MuseScore palette tries to be all things to all people. One stop shopping. But there is a trade off. That is consistency.
Drumset input is so different from other instruments. Someone coming from Sibelius has to learn something vastly different. Flute input is the same between the two.

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• Dec 29, 2020 - 17:05

Please do bear in mind that the more clicks required to achieve any edit means an equal number of clicks of the Undo button (or CTRL-Z) if you wish to reverse the action. The issue is compounded if one wishes to undo the state of previous notes. How many clicks do you consider acceptable before the undo tool becomes unwieldy and/or unusable?

Undo can be a very useful tool, but without access to an edit history or some other way to make undo more flexible, its function is limited. We have had this discussion in the past regarding making edits via the Inspector. I won't say more on the matter, as in that instance, you suggested I was being less than truthful in my reporting of my experience in that regard.

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• Jan 3, 2021 - 00:16

Would it make sense to have a matrix/drum-machine input mode for drums, similar to what it looks like for Hydrogen etc? It should be possible to select the resolution (eight note/sixteen note etc) and then just put dots in squares. Musescore would then automatically convert to standard notation based on the drum-set definition.

It would be a little bit trickier to handle tuplets etc. But it should be possible, I think.

Obviously, a substantial work to implement, but would it make sense as a feature?

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