Convert between 3/4 and 9/8 (or 4/4 and 12/8) without messing up bars?
Is it possible to change notation from say 3/4 (with underlining triplets) to 9/8 where the same triplets are implicit? In other words, how to say "My quarters in 3/4 are actually all triplets, use this information when converting into 9/8".
I'd like to change a whole score / decide later which notation is more meaningful / less ugly :). But if it takes changing every measure separately would also help immensely.
I am posting an example of what I want. Measures 1&2 are the same music as measures 3&4. But if I just blindly change the time signature (3/4 -> 9/8 or vise versa) it will mess everything up.
Maybe there is some magic clever trick to do this? Thank you!
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Comments
I'm fairly sure that the answer is no. But perhaps someone else knows some kind of trick? (If so, I want to know it too :-)
But you'll definitely be in better shape by choosing your time signature before you start. If your example measures are characteristic of the entire piece, I would definitely pick 9/8. If only a handful of the measures look like this, then 3/4.
In reply to I'm fairly sure that the… by TheHutch
I wrote a plugin that did this once (to convert between triplet/non-triplet rhythms) but I have no idea where it ended up, and it wasn't 100% foolproof. FWIW I think this facility should be built into the software, it was pretty straightforward with other notation packages I've used in the past.
In reply to I wrote a plugin that did… by Dylan Nicholson1
Thank you Dylan. I guess I'll have to learn how to create my own plugins ;)
In reply to Thank you Dylan. I guess I… by VKudelin
Creating a plugin with MS4 is not for the faint of heart. If you have v3 I'd start with that. If all you're doing is changing note durations it should work in v4 too. Might be worth searching for any evidence of the one I'd created previously (which I think only converted from tuplets to regular durations).
In reply to I'm fairly sure that the… by TheHutch
Thank you for your response. As for "choosing... before you start" : I am actually struggling between choosing 3/4 or 9/8. 9/8 is overextended space-wise as each dotted quarter takes a lot of space; in 3/4, there are [-3-] signs all over the score, so both notations look a bit ugly to me, -- that is why I was hoping I could decide later by switching seamlessly between the two...
But so far there is no such luck.
In reply to Thank you for your response… by VKudelin
You certainly can switch between the two. You just have to make that decision before (or at the same time as) you enter notes.
In reply to Thank you for your response… by VKudelin
"in 3/4, there are [-3-] signs all over the score"
For a long series of triplets it is quite normal to omit the 3 after the first one and even to omit them all if it is obvious that they are triplets.
See this extract from Brahms clarinet sonata No2. for example.
If you select a "3" on a triplet you can get Musescore to do this in the properties panel. If you then click on the three dots next to the setting in the properties panel you can set it as a default style for the score so that all triplets will be numberless.
Alternatively you can select a range and then right click on one of the 3s within the range and then Select>Similar in this range to apply it only to the triplets in the selected range.
In reply to "in 3/4, there are [-3-]… by SteveBlower
Good thought!!!
I hadn't come up with it even though I'm doing EXACTLY that in a large piece I'm digitizing now. *blush*
My https://musescore.org/en/project/respell-rhythms plugin could give you some ideas. But the idea will probably not work in MU4 as there is no 'next-score'