Ability to break certain elements

• Oct 14, 2016 - 02:15

It is recommended that ties that pass through ledger lines and hairpins which denote through a dynamic specification must be disjointed and re-connected after the element. Musescore does not have this function.

breakTies.png

should be (something like)

breakTies1.png

---

breakHairpins.png

should be

breakHairpins1.png

Some may say there are other ways to notate this; but really, some might prefer to use these.

See Elaine Gould - Behind Bars p. 68 and p. 107 for more information.


Comments

I think your second example is pretty rare. Of course the middle note is mf, no need to label it. On longer crescendi you have cases where placing the mf somewhere is helpful or necessary. But I just use two hairpins, one to the right of the mf, the other to the left. Alternatively you can move the mf below or above the hairpin.

Your first example is trickier, though this particular situation can be rescued by using a dotted half note and forgetting the tie altogether. That said it is still a messy picture. How about writing in three voices: Top voice for the notes above the dotted half, second voice for the dotted half and third voice for everything below? That way all stems will point away from the tie (if you prefer to use the tie). The solution you suggest will likely be read as a slur, not as a tie (though that distinction is not that important in practice--it does not exist in hand written score).

In reply to by azumbrunn

Thank you for your swift reply and suggestions. But there are some particulars I'd like to address...:

'I think your second example is pretty rare. Of course the middle note is mf, no need to label it'
There are cases when the composer wants to specify mp instead of mf. In the above example the middle note is specified to have a loudness-feel of a mezzo forte.

'using a dotted half note and forgetting the tie altogether'
The value of the dotted minim sustains through a barline. Unless of course I would have to set it in a different time signature, which complicates some other matters.

' writing in three voices: Top voice for the notes above the dotted half, second voice for the dotted half and third voice for everything below'
Musescore produces this result: the ledger lines persist.
breakingTies2.png

Gould recommends that ties should not pass through ledger lines (while in extreme cases the passing through of stems are acceptable). The curving of ties over notes make the ties appear almost too similar to a slur, and therefore not advocated.

'The solution you suggest will likely be read as a slur'
Indeed. It is a poor depiction of how it should actually look like: the ends are not diminished in such a fashion, rather it appears as if a tie had it's middle portion cut off, the part where the thickness of the lines are much distinct and continues on until the note approaches, where it shrinks.

In reply to by Ragokyo

For you tie situation there is another option: Make it 3 tied crotchets. That way the ties will never cross ledger lines or stems.

This said I do think this issue ought to be addressed in Musescore, even if it occurs relatively rarely. Note necessarily fully automatic; I am happy with a way to achieve decent looks by manual manipulation, but as of now there is no way to interrupt a tie / slur or a hairpin (where the problem is less urgent as one can alway use consecutive hairpins if one has to interrupt).

BTW I have no idea what you mean by "bumping" the thread.

In reply to by azumbrunn

That's a great idea, but sadly the stave is written in double-stem. The middle crotchet between the other two would have to cross over the ledger line at some point --- however this may improve the look of the tie as it can be made to not 'touch' the ledger line.

'BTW I have no idea what you mean by "bumping" the thread.'
'Bumping' means to perform modifications to the thread so as to make an update, typically by adding a new comment. This brings the thread above all others in a category should it be clouded and unseen due to the increasing amount of new threads being added/updated. This has become a common forum ethic that it may be considered discourteous to resuscitate a stagnant thread.

In reply to by Ragokyo

MuseScore 3 will let you change the stacking order of every element and it also lets you change the color of the background of any text (MuseScore 2 already has this last feature). So you can quite easily do something like this.

cresc_dyn.png

Your first example is not possible yet, but we could allow the ability to change the background color of the bounding box of a chord. It might be hard to find the right stacking order for the user.

In reply to by Ragokyo

You can change the background of a text with right click > text properties > frame and then change the color of the frame to have no opacity and the color of the background to be white. But without the ability to change the stack order, it will not help you for this particular issue.

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