TAB Harmonic and X custom noteheads
Hey there,
I am loving working with MuseScore for my projects, I prefer it to Finale/Sibelius. Both those softwares really start to slow down on larger projects.
I've been transcribing an album of modern guitar material for a client, and I'm really not thrilled with the features for extended techniques. So I'd like to pay for these two features to be added:
1. Fully customizable articulations - maybe be able to import a file from InkScape or Quark as an articulation "glyph" (though using a font character is just fine), and then also specify exactly where the articulation is supposed to go. Like above/below staff, or on notehead (like your articulations and parentheses). I'd love to be able to take any new articulation I've made, right-click it in the palettes, and customize where it appears relative to the note that it is attached to. Maybe 3 radio buttons "above, below, notehead" and then a "x/y offset" in sp units. The reason I want it fully customizable is because different clients like different symbols. The harmonic symbol for some is a diamond, others it's a hexagon.
2. Notehead override in the TAB section. You should be able to bring in any custom notehead to the notehead (number) on the TAB staff. For now, I've been just making the number invisible and putting staff text on the notehead. Kind of a janky workaround.
Interested to know your thoughts on these two features, and if there is a donation/price that can be negotiated to expedite the implementation of these features.
Cheers
-Andrew
Comments
First, thanks for the comments!
One note: I am afraid you will find MuseScore also gets slower with large scores. This is something being addressed for the next major version.
As for your requests:
1) is already mostly possible. Press "Z" to display the symbols palette and you will find virtually every musical symbol you can imagine. You can then add these to a custom palette as describe in the Handbook (under "Custom palette"). For text elements you can even control the default position using Text Properties before adding to the palette, and you can also access symbols while editing text by pressing F2 to display the Special Characters dialog. If the symbol you want is not part of SMuFL standard for musical symbols, then you may indeed need to import a graphic from Inkscape or whatever, but this can be done as well, and these can also be added to a custom palette.
2) is there some particular standard for published music you are trying to implement here, or you are trying to invent some sort of experimental notation? If the former, there is a much greater chance of it being implemented. if the latter, the "janky workaround" doesn't sound so bad :-), but here again note that you can use the Symbols palette rather than text. But it *does* seem like most of what would be needed to allow noteheads to be customized for tab staves the same way they are for regular staves is in place already, so perhaps that wouldn't be a big deal. Again, understanding the context would help.