Drum Notation from Beginning to Advanced

• Feb 3, 2012 - 01:41

Hi there,

I use Musescore for about 4 hours now and I really don't know how to use it properly to write down my rhythmic ideas. Of course I watched the Tutorial videos how to fiil in drum notation but in the video example I only see how to enter 8th notes for hihat and snare on 2 + 4.

I have some questions which came up so far:

1. Concerning the video for drum notation....how do I put in 8th notes in the hihat and 16/th notes on snare....for example a snare on "1 e" or on "1 d"`? I would like to enter the 16th notes on snare within the stems of the hihat.
I attached a hand written example how I would like to put in drum notation.......

2. How can I set a template which consists of 4 bars per line and maybe 12 lines on a Din A4 paper?

3. How can I set the flag of the notes as horizontals???

Thanks in advance!
I am sure that I will come back later with more questions concerning drum notation!:-)

Cheers!

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Comments

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Thank you Michael!

Well on the first sight it seems to be close to what I was looking for! THANK YOU!

How can I change the stems to horizontal ones? I don't know the right word for these little flags on top of the stems....It should always be like in the second and in the 4th bar in your example.

Thanks in advance!
I will play a bit with this one now!!!

In reply to by Studio Drummer

Maybe you got a stem instead of a beam.

If you look at the attachment you can see I've adjusted the beams to horizontal.

In the picture you can see the two handles just after I have double-clicked the beam...
beam edit
The whole thing has turned blue.

* Dragging the left handle moves the entire beam up and down
* Dragging the right handle adjusts the angle.

You may find you need to zoom in (CTRL key + scroll wheel if you're on Linux or PC dunno about Mac) to be able to select the beam.

HTH
Michael

Attachment Size
Drum1.mscz 1.97 KB

Hey Michael,

I attached another screenshot.....

On the left you see that my drum notation ("Schlagzeug") has gone....how do I get it back?

In this example I only notated Snare and Bassdrum but I would like to do the following:

1. Bassdrum and Snare should be connected by stems so that the pause notation in the snare line disappear.
And: I would like to have all 4 bars in the same row / line and I would like to set that as default that there are only 4 bars per line. How can I do that?

2. How can I change the stems or the "flags" to be horizontal and not diagonal?

Thanks so much:-)...

Cheers!

Attachment Size
Bildschirmfoto 2012-02-03 um 11.55.52.jpg 136.37 KB

In reply to by Studio Drummer

To set line breaks where you want them, you can click a bar line and hit Enter. To set line breaks every four bars, see the Break Every X Measures plugin in the Plugins menu. To make this the default, simply save a score that is set up this way, then copy that to you Templates folder and start subsequent scores from that template.

Howver, all of this works only to get fewer measures per line than the default. If you want more measures than the default, you have to reduce the size of the notation to make it fit - either reduce the scaling factor in Layout-->Page Settings, or use Layout->Add Less Stretch, or some combination of the two.

As for why you have no drum palette, that's because nothing is selected. Read the Handbook section on drum notation.

Horizontal flags - I believe you are referring to "beams". These are only used when connecting adjacent notes, and only in the same voice, and even then not in all cases. They will be added automatically by MuseScore if/when you add two adjacent notes for which beaming is proper. It is possible to override beaming using the beam palette - but you can't add a beam if there are no adjacent notes to beam. Spunds like you really just wanted to enter these two parts into the same voice, so you'll have to redo it that way. See Voices in the handbook, and also check out Katie Wardrobe's video tutorial on drum notation (which you can access frothe MuseScore Connect window when you fiirst start up MuseScore), in addition to Michael's excellent work.

But FWIW, I would not recommend putting snare and bass drum in the same voice or connecting them with beams. The more usual convention in my experience (and the one recommended by all the books I have) is to use one voice with stems down for drums and cymbals played with the foot, another voice with stems up for drums and cymbals played with the hands, and to only connect notes within those groupings. But it is true that some publishers have used a different convention where bass and snare drum go together.

In reply to by Studio Drummer

I hope Marc has clued you up about why your drum palette disappeared.

If not.....

The Drum Palette is only visible in Note Entry mode with a note value selected.

It will (rather confusingly) tend to disappear otherwise.

To bring it back either enter Note Entry mode and select a note value or select one of the entered notes. The Drum Palette should return.

HTH
Michael

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Now that I am able to notate what I wanted.....Thanks for your help!!!:-)....

I would like to get rid of the little numbers at the beginning of a bar....I don't need a number which indicates the number of the bar. How can I switch it of?

And:
For example.....If I have for bars of notation.....And I would like to type an introducing text to these 4 bars - no lyrics - just an explanation of how to play it....Which kind of text should I use then?

And:
I would like to hyperlink songs on itunes in my notation....Is that possible?

And last but not least:
How can I set the distance between 4 bars to the next line of 4 bars including text between the lines of bars? I would like to have equal space between the rows/lines....

Thanks so much in advance!!!!!

In reply to by Studio Drummer

Bar numbers can be switched off by going to Style/Edit General Style/Numbers and unchecking the Bar Numbers button.

Text
I would use a Vertical Frame and then use one of the fields assigned to it to write text: Subtitle for centred, Lyrics for Left Justified. You can also add a horizontal frame to a Vertical Frame and then write a text block in that. For short annotations there is also Stave Text (CTRL+T)

Hyperlink
As far as I know this is not possible at the moment, but it's an interesting idea which should maybe mentioned in the Features forum.

Distance between systems is set in the Style/Edit General Style/Page dialoge, but all settings are global - if you want to adjust the space between individual staves/systems use the spacer gizmo (Breaks & Spacer palette) or a vertical frame.

HTH
Michael

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

And again, thank you Michael!:-)

And here is something new:

How can I delete the frames if I don't need them anymore? And why are the spaces between the frames and the notation diffrent and not the same although the size of the frames doesn't change?

Here is another idea and maybe you can help me to realize it - screenshot attached....
I would like to:
1. Introduce a groove in 4 bars and then alternatives in
a, b, c, d etc. but only in two bars each. How can I do that the the alternatives a & b are in the same row with a little space in between c& d also in the next row?

Thanks in advance:-)
Cheers!!!

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download.jpg 567.54 KB

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