Note values : doubling, and halving

• Feb 10, 2018 - 16:20

Hello. Is there a way to double note values in a score? Or halve them?


Comments

All at once? No. There are plugins that attempt this but don't work well. Feel free to try anyhow - plugins are found under the Download menu above. Hopefully a future release will have a built-in way of doing this.

Note you can halve or double a single note using Q and W.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I also use some other Notation Software and there if I change Timesignature I am asked if notes duration should also be changed accordingly or not..
As long as the plugin environment is not improved, the best way for such automatic changes IMHO is an external solution. Export to xml, let any Software do the changes required and reimport the result.. I at least will not try to create any more plugin for musescore.

The plug-in worked a single part, and with four parts at once. It changed the time signature. It made all clefs into treble clef, and gave the MuseScore base instrument names.

Doubling and halving note values is not unknown for performance editions of early music. The time signature setting on the Master Palette does not enable a change of note values. Can it be done through MIDI and the performance speed?

Doubling 6/8 gives 6/4, and doubling 3/4 gives 3/2. Simple time 3/4 (and 3/2) have three beats in a bar; compound time 6/8 (and 6/4) have two beats.

In reply to by Cervelat

Sorry, I do not understand what you want to tell us.
I think my plugin did what was expected. The clefs (and keysignatures) cannot be set by the plugin, but it is not big thing to change manually after...
Think the result is good enough to copy it back to a copy of your original ... there you have the right instrument names and the right clefs...you just adjust the timesignature before..

In reply to by OEST

Just giving feedback after the earlier posts about crashing MuseScore, or not working. The plugin works well. I wonder what caused it to crash elsewhere? Other music software that I have used just changes the time signature without asking about the note values. The inflexibility of the plugin environment is unfamiliar to me. I was very glad of the plugin as it got the job done.

In reply to by OEST

Thank you for your help with this. A MIDI file was imported that used modern note-values. For early music note-values almost invariably need doubling. I just wondered whether the MIDI export process could change note values, but I suppose it can't, and whether a MIDI import would change long notes to short if you set the clock speed differently - or something. I will experiment.

This has been annoying me for ages, so I finally did something about it! I've written a small Perl tool to double all note values in a MusicXML file, so it should work for any notation software that supports xml.
(I work exclusively in Linux, so Perl is always available. Other less fortunate users may need to install Perl first.)
So, just export a score as uncompressed xml, then process it with:
xml-double.pl infile outfile
Then open the new file and adjust time signature and tempo as required.

This is just a quick fix that I put together for my own purposes. I don't claim that it will work in all situations. Use at your own risk(!) and feel free to modify it. (Perl code is attached as a text file.)

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

Don't know why the attachment isn't showing - I definitely attached it, so maybe it needs to be approved by a moderator. Meanwhile, I've put it on Github in a gist:
https://gist.github.com/rickfitz/5f9f14b44b69609c0dee1087a6180375
Hopefully you can get it from there.

You can export the score or part as midi-file and the open it in f.i. Logic. There you change the duration of the notes. This works for me. Sometimes :-)

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