Is there a way to add a slash to a grace note ?

• Jul 19, 2022 - 06:33

ie, convert Appoggiaturas (long grace notes) into Acciaccaturas (short grace notes).

Due to a faulty XML transfer from Sibelius to MuseScore (recent forum post), I have a bunch of unslashed grace notes. When I select all grace notes, then press "/", it adds a short grace note, while keeping the original long grace note, which I then need to go through and delete individually.


Comments

A suggestion:

  1. You can export the score from MuseScore into uncompressed MusicXML format (*.musicxml).
  2. Then open the *.musicxml file in a text editor (e.g. Notepad++).
  3. Edit the file to replace all occurrences of <grace/> with <grace slash="yes"/>.
  4. Save the *.musicxml, then re-open it in MuseScore.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

For reasons I don't understand, sometimes the slash works - I haven't yet gotten it to fail on MusicXML files generated by MuseScore. But on certain MusicXML files, it seems to not work for some reason. Like something else is wrong. Seems to be primarily Sibelius-generated files where this has been reported.

In reply to by DanielR

Hi Daniel, thanks for taking the time. Nice idea, but it didn't work for me. Not surprisingly since the score came from an XML file in the first place ! (attached to musescore.org/en/comment/1134658). That original XML file had no occurrences of <grace/>, only  <xml><grace slash="yes"/>

In reply to by BanjoJake

OK. It is possible that this is not a problem with a faulty export. I have Sibelius 7.5. As I understand it, there is almost no difference between 7.5 and 8. In 7.5 there is no button to add a 16th note grace note. It can be faked with a workaround. But it is not standard. I created a 16th not grace note in Sibelius as well as changing a few of the other 16th note grace notes to standard grace notes. In MuseScore, in both the resulting mxl and xml files, the 16th note grace note did not have a slash (as it did in Sibelius) and the standard grace notes showed up.

If all this is accurate, the answer to the OP would be that there is no way to add a slash. And that the way to fix the MuseScore result is to delete and re-add the grace notes.

Reviews are mixed as far as the Dolet goes. It depends on what you are trying to do.

If you need no unslashed grace notes after import, then the method Daniel hinted add can work out too if applied to the imported resulting MuseScore file.

  1. Open up the musicxml
  2. Save as mscx and close the score
  3. Open with text editor
  4. Find and Replace <appoggiatura/> with <acciaccatura/>
  5. Reopen the score in MuseScore for further editing.

In reply to by jeetee

The mscx file contained no instances of the word "appoggiatura". There were lots of these, though: <grace16/>

I then created a Musescore file with from scratch containing grace notes, and this one did contain <appoggiatura/>

Seems like maybe the origin of the score determines the internal language used by Musescore ?

In reply to by BanjoJake

Replace those <grace16/> instead and it should be working out as well.

> "Seems like maybe the origin of the score determines the internal language used by Musescore ?"
No, it does not.
If you create a new score within MuseScore with these symbols you'd see just the same thing stored. Once a score is imported into MuseScore's data structures, saving it in the MuseScore format has almost no different result from having created the same thing from scratch within MuseScore.

It's more likely that the different terminology comes from having been added later and not being that much of a common thing. Note that the slashed 16th is not a thing in the palettes either and the way to enter it into MuseScore is to enter a slashed 1/8th, then change it's duration.

In reply to by jeetee

As you say, no appoggiaturas in the xml. Only 16th note grace notes. The original question was about adding slashes to them, which is not possible. Nor desirable. The OP blamed the problem on a faulty export. But I don't think that is what happened. Sibelius can't easily create a 16th note grace note. Neither program adds a slur to a grace note. Not sure the text editor approach is possible. The 16th note grace notes will need to be delated and re-entered properly.

In reply to by bobjp

>> "no appoggiaturas in the xml"

Actually, in this case, the mscx file (which may follow the XML standard?) as suggested by jeetee (Jul 19, 2022 - 20:10)

But your point must be valid; The XML exported from Sibelius contains:

<note  ... >
 <grace slash="yes" />
  <type>16th</type>
           ...
</note>

But the PDF generated by Sibelius shows 1/8 notes !
Screenshot 2022-07-20 051801.png

In reply to by BanjoJake

There were no slashes to begin with. Without seeing the original Sibelius file (sib. not xml) there is no way to know much of anything. Where did you get this xml? If from your friend, ask that person what is in the file. I can't open a v8 sib. file.

Again: My version of Sibelius can't easily add a 16th note grace note. But it can be done. I have no reason to believe that the xml is not accurate. Because MuseScore and Sibelius open the xml the same as far as the 16th grace notes go.

In reply to by bobjp

You don't mean inspect the sib file, right, it's all binary gibberish. The Sibelius -generated PDF shows slashed eighth notes; I could attach that file if you like. I have asked my friend to re-import the XML file into Sibelius and send me a PDF (I do not own a Sibelius license, hence the need to make friends with people who do).

In reply to by BanjoJake

Sib. is the native Sibelius format. Like mscz. is for MuseScore. All you need to know is if the grace notes are 16th or 8th notes.
In Sibelius, I added an 8th note grace note, then created a PDF. The new grace note displayed properly. The 16th grace notes where still 16th's.

Just to get the facts straight:

MuseScore's current (3.6.2 and 4.0) MusicXML importer emulates MuseScore's GUI (see the grace note palette) and supports only 1/8 grace notes with slash. Grace notes with slash and durations 1/4, 1/16 or 1/32 are imported as non-slashed. Given that the GUI also allows changing an acciaccatura's duration (e.g. from 1/8 to 1/16th) while keeping the slash, I consider this a bug in the importer and will provide a fix. Thus this is not a bug in Sibelius' MusicXML export.

As far as I know, MuseScore's GUI does not support adding a slash to a grace note, the (somewhat complex) workaround using the GUI is:
- add an acciaccatura
- change its duration to 16th
- move the slur (if present)
- delete the original grace note
Alternatively, open the mscx file resulting from MusicXML import and change the grace tags (in this case grace16) into acciaccatura.

In reply to by Leon Vinken

My version of Sibelius can't create a 16th grace note with a slash. As far as I can tell, this is not an improper export from Sibelius, nor an improper import into MuseScore. But, as with any xml import, there are other things that need fixing in this file. I also have to ask myself if the creator of the Sibelius file wanted these to be, as depicted, 16th note grace notes. In which case, they should be left alone.

In reply to by bobjp

It is absolutely necessary to ignore the problems in all XMLs that come with the message "Direct export, not from Dolet". Because especially in Sib3lius, this kind of export is only for carrying score between versions of its own software (eg: from a major version to earlier versions eg: v7.x to v6.x ) Many notation or format errors while importing these xmls by other software may occur.
For all other standard musicxml exports it is necessary to use Dolet export.

In reply to by Ziya Mete Demircan

If that's true, then when I open the xml in Sibelius, I'm seeing an accurate version of the original. Yes?
I miss spoke when I said there were other errors in the MuseScore version. I was thinking of another thread. The view in Sibelius and the view in MuseScore are the same. No errors. 16th note grace note with no slash. I believe this is the intent of the creator of the Sibelius score. Which means the Dolet (which I don't use) isn't an issue here. Some users like the Dolet, some don't.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Just for the record.
1. Installed Dolet for Sibelius.
2. Created a score in Sibelius that had 1/8th, 1/16th, 1/4 grace notes (with slashes).
3. Exported using Dolet.
4. Opened file in MuseScore.
5. Result-only the 1/8 note had a slash. This was not unexpected by me as the others are not standard.

  1. Opened the Dolet create file in Sibelius.
  2. No grace notes had a slash.

I got the exact same results when I didn't use the Dolet.

Conclusion: Xml and mxl remain the best but not perfect means for file transfer. Personally, I am sceptical of the Dolet when even my simple test showed no difference. I'm not convinced that there is an xml problem with MuseCsore.

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