Editing early 17th-century music

I received an email a few days ago notifying me that MuseScore version 4 was now available so decided to see whether the program could be used to edit late 16th- and early 17th-century music and, most important, how easily. As the example shows, the program can certainly be used for this purpose.

Most of what is needed is covered in MuseScore’s admirable online handbook. There are very few features missing, but perhaps these could be implemented in an update. They are:
1. Ligature brackets. At the moment Jon Arnold‘s plugin for ligature brackets (https://musescore.org/en/project/ligaturebracket) has not yet been updated for MuseScore version 4.
2. A keyboard shortcut for the elision sign in Lyrics.
3. Inserting unusual mensuration/proportion signs in a prefatory stave (see 2, below).
4. Deleting initial brackets from incipit without also deleting them from the edited version.
5. See also problems in 1a, 1h and 4, below.

What follows are reminders to myself of how to implement some features of an edition of early 17th-century music that are not covered in the online handbook, but I hope that this might be helpful to other users wanting to edit music of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Equally, if my approach can be improved by other, more experienced, users, I should be grateful for their comments. I am working on a Mac.

1. Preparing an incipit (prefatory stave).
   a. First, input into the first bar the rests and notes that you wish to see in the incipit, using a modern time signature. Delete the brackets at the beginning of the bar. As things stand these will be repeated in the incipit and cannot be deleted from that without also deleting brackets in the edited version.
   b. Either retain the time signature 3/2 or, as I have done, substitute it by the mensural signature.
   c. Select the first measure and insert a horizontal frame (from Add – Frames -insert horizontal frame). This may now either be left immediately before the first measure if the voice/instrument names are present in the source or moved before the voice/instrument names if they have been added by the editor.
   d. Select the frame. Open the Layout palette and click on the final icon (‘insert one bar before selection’). The incipit will appear. Its contents then need to be adjusted to represent those of the source. You will need to re-enter and, if required, adjust the time signature for the ‘edited’ bar 1.
   e. Adjust the clefs to those of the source. Change the ‘edited’ version to modern clef and make invisible the cautionary clef sthat have been added to the incipit.
   f. Add the time signature 3/2 and then, if desired, change this to a mensural signature by right clicking on the time signature and creating the new signature from the ‘time signature properties’ menu.
   g. Select the incipit and Right-click to open ‘Bar properties’. Click on ‘Exclude from the bar count’.
   h. In the case of the Rovetta example, the composer (or printer) used the signature dotted C3 for Tenor 1 and plain C3 for the other two parts. So far as I can see, the only way round this problem is to right click on the signature in the Tenor 1 incipit and select the appropriate signature from the ‘other’ drop down menu in the ‘Time signature properties’ menu. Tenor 2 and Bc. signatures can be created as for the ‘edited’ version, though this means that they are in a different font from Tenor 1.. This still leaves the 3 to be added to the Tenor 1 signature. Select a rest or note in its incipt and Add – text – staff text’ and the number 3 and position it against the mensural sign, adjusting its size under its ‘properties.

2. Adding coloration brackets (see bar 9, for example). Select the note on which the bracket is to be place. Open ‘View – Master palette’ and select ‘Symbols’. In the search box type ‘tuplet’ and select the relevant bracket. (Tip: leave adding these brackets until all the music is entered since the Master palette can then be left open at the relevant page.

3. Figured bass. NB On the Mac, sharp is opt-3. Hard space is opt-space.
4. Adding editorial accidentals. This is easy for sharps, slightly more difficult for a naturals, but flats have to be added using ‘Add text – staff text’, inserting a flat (I do this from PopChar and resizing it. For sharps and naturals, select the note to which the accidental is to be applied and insert a guitar tablature (CMD-K). `Opt-3 (on the Mac) will then insert a sharp (in a different font from the figured bass sharps). I can enter a natural sign from PopChar using the freely available Bravura font. However, if a flat sign is entered, the program changes this to an upper case B, so enter the flat sign using ‘Add text – staff text’ and adjust size.