Support for "Hanging" ties used in percussion scores.

• Dec 7, 2021 - 21:08

As someone who uses MuseScore primarily to write for percussion, one of the most glaring feature omissions was hanging ties. They're common in percussion scores to indicate that the instrument should ring out, rather than be choked. In drumline they're commonly used to differentiate between open cymbal crashes and choked crashes.

In the first screenshot you can see how they are meant to be rendered. The tie isn't connected to anything, but rather hangs freely from the note. The second screenshot, taken from MuseScore, is a mess. Trying to manually adjust every tie is arduous, and changing anything within the score will instantly mess all of them up again. Simply adding a "ring" or "hanging tie" feature that automatically formats them the correct way would be a true lifesaver for making professional-looking percussion parts.

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Comments

This is usually referred to as "Laissez vibrer" and is not limited to percussion but can be applied to pretty anything that has some sort of sustain, like plucked strings and piano notes. These things should not really be handles like ties, but rather like an articulation to the note. It should probably not be particularly complicated to add proper support for this to MuseScore.

Using hacks for this is an option, but tends to be quite tedious. One possibility for example is to use something like a 2:1 tuplet and add one hidden note next to the note in question. Then add a tie and move then so it is right to the notehead. So if there is demand for this feature it should be well possible and desireable to support this properly.

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