alternative for certain musical elements in musescore

• Apr 7, 2016 - 04:56

hi, my name is Tyrone Thompson, AKA Blind_Viner on twitter. I had a quick question. I am totally loving the software, especially the instrument quality of the sounds of the instruments. I am blind, and the only drawbacks right now is the editing of musical elements. I'm trying to create a piece which would involve these things like trills, glisandos (harp) arpegeos, bends, dynamics, and tempo. I looked online, and it says that those use mouse support, not working with NVDA, the screen reader I use. sadly, I don't have a midi keyboard. is there an alternative to where I can do something like that using keys? Also, is there a way to control tempo and time signatures during a song using my keyboard? here's an example. the first part of the song, I wanna start in a 3/4 time signature, however, towards the end of a measure, i wanna gradually slow the song down, then pick it right back up. any and all help would be appreciated! thanks!


Comments

Welcome Tyrone, in Edit/Preferences you can find the shortcuts that you can customize. Be patient and soon will come more exhaustive answers.

Glad to hear you are finding MuseScore useful! We did work hard to make it more accessible to blind users, but unfortunately there is still quite a ways to go when it comes to editing things other than just notes and rests. There are only a handful of other markings that can be added using keyboard shortcuts right now. Actually, a reasonably large handful, but still, more markings you *can't* add than ones you *can*. As mentioned, if you browse the dialog in Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts you will see the list. Of the things you describe, the only one that has a shortcut already is tempo, which can be added via Alt+T. For trills, there is no predefined shortcut, but in the dialog you can create one (use the Filter to search for the trill command, then press the "Define" button to define a custom shortcut. The process is not as easy as it could be, and you may find it useful to have a sighted person walk you through it the first time. But there are lots of commands that don't current;y have shortcuts by default but for which you can define your own using that dialog.

BTW, there is a shortcut Shift+T to display the time signature section of the Master Palette, which allows you to create custom time signatures. I think it would be possible to use the dialog this way without a mouse. This wouldn't normally be needed just to insert a 3/4 time signature - there is already one on the palette - but unfortunately, the palettes are not currently keybaord-accessible. That is something we hope to improve in the future.

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