Lyrics layout problem MuseScore 3.0.5.5992

• Oct 9, 2019 - 12:13

I'm trying to create a score in which students are asked to write four-voice harmony based on given chord functions. Instead of using numerals like I, II, IV etc., I use letters (which is the German and Scandinavian way of writing chord symbols) - T for tonic, S for subdominant, D for dominant and adding a 'p' for the parallel chords. I use the Lyrics tool for this, and as long as the chord is in its root position it's no problem, but if I want a chord without its root or in any of its inversions, I run into trouble. The way of writing for example a first inversion dominant would be to first type a 'D' and then enter the 3 below the letter. It looks fine when I create the document, but if I close it and open it again, the document is all messed up (the attached MuseScore file shows my problem, and the pdf shows what the document should look like. The underlined 'Tp' shows that the chord should have two thirds, in order to avoid errors in harmony). I tried fiddling with the automatic placement option, but that doesn't seem to help. The Sibelius software has a built-in font that is specifically designed for writing chord functions, but I doubt it would work with MuseScore. Is there any way I can achieve exactly this? I have seen people writing the first inversion dominant D/3 instead, which I suppose could work, but it's not the correct way of doing it. And if typing it that way, how would I then type the subdominant chord with a 9 to 8 and 1 to 3 suspension?

Attachment Size
Satslära_Övning 3.mscz 15.55 KB
Övning 3_satslära.pdf 69.34 KB

Comments

In reply to by eliasnoreland

Actually, I think I managed to solve it already. I discovered the Opus Function Symbols font does work in MuseScore, at least to some extent. I couldn't figure out how to type parentheses or inversion chord symbols, so I had to cheat a little and add those separately using another font. But it's okay; at least the score still looks the same after saving and re-opening. And it worked in version 3.2.3 too :)

FYI, 3.3 will also have a built-in Roman numeral analysis feature so you don't need to use lyrics, and it comes with its own font Campania (which I designed) that does the fancy alignment of the numbers when using standard RNA. But, I'm not familiar with this German/Scandinavian system, so I didn't implement anything special for things like D3 - it will subscript rather than do what you would want. If you can point me to a document explaining the system (in English!), I might be able to get the font to support at least some of this.

But FWIW, if what Sibelius has is truly just a font and not any special formatting built into the program, I don't see why it wouldn't work in MuseScore. Maybe the parens are done by Sibelius and that's why you can't get it to work.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc,

Ok, thanks. I searched Wikipedia to see if I could find something that would explain the German/Scandinavian system, and I found one article in Swedish and one in English. The Swedish article is slightly better than the English I think, because it describes things that are not discussed in the other one. But translating into English would be a tedious task, so I give you the English article anyways :) I think you should get the general idea from it. Of course, it would be nice to be able to write parentheses for secondary dominants and the number straight below the function letter for chord inversions, but as I said in my previous answer, it's not the end of the world if I have to do some minor cheats here and there. The important thing is the layout doesn't change when you close the document, so I'm quite happy as it is :)

Attachment Size
Function_(music).pdf 218.23 KB

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