Poll: do you / did you use the longa and brevis notes?

• Jun 28, 2011 - 18:39

If you never (or 'almost never') use notes of longa and brevis values (those selected with the [8] and [9] keys), then this thread is of little relevance for you.

If you DO use them, then the second question is:

Would you be in favor or against changing the default MuseScore shapes for these notes from the current rounded shape to a squared shape?

In more detail: these notes occur with some frequency only in music earlier than, approx., mid of XVII century. The round shapes were used in modern editions of these 'early' scores in the XIX century but, as I see it, during the XX century the tendency has been to revert to the original squared shapes, probably because the rounded shapes tend to look too similar to the minima and semibrevis shapes, particularly in small typesets.

So, I am proposing to replace the default shapes for these two note values with squared shapes; the current rounded shapes could remain as special note heads to be set for individual notes, if needed. The attached picture summarizes the proposed change.

rounded_shapes_to_squared.png

Would this change create any problem?

Thanks for any comment,

M.

Attachment Size
rounded_shapes_to_squared.png 1.81 KB

Comments

• Jun 28, 2011 - 18:47

I use these buttons, but in terms of today's notation. I use them when I want to tie or place notes of more than 1 bar, say a note tied to 2 bars of the same note.

Regards,

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• Jul 2, 2011 - 11:05

Thanks for the reply.

In practice, you do use the commands -- buttons or key shortcuts -- to obtain very long notes (split across several measures and tied together) but you do not use the longa and brevis shapes themselves, so which shapes are actually used by the programme is largely irrelevant for you.

I suspect this to be true for the majority of MuseScore users...

M.

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• Jun 28, 2011 - 22:53

I don't use longa and brevis and I know nothing about old music.
Some facts :
Sibelius doesn't seem to support these values out of the box
Lilypond uses the round ones by default, the squared ones as a variant.

I would stick to lilypond design.

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• Jul 3, 2011 - 18:32

Thanks for the summary, lasconic.

1) If Sibelius lacks this distinction, whichever way MuseScore should go (default to round or default to squared) it would matter little: both would correspond to the unique shape Sibelius supports.

2) Lilypond is with reason highly reputed, enough to set a standard. However, I think that improving on it should be allowed. And I think this would be an improvement, as it makes scores more clear for the early music performer, with no practical side effect for the 'modern' music performer (so far, nobody complained about this proposal).

Is there any early-music-addicted user out there wanting to voice his opinion?

Thanks,

M.

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• Jul 3, 2011 - 19:20

I've never used either note (old or new), but would these two notes exist on the note pallet in the old style? I would find the visual mixture of contemporary notes (1-7) and old notes (8-9) on the note pallet very strange.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 00:10

...to my eye, the current round shapes for brevis and longa look strange: I didn't even know (or remember) they existed until I started using music notation software...

Anyway, the drawings in the toolbar buttons are separate from the glyphs used to draw notes in the score, so they would not be affected by changes in the glyphs (or in the glyph coding).

M.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 03:35

"Anyway, the drawings in the toolbar buttons are separate from the glyphs used to draw notes in the score, so they would not be affected by changes in the glyphs (or in the glyph coding)."

I am playing devils advocate for now because you're right, this change wouldn't affect me. If you are going to change these types of noteheads that get displayed in the score then the notehead glyph in the note pallete must match what you get in the score. If I select the new style note, but get the old one, that makes no sense. This seems to be a quick fix solution that should be solved a different way.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 00:44

If I understand correctly the description in the supplied link, at least Finale has a way to change the default (globally? for the current score?). This is more user-friendly than changing each brevis and longa head property.

I still do not understand two things:

1) What other programmes do might be the result of years of practice and experience or simply a legacy of the "we have always done it this way" kind; for a detail like this, which is of rather limited usage and applies to a niche of users, I suspect the latter is probable and I fail to consider it very compelling.

2) All the persons who have posted here (incidentally, thanks to everybody!) admit not to use these note shapes at all and then would not be affected by such a change; still they seem reluctant to accept a longer way (through the note properties dlg box) to obtain shapes they do not use, so forcing this longer way upon those users who do use these shapes often (or more often). In fact, nobody stated yet that the proposed change wold raise problem(s) for him.

Am I missing something?

M.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 08:32

The intersection between early music transcribers and forum lovers seems to be very small indeed. I would love to get more feedback from people who actually use these note durations as well...

MuseScore 1.1 don't have a way to change the default for a current score indeed. That could be added in 2.0.
In 1.1, you can select all notes (Ctrl+a) and click on the squared head. I agree it's suboptimal since it doesn't happen when you enter the music but it's already a lot better than 1.0.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 00:15

But, in the best possible world, it should actually be a score style parameter.

Given the current version 1.0 (or 1.1) structure this would not be a quick change, though; so the probability it could find its way into the soon-to-be-released version 1.1 is low.

Thanks anyway,

M.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 10:28

Given that:

1) All those who posted are reluctant to accept the change proposed at the beginning of this thread, even if it does not affect their usage of MuseScore;

and

2) nobody -- beyond me -- seems interested in it, or at least interested enough to speak out;

I believe I have to accept the voice of the majority and withdraw the proposal, at least for version 1.1 (for 2.0, we shall see).

The squared head shape available as a note head property exists as a workaround; maybe sub-optimal as lasconic says, but it is there. The recent addition of the note head property to the Note script object makes it at least accessible via plugins.

Thanks to everybody,

M.

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• Jul 4, 2011 - 18:40

At least, I do not feel like the only one with strange requests! (Incidentally, I play viola da gamba too...)

As a temporary workaround, I have in the meantime put together a quick and dirty plugin which converts all breves and longae heads in a score to the square shape. It requires the latest 1.1 revision from SVN branch though. Once version 1.1 will be generally available, I'll put it onto the plugin page.

Thanks!

M.

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• Jul 5, 2011 - 12:08

The purpose of the plugin is not to be quicker than [Ctrl][A] + notehead palette, but to be more precise.

I do not want to set ALL the note heads of a score to a different shape, but ONLY breves and longae; the fact that for all shorter notes the difference is not visible is secondary: the property would be set and may have side effects in future.

Cheers,

M.

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• Aug 3, 2012 - 21:48

I've not encountered a longa in classical music (or later) but breves (also known as double whole notes in the USA) are used from time to time. In modern notation there are three acceptable forms of the breve: the round form with a single slash on either side (shown above), the round form with a double slash on either side, and the squared shape. The round form is newer, and probably more common in modern notation.

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