Brackets for whole tones and semitones

• Sep 18, 2023 - 18:35

I am a music teacher and regularly use MuseScore to write out examples of music theory. Intervals and scales and the like. It would be great to have brackets for whole tones (square brackets) and semitones (triangle brackets) that automatically link 2 adjacent notes like a slur.

There is a square bracket in "lines" already, but I always have to move the edges to line up with the noteheads, and for the triangle bracket I use a modified slur. This is a reasonably decent workaround, but still, having dedicated brackets for this task would save a lot of time!


Comments

In reply to by DanielR

Huh, I never realised how this was not a common practice until I tried to find a clear example in a published edition.

In any case, the square & triangle pattern from the first attachment is what I meant.
But simply the triangle brackets/ties from the other attachments seems to be more common (the second example is from Barry Nettles).

Attachment Size
toinleitermainEN.jpeg 99.83 KB
Untitled.jpg 144.49 KB
G-scale-whole-half-steps.jpeg 13.86 KB

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Thanks for the suggestion!
For my purposes I prefer the modified slur, as it follows the noteheads when I move them around.
Like I mentioned, I manage fine, but would be great to have a sawtooth shape behaving like a slur (following the noteheads + switching from below the staff to above the staff for higher notes). Although the symbol seems not to be quite as common as I thought, I still think there are plenty music theory teachers that use it.

In reply to by thomasjilling

You can create a square bracket using a plain Line (from the Lines palette):
Begin_and_End_hooks.jpg

In the Properties panel for the Line:
1. If necessary use X to toggle the line to below the staff.
2. Set the Beginning hook and End hook to the right-angle version.
3. To make the hooks point upwards, change the Start hook height and End hook height to a negative value.

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