Articulations & Ornamnets - Can I Change Appearance?

• Apr 18, 2011 - 20:10

I'd like to use a more plain-looking "tr" for trills in my scores. Can I change the symbol somehow? What I've been doing is just using a suitable font to insert "tr" when I need it but that doesn't obviously doesn't get recognised on playback


Comments

1) Trills (and ornaments in general) are not recognized in playback anyway, whether you use the built-in symbol(s) or not. Ornaments are not played back as they realization varies greatly according to the style and the time of a piece and any attempt to have an automatic realization would fall short (too short, I believe) and it is likely to start endless 'religion wars'.

So, I assume you may freely use whatever you like to have the "tr" label in your score, without loosing anything in playback.

2) Personally, I would be more worried about exporting: the built-in 'tr' symbol is exported as a trill (well, I am not 100% sure, but I assume it is) if the output format supports it (I, again, assume XML and Lilypond for instance do); a staff text label would be exported as such. It is up to you to tell if this is relevant or not in your case.

M.

Miwarre,
Thanks. I feel a bit stupid now, not even bothering to see the effect "tr" from the palette has on playback - as you say, it has no effect at all. I'll carry on with what I've been doing then

In reply to by fatwarry

Try this:

Download a font called “Century” or “Century Schoolbook.” You will find it free many places on the web.

Then use it as a text entry for the “tr” symbol in Bold Italic. It will probably be very close to what you wish. Of course you can change the text size to anything you want, using a smaller size for cue-sized notes, grace notes, etc.

It is also useful for other things such as cue-sized dynamics (p, f, mp, etc.). MuseScore’s dynamics are not “sticky” -- you can change the size to a smaller one, but once the file is saved and then reloaded, they revert to the regular size. (I am using version 1.0 with Windows 7.) Of course, entered as text they have no effect on playback. So for cue-size, I enter them as regular dynamics, then make them invisible. Then I add the dynamics again as text entries at whatever size I wish.

I hope this helps.

For "a more plain-looking 'tr' for trills":

In Style > Edit General Style > Score, change the option for "musical symbols font" from Emmentaler to Gonville.

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