Pedal Markings Should Go at Bottom of Grand Staff
I couldn't decide if this was a duplicate of #15513: Pedal markings under grand staff can only be attached to notes in staff attached to. Since that issue is 2 years old, I thought I'd start with a new issue.
If, in a grand staff, notes appear only in the upper staff, it is not possible to add pedal markings using the lower staff that are less than an entire measure in length. In #15513: Pedal markings under grand staff can only be attached to notes in staff attached to, the workaround was to create invisible notes in the lower staff so that the pedal markings could be properly attached. In my attached example, the pedal markings were anchored to notes in the upper staff. The pedal marks can then be manually adjusted to match the position of the lower staff pedal marks.
A better solution would be to always place the pedal marks at the bottom of the grand staff (and sometimes the grand staff has more than 2 staves). The best solution would allow the start and end of the pedal marks to be aligned with any notes in any of the grand staff staves. It is possible for a pedal marking to need a starting anchor in one staff and an ending anchor in another (it's probably rare). This could be done in the same way that cross-staff slurs are created.
I consider the current behavior to be a bug that can be worked around. This is not a feature requests—MuseScore supports pedal markings, but not correctly.
| Attachment | Size |
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| Pedal_markings_should_go_at_bottom_of_grand_staff.mscz | 5.07 KB |
Comments
Came up again in https://musescore.org/de/node/163296
Could possibly be implemented in a similar manner as dynamics, which by default apply to the whole instrument, but can be set to apply to a single staff or even the whole system
In reply to #1 by Jojo-Schmitz
Being able to apply it to stave, part, or system would certainly help me right now, when I want to sustain the treble clef but not the bass.
Your request might be a feature request, the original report is about a bug.
Fixing that bug might implement that feature, killing 2 birds with one stone though ;-)
captdaf,
It appears to me as if you are exploiting a bug in MuseScore at the expense of anyone trying to perform your piece. In reality, it would take 2 pianos to accomplish what you want, and your score should be written with the performers in mind.
Edit: I suppose it is your intention that the notes be sustained with the fingers alone. This was confusing to me, and likely will be confusing to others as well.
Indeed, the marking is intended to denote the pedal, and the pedal cannot be separated in that way.
The software is behaving as designed, so there is no bug, but it would indeed be nice if a feature were implemented that made it easier to have the pedal marking attached to points where there are notes in the top staff but not the bottom. Whether this new feature is implemented by allowing pedal marking attached to the bottom staff to nonetheless start and stop according to notes on the top staff, or if it is implemented by allowing pedal marking attach to the top staff to nonetheless display below the bottom, should not in principle matter. But FWIW, I think the former makes more sense. That is, I believe the better solution is to allow pedal markings attached to the bottom staff to nonetheless start and stop according to notes on the top staff. That's actually a separate issue report: #15513: Pedal markings under grand staff can only be attached to notes in staff attached to.