Allow time stretch for tenuto markings

• Mar 3, 2019 - 22:11
Reported version
3.0
Priority
P2 - Medium
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Reproducibility
Always
Status
duplicate
Regression
Yes
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

Write some notes, add a tenuto to one, attempt to change time stretch... no go.

Fermatas work, but not tenutos.

For examples of works that use tenutos to draw out notes... Sorceror's Apprentice is the most famous one with a lot that I can think of - the Contrabassoon solo, the climatic trumpet solo at the end. There's an example in the Nutcracker ballet. I just noticed it because I was working on putting a famous clarinet concerto into Musescore - Carl Maria von Weber's First Clarinet Concerto. It has quite a lot of tenutos and the playback won't be nearly as useful for those seeking to learn it without them.

Workaround is to put invisible fermatas everywhere.

Comments

• Mar 4, 2019 - 02:28
Title Time stretch permanently set to .10 ⇒ Request to implement gate time controls for articulations
Severity S3 - Major ⇒ S5 - Suggestion
Priority ⇒ P2 - Medium

Fermatas won't have the same effect as what I assume you are going for - they will actually slow the time down. The tenuto should merely make the note more legato. In theory it would be doing that already as per the definitions in instruments.xml, but this will only apply to those instruments that are not set to be 100% legato by default (flute and piano only I think - it was implemented as a bit of an experiment and never carried through). It was kind of a bug that it was once possible to make other articulations act like fermatas by changing the "time stretch" that was never meant to apply to anything else.

Eventually, what we need to do is implement some sort of control over default lengths of notes with and without articulations. Using "time stretch" for this is not really the most sensible since it already means something quite different. The actual internal parameter that needs to be tweaked is "gate time", so I'm rewording the request here accordingly: we should expose "gate time" for articulations. And also provide a straightforward way to set the default gate time for notes without articulations.

Reply

• Mar 4, 2019 - 05:25
Title Request to implement gate time controls for articulations ⇒ Time stretch variable permanently set to 0.10
Regression No ⇒ Yes

No, I want to slow the time down. Tenuto is not only used for an articulation, it is also used for a 'linger' type of expressive direction. I meant exactly what I said, tenuto needs to be able to use the Time stretch property.

http://dictionary.onmusic.org/terms/4800-tenuto

There is more than one use for tenuto.
tenuto.png
This is from the CM v. Weber Concerto - and the tenutos here have nothing to do with tonguing, and everything to do with emphasis, and holding the note a little longer than written duration.

I also have quite a few scores where I put in time stretched tenutos for expressive reasons, like this:
https://youtu.be/nsQJbicbiIM?t=267
https://musescore.com/user/194052/scores/5297220 at 1:14 (this is MS2.3.2)

and here's the Sorcerer's Apprentice, tenutos on the contrabassoon solo, and I used the sforzatos in the trumpet solo to slow it down there.
https://musescore.com/user/194052/scores/5471677 at 6:24, or 'c' for contrabassoon, and 7:43, or 't' for trumpet. Though technically it's a cornet solo.

You will also find the 'slight hold' tenuto in piano solo music, namely Rachmaninoff and Debussy.

I want the time stretch variable back. Gate timing is entirely different. That should be a different issue.

Reply

• Mar 4, 2019 - 06:34

The combined tenuto articulations, if you want to only allow time stretch on articulations that imply such. I don't know why the functionality was taken away in the first place, though. Seemed like a bug - why have a variable that appears to be editable that in fact isn't? Since you changed it to suggestion, I'm assuming it's not actually a bug?

Reply

• Mar 4, 2019 - 12:38

In this case, does the staccato needs to speed up the tempo? (negative time stretch)

I think, answer is "no":

Tenuto (means play the note for its full duration) is opposite of staccato (means not play the note for its normal duration but shorter).

The term "tenuto" doesn't necessarily have to be top on the noteheads. It can also be written as expression text (same as staccato).
Maybe a little "rubato" can be done sometimes, but this means stealing a bit from the next note's duration.

PS: "con espressivo" passages (usually Solo), can be played with variable tempo times (stretching). (However, this doesn't mean that it will be played as "ad libitum")

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• Mar 4, 2019 - 14:33

I believe that fermatas were formerly considered articulations but now they are their own class of element, they took their properties with them. Probably this was done to simplify the playback code in some way or to fix some other bugs.

I suspect noone realized some people were using that property for any other articulations, since it was originally intended for fermatas only. And there likely were case of people messing up their playback by setting this inadvertently (eg, after right-clicking a fermatas and Select / All Similar Elements).

Reply

• Mar 4, 2019 - 14:41

Another person dismayed at the removal of time stretch for tenuto:
https://musescore.org/en/node/282293

Definition of tenuto:

Wikipedia: Tenuto (Italian, past participle of tenere, "to hold") is a direction used in musical notation. The precise meaning of tenuto is contextual: it can mean either hold the note in question its full length (or longer, with slight rubato), or play the note slightly louder.
This definition is lifted verbatim from dolmetsch.

On music dictionary: A directive to perform the indicated note or chord of a composition in a sustained manner for longer than its full duration. The term is frequently used in its abbreviated form, which is ten.

Staccato just means detached. Staccato and legato are opposites, if you need opposites.

The literal Italian translation if tenuto is 'held'.

You do not need to steal time for a tenuto. Sometimes you do so, but oftentimes you don't. For the image posted, you absolutely do not steal time for the sixteenth note e. You might for the triplets, that's a matter of interpretation, but it doesn't matter via musescore, as you change tempo there anyway, and it's much easier to time stretch a note or two at a slightly faster tempo than it is to edit attack and duration for nearly every note in the measure.

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