Easy way to add different fingerings to a series of notes? (Ideally want to only use keyboard)

• May 3, 2016 - 00:42

I'm using fingerings (for the first time ever in musescore), and I'm noticing it is rather difficult to input for multiple notes in a sequence. I click on a note, then double click the fingering from the fingering palette, but then the focus in on the inputted fingering text element. So I have to manually click on the next note to continue. Is there an easier way? Ideally I'd like some mode similar to lyrics or chord symbols, where I can simply press space to advance to next note.


Comments

This has been requested several times, definitely a good idea.

Meanwhile, the fingering is selected so it can be easily moved, and in some circles at least, this happens often enough that needing to click the fingering after placing it would be a bigger nuisance than needing to click a note.

As it happens, you can get focus back to the note currently using the "next element" command, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left. That's admittedly rather non-obvious, but it's something at least.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Thanks for the "Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left" tip!

Meanwhile, the fingering is selected so it can be easily moved, and in some circles at least, this happens often enough that needing to click the fingering after placing it would be a bigger nuisance than needing to click a note.

Makes sense. I suppose this behavior should remain as it is *when inserting fingerings from palette" even after the proposed fingering mode is implemented.

In reply to by ericfontainejazz

Actually, opinions seems split on this. A number of people have requested that focus stay on the note, as they find they *don't* need to manually adjust fingerings very often. I don't use fingering enough myself to really have a sense of this, even though I am the one who implemented some of that algorithm :-)

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I would vote to have the focus remain on the note too...the only reason I said to keep the other behavior was out of the principle of not breaking prior behavior. But once have nice auto positioning, then there will be no need for user to manually adjust.

Best to have someone who actually uses figuring implement it...so that rules out the pro pianists like yourself :)

I am doing a bunch of manual penciling in of fingerings on my keyboard part right now (I gave up using musescore to finger because too slow). The basic rules I found when placing the fingerings I found were:

  1. if *any* note of the chord is overlapping the staff, then the fingerings should be stacked above the chord
  2. else (i.e. only if all notes of the chord lie outside the staff), then the fingerings should be to the left of the chord. If there are accidentals, then all fingerings of the chord will be placed just left of the leftmost accidental.
  3. If some noteheads are left of the stem while other noteheads are to the right of the stem, then the fingerings for the noteheads to the left of the stem would be offset left by the width of the fingering text (so don't have numbers overlapping when fingerings are to the left of the chord, and so that shape of the stacked fingerings matches the shape of the chord).

I have no idea what common practice is, though. Also I think should be some option in preferences to force all fingerings to be above the chord, or to force all fingerings to be left of the chord (even if overlap staff).

I'm thinking as far as inputting a stacked chord goes, I would say if user pressed more than one number before pressing the spacebar, then the fingerings will be treated as stacked. Pressing spacebar advances to the next chord (like how lyrics input works). Of course this only works if stick to the number 0-9 only for fingerings (i.e. only one-digit per fingering).

In reply to by ericfontainejazz

I tend to favour the current behaviour (focus switches to fingering number). More often than not, guitarists need to adjust the position of fingering after applying it from the palette.

Tip: Piano fingering is very useful for guitarists and guitar fingering can be used by keyboardists—after all, what's in a name? They have different positioning rules which allow you to cover more bases.

In reply to by geetar

I tend to favour the current behaviour (focus switches to fingering number). More often than not, guitarists need to adjust the position of fingering after applying it from the palette.

But could you imagine a set of rules for how guitar fingerings could be place nicely automatically? I think that once user no longer needs to manually adjust fingering position, then that reason to keep the current behavior of focus switching to fingering number after input is no longer relevant.

Tip: Piano fingering is very useful for guitarists and guitar fingering can be used by keyboardists—after all, what's in a name? They have different positioning rules which allow you to cover more bases.

Could you quickly explain to me how they are similar? (I rarely look at guitar charts.) What are the different position rules?

In reply to by ericfontainejazz

"Could you quickly explain to me how they are similar? (I rarely look at guitar charts.) What are the different position rules?"

I'm not sure there are any set rules for positioning Left hand guitar fingering. It depends on the space available and personal preference. But the fingering options offered by MuseScore, IMV, are very usable.

In reply to by ericfontainejazz

The rules currently applied *already* are good standard rules, except for piano chords which as mentioned should really stack. But that doens't mean there aren't countless exceptions where the defaults just aren't optimal. I'm not saying it's impossible to tweak things further and special case this or that to get somewhat better defaults, but realistically, check any published music using fingerings and it's pretty clear lots of manual positioning is used to optimize layout - no single set of rules is likely to handle everything that comes up to everyone's satisfaction.

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