3 Highly Requested Features

• Sep 5, 2024 - 20:03
  1. Regarding grace notes and similar, please add the option to choose whether or not the first grace note in the group or the note after the set of grace notes sounds on the beat during playback. Currently, only the first option is available, and enabling the second option is too complicated. Simplify it, please.
  2. Accents, marcato, and some other articulations don't sound during playback in MuseScore 4 (all versions), but they did in MuseScore 3. Please bring this back.
  3. In MuseScore 3, I was able to change the loudness (velocity) of individual notes so that they were either louder or softer than others beyond the written dynamics, but this option has since been removed in MuseScore 4 (all versions). Please bring this back.

Please do this ASAP. Not having these options is driving me crazy!

Comments

• Sep 5, 2024 - 20:48

  1. I thought that acciaccatura meant grace notes before the beat and main note, And appoggiatura meant grace notes on the beat before the main note. Both of which are in MU4.

  2. True accents and marcatos are wimpy. Since I write for playback only, I can change the notation to get what I want.

  3. This has long been an issue. Works in Basic sounds but not Muse sounds

Reply

• Sep 7, 2024 - 23:40

"An appoggiatura ... suspends the principal note by a portion of its time-value, often about half, but this may be considerably more or less depending on the context." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_(music)#Appoggiatura

In the 18th century, [the acciaccatura] was ... struck simultaneously with [the chord] and then immediately released. ... In the 19th century, the acciaccatura (sometimes called short appoggiatura) came to be a shorter variant of the long appoggiatura, where the delay of the principal note is quick. ... In the Classical period, an acciaccatura is usually performed before the beat and the emphasis is on the main note, not the grace note. The appoggiatura long or short has the emphasis on the grace note. ... Whether the note should be played before or on the beat is largely a question of taste and performance practice." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_(music)#Acciaccatura

So, playing them both beginning on the beat of the 'graced' note, is not "wrong".

To my ear, the Add grace note: acciaccatura from the Grace Notes palette is identical to the Add grace note: 32nd. So if you explicitly want the grace note to play before the beat, use the 'grace note after" options on the same palette.

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• Sep 8, 2024 - 02:23

Hunh! I wondered how much. So I made a script with staccato 16th notes on the beat and rests between. Set the tempo to 60 (mostly to make it easy to FIND the beats). Put 32nd grace notes (appoggiatura) on some, grace notes (acciaccatura) on others, and left some 'ungraced'. :-) Exported it to .WAV and then imported the .WAV into Audacity.

The notes that were 'ungraced' showed onset exactly on the second, as would be expected. The notes with 32nd-note appoggiatura showed onset 5-7 ms before the beat, with onset of the main note at ~120 ms after the beat (very close to one 32nd note later at 60 bpm). The notes with acciaccatura showed onset 17-19 ms before the beat, with onset of the main note at 32-33 ms after (less than a 64th note later).

So my ear can't hear that ~10 ms difference (slightly longer than a 512th note), but you can. According to studies I've seen (not for a long time, so I can't provide the citation), the limit of human perception is approximately 15 ms (with a fairly large error bar). Musicians are among the people who tend to have the best time perception. So you're at the high end and I'm a little below (presumably due to my age, infirmity, and :-( slowly increasing hearing loss.)

Kewl!!!

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• Sep 8, 2024 - 15:20

I'll be 73 next month. Old and grumpy. Hearing has been going bad for several years. The science of sound or music doesn't interest me. Music is not quantifiable to me. It is purely an emotional experience for me. I hear what my grumpy old brain tells me I'm hearing. Is it correct? Who knows. Other senses are fading also. At least I can still taste chocolate.

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• Sep 26, 2024 - 17:06

I tried that. Something really weird happens when I do that.

It looks perfectly fine right after I add those notes. However, if I make ANY (and I do mean any) change to the score near those notes, even something as simple as adding dynamics, something unexpected happens. The grace notes after the beat suddenly scrunch up and overlap either the following notes or the previous notes, making it borderline illegible.

Reply

• Sep 26, 2024 - 17:09

Actually, it's not a question of taste. It's a question of what era the piece the grace notes are in come from. If it's from the Baroque Period (J. S. Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, etc.) then the grace notes land on the beat. (Although sometimes it's played that way in Haydn's and Mozart's works as well). Any time after that, the grace notes are played before the beat. It's something I learned in Music History in college.

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