Tuplet brackets show incorrectly when only a single note

• Aug 16, 2021 - 03:21
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S4 - Minor
Reproducibility
Always
Status
active
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

1) Create a tuplet from an existing note/rest
2) Change the length of the first note/rest to be the full length of the tuplet (e.g. a dotted 1/4 note in a 3:2 tuplet)
3) Observe that that tuplet bracket is drawn incorrectly (the right hook is to the left of the number, and the left hook to the right)

While this particular case isn't so useful, when there are tremolos involved, it's definitely useful for a note to display as the full length of the tuplet. In the case of a between-notes tremolo, selecting the first note and trying to enter a new pitch cause the same problem (and unexpectedly removes the second note - though this seems to be bug in general with replacing pitches for between-note tremolos).

At a minimum I'd expect the hooks to be swapped around to drawn on the correct side of the number. And perhaps better if the tuplet is just automatically removed in such a case (unless it's a single-note tremolo, in which case perhaps just hide the brackets). Further the number should be horizontally centred over the stem in the direction its pointing (it looks like MuseScore always tries to centre it over what would be an upwards pointing stem, even if it's downward). There's also a good case for removing the dot if it's a triplet.

Ref: Elaine Gould "Behind Bars", p 215, p 219.

Incidentally for tuplets such as 5:4 I don't really know how you'd do it at all, as there's no way of having a note that exactly divisible by 5 units (you can have 7, but not 11, 13 etc.). So maybe that's the real problem here!

Comments

• Aug 16, 2021 - 06:45
Reported version 3.6 ⇒  

It is that way ever since, at least it is that way in 2.3.2 already (no with 1.3 though?), and I always thought this to be by design:;

2.3.2 (not quite as clear):
tuplet.png

3.6.2:
tuplet3.png

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• Aug 16, 2021 - 16:48

I'd be pretty surprised if one found any published consensus on the right way to display a one-note tuplet at all, or indeed, any agreement at all that this ever makes sense. But that said, for cases where it might theoretically happen, almost certainly there is a better way to tender it than what we do. The challenge in improving it will probably be finding published examples.

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• Aug 16, 2021 - 22:04

There's plenty of published examples of single note tremolo triplets. I may have seen one or two that show brackets, but the vast majority simply don't show any at all, which would be better than what's being rendered currently.
One example: https://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/6/67/IMSLP04047-SchubertStrin… (half way through 3rd system).
BTW when I do explicitly set the bracket type as "none" the digit doesn't seem to be centred properly

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• Aug 16, 2021 - 22:19

BTW Gould is a proponent of not showing the dot in this case (a triplet single note tremolo). In so far as it means you can easily change the number to, say, 5 (in fact I can't see how you could notate a single note 5:4 tremolo in MuseScore currently), I'd probably tend to agree, though whether MuseScore should do it by default is worth discussing. But the triplet numeral is clearly centred over the stem with no brackets at any rate (pages 215 & 219). MuseScore looks like it's centring over the stem when upward, but under the notehead when downward, which is a little odd.

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• Aug 18, 2021 - 05:20
Workaround No ⇒ Yes

Ah, tremolo - I hadn't read carefully or considered that case, I was just going by the image in the first response, sorry.

Anyhow, probably the right thing is to show number only. Meanwhile, workaround is to turn off the bracket manually.

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• Aug 18, 2021 - 16:36

I know what causes it. It determines the center, and places the number there. It finds the left and right ends and places lines there. Then it draws a horizontal line from a certain distance away from the number to the corresponding end. This happens because the distance away from the number is farther than the vertical line.

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• Aug 18, 2021 - 20:05

Yep, that's my read too. We used to have more cases of "backwards" lines like that have managed to fix most of them by checking to be sure the end point really is further than the start. I think that won't happen for actual lines, but tuplet brackets it obviously still does.

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• Aug 21, 2021 - 12:22

BTW I was able to fudge an mscx file to show a 5:4 single note tremolo:

          <Tuplet>
            <normalNotes>4</normalNotes>
            <actualNotes>5</actualNotes>
            <baseNote>16th</baseNote>
            <Number>
              <style>Tuplet</style>
              <text>5</text>
              </Number>
            <bracketType>2</bracketType>
            </Tuplet>
          <Chord>
            <durationType>quarter</durationType>
            <duration>5/4</duration>
            <Note>
              <pitch>69</pitch>
              <tpc>17</tpc>
              </Note>
            <Tremolo>
              <subtype>r16</subtype>
              </Tremolo>
            </Chord>
          <endTuplet/>

It gives a corruption warning on opening, but actually works fine otherwise, you can even copy that note around as part of a range and use it elsewhere. But playback is a bit problematic, it appears to keep playing forever!
It seems odd that MuseScore doesn't have any way of assigning a note a non-standard duration (that has no standard single-note representation). The idea of, say, a "half dot" meaning "extend the length by a 1/4" is actually quite appealing!

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