Always show accidentals or disable accidental carry
I am writing some atonal music that doesn't use a time signature.
To get around the issue of having no time signature I have just made very long measures (if anyone knows how to make a score without any time signature in musescore that would be good)
As the measures I am using are very long and the music is atonal, I don't want an accidental I had used on a note earlier on in the piece to not show up later on. Say if I were to have an F# at the start of the piece - if I were to have an F# again further down the piece it would by default show up as an F on the score but be played as an F#.
This is useful for tonal music in 4/4 time, but is there any way to disable this in Musescore? I am aware I can manually add accidentals but I was wondering if there was a more efficient way.
Comments
To make a score the way you want, in each instrument right click the staff and choose Staff/part properties and remove the check from "Show time signature." Use insert mode to enter the notes (click the fancy N above the palettes to select it) so the measure will be extended when you enter notes and a blue plus sign will show above the end of the measure to tell you the measure is longer than the time signature. When you have enough notes in the measure, you will probably have some left over rests. Select them and press ctrl+delete and they will go away along with every note and rest on the same beat in the same measure for every staff. This will keep all of the notes in the same measure and you will then have the accidentals you want (e.g. repeated F# on the same line will not have an accidental)
I'm trying to figure this out...
I don't want an accidental I had used on a note earlier on in the piece to not show up later on.
Question: How much 'later on'? What about a group of beamed notes? Should the accidental hold for the beam?
You can try short measures. See attachment:
Atonal.mscz
Making long measures - eg, using Toos / Measure / Join Selected Measures - is indeed how to writing meterless music. And suppress the display of time signature in Staff Properties.
The "Add courtesy accidentals" plugin can automatically add accidentals to all notes, see Download menu above.
In reply to Making long measures - eg,… by Marc Sabatella
That would be useful for keeping track of what accidentals I currently have, thank you.
Is there any way to achieve this effect? I was going through some sheet music that had a very concise description of what I am looking for.
Is there any way to get this in musescore automatically?
In reply to That would be useful for… by ZazzedCoffee
Did you try the plugin? As I said, it provides exactly that option. Simply run it after entering the notes and it generates all the necessary accidentals for you.
In reply to Did you try the plugin? As… by Marc Sabatella
I used that plug-in for that, but now every natural note have a natural, how can we enable accidentals for every NON natural note?
In reply to I used that plug-in for that… by José Luis Mira…
You could hide the naturals, I guess, but wouldn't that confuse readers who would then think a previous accidental still applied? Maybe I'm not understanding the use case. Could you attach a sample score and describe in more detail what you are trying to achieve?
In reply to You could hide the naturals,… by Marc Sabatella
Thank you, yes I can hide the added naturals, but It would be great to add only sharps and flats and no naturals.
If I run the pulg-in I get this (attached file), and I want that second C sharp, but there is no need for adding a natural in front of every B.
In reply to Thank you, yes I can hide… by José Luis Mira…
Probably it would be possible to enhance the plugin to offer this it's a common thing for people to want to do.
In reply to Making long measures - eg,… by Marc Sabatella
Is there a version of this that only adds accidentals when needed to clarify that the last time an accidental was specified for the same pitch it should no longer apply? I.e. If C major, I want a natural sign to show automatically for the first instance of any pitch in a measure if the last time that pitch had been used (in a previous measure) a sharp or flat had been applied to it?
This is actually pretty standard engraving practice from what I can determine, though I suspect there's some limit on how far back you'd check (you probably wouldn't go back more than a whole system, for instance, but if the previous measure happened to be in the previous system and had an accidental that needed cancelling, you would expect it - maybe a reasonable guideline would be to start at the previous measure and search back to the beginning of its system until an instance of the current pitch was found)
In reply to Is there a version of this… by Dylan Nicholson1
If by "this" you mean the courtesy accidentals plugin, there are a few options there, I'm not totally understanding your description, but there are options for notes up to next X measures, next full measure rest, next double bar line, etc. Modifying it to also look at the system would presumably be straightforward if the system info is exposed.
In reply to If by "this" you mean the… by Marc Sabatella
I checked out that plug-in, its default behaviour is to only add courtesy accidentals based on the previous measure. Looking through more of my scores, I would think this should just be standard practice without needing a plugin. Quite a few scores go further as I suggested and look back at multiple measures, certainly if the intervening measures were empty. It's probably not that vital to worry about systems but as a musician I'm more likely to have in my head that an accidental might still apply to a certain pitch if it was on the same vertical position on the page, despite intervening barlines. But then there are further exceptions for key signature and clef changes etc., which I wouldn't think were worth automating at this point (partly because there's no obvious consistent rule applied in many traditionally typeset scores).
In reply to I checked out that plug-in,… by Dylan Nicholson1
That's the default to the "add" part of the plugin. The "configure" part adds the other options I mentioned.
And yes, there is general agreement that it would be good someday to design this as a builtin feature and not require a plugin.