Why are dynamics permanently italicized?

• Jan 2, 2018 - 23:10

I've been wanting to make my dynamics look normal without the italics, but for some reason, that isn't option. In text style, the italics option isn't even marked. I also tried doing it manually, but the italics option is apparently not marked on the text either, even though the text is italicized. I don't understand why this has to be forced and why it isn't an option. It comes off as limiting and I'd like the dynamics to look normal. In case you're wondering, I've been using just the regular 2.1 version, which introduced these italicized dynamics. It's just a minor nitpick that I have, but it really should be an option rather than permanent.


Comments

If you read the major notation book "Behind Bars" by Elaine Gould on engraving you will see that dynamics are always italicized by convention. MS follows most if not all conventions.

Have a good day.

In reply to by xavierjazz

Following most conventions based on one book is not a good idea by any means. Just take a look at all the published and non-published scores, Jazz and Classical. You will clearly see that there are a lot of different ways that composers style and format their scores. I've been a Jazz composer for many years, most of the stuff that I've read was handwritten, there was never just a single "Golden" book/rule on composing. Hopefully, that should give you some perspective on that.

In reply to by SirArsen

It's not just one book, it's pretty much every book on the subject. Although to be sure, many jazz scores use handwritten fonts instead. In any case, MuseScore doesn't force you to use italics, it just defaults that way if you don't use one of the Jazz templates. You are always welcome to change this and most other default in MuseScore, via the Style menu. FWIW, though, the Jazz templates retains the MuseJazz font in normal (not italicized) mode, so jazz charts should already be OK.

If you look at the master palette (press z to see it) you will see that dynamics are not normal text, they are symbols such as accents.

If for some reason you want a different look, you can enter the dynamic and edit it to have normal text. Note that if you edit a dynamic (in version 2.1) the default is for the text to be italic, so you will need to turn off italics. You can then create a custom workspace and put your dynamics into your own palette so you don't have to edit every dynamic you enter.

See: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/palettes-and-workspaces#custom-palett…

For the record, the standard markings "mf" etc have always used the special notation font; that isn't new for 2.1. What changes is the default text style that is used when creating your own custom dynamics (or editing the text in existing standard dynamics). If you prefer to not use italics, you can simply change the text style - right click any dynamic, Text Style, disable italics. No need for a custom palette, any more than there was in any previous version. Although just as with previous versions, it might help if you prefer to have even the standard markings like "mf" be in plain text.

In reply to by SirArsen

It's possible you have already "baked in" the formatting in some particular dynamic and you'd need to first use Reset to Text Style. In order to help further we would need you to attach your score and steps to reproduce the problem. But for a score I just created from scratch, it works exactly as I have said.

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