Experimental feature: show tied notes as single note values across bar lines
I posted to the Github repo a pull request implementing an EXPERIMENTAL feature, mostly intended for early music: it displays (some) pairs of tied notes across measure lines as single cumulated notes.
In practice, it converts this display:
to this:
(the between-stave bar lines are generated with this other pull request ).
As I can easily imagine the core developers screaming in horror, I stress that this is almost exclusively a display change: internal structures (give or take a few additional member variables) are NOT changed and in partcular the internal measure regularity (or lack of it) is NOT affected: the feature detects relevant note pairs and alters the displayed form of the first note while hiding the second.
The change is turned on/off by a check box added to "Style | General | Score".
The feature has some limitations:
*) To keep things simple, it only works on chords made of single notes, 'real' chords (of several notes) are not affected; as this feature is targeted to early musics from separate parts originally lacking bar lines, multi-note chords are very rarely involved.
*) It does not combine rests; again, as Renaissance / early Baroque sources usually split rests at tactus, this should not create problems, if a suitable relationship tactus / modern measure is chosen. Tests are welcome, though.
*) It mostly does not work when combining values smaller than fusae; again, a fusa half before and half after a tactus should be a very, very rare occurrence.
*) When combining two fusae into a seminima, it does not alter the beaming; this usually results in 'hanging' beams; in these cases, a manual alteration of the beaming should fix the result (see the beaming of meas. 4 in the example above where the first fusa is separated from the beaming of the following 3 fusae).
A note:
*) The hidden second note is actually still there and, for instance, when the 'blue selection' is moved with the left and right arrows, it disappear when it steps on it, to reappear when it moves to another note (seeing this in practice is much clearer than trying to explain it by words); comments on this are also welcome.
Anybody interested and with a working MuseScore development environment can get the branch and try it, even before it gets merged into the main repo and in the nightlies; this would help evaluating if the whole thing makes any sense and for catching bugs, oversights, etc.
Thanks,
M.
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Comments
Attached is a PDF of a longer test on mensurstrich: 11 canons a 2 (+ tenor) by Francesco Soriano (1610) for anybody interested to look at. I'm not attaching a MuseScore file as nightlies do not includes the necessary patch to display it correctly (it has to be pulled from the github repository).
This is what is displayed by simply turning on the new check box in "Style | General | Score" without any further change or tuning.
I fixed the last limitation quoted above ("When combining two fusae into a seminima...") and I believe the whole is ready for playing and testing.
The score itself is not really finished yet (more editorial interventions are required), but it should contain everything in the original.
If anybody interested in early music and with a working MuseScore development environment would like to get the patch from github and spend some time playing with it, any comment / suggestion / request is welcome.
Thanks,
M.
To make easier grasping the point, this is a screen shot from the PDF attached above, where cross-measure values are indicated by added red asterisks:
NOT FOUND: 1
Correction. Above I said that no tuning was applied; for the sake of precision, this is not 110% true; space before and after the measure bars have been reduced from the default values to 0.4 sp each. This is useful to reduce the visual gap across the bar lines; a larger gap is useful when bar lines run through the staves -- as usual -- but looks disturbing when bar lines run between staves, as in this example.
However, this is not related with the cross-measure values, but with the bar line position (and it is achieved through standard MuseScore controls).
Thanks,
M.
In reply to An example... by Miwarre
Sorry for the thread necromancy but want to say I am very pleased to have this feature, as I do a lot of early music stuff.
In reply to Good to have this feature by Brer Fox
In due time, it has not been very easy to sell the point to the core dev group, so I am happy to see this feature used.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of early music do you mostly deal with?
My early music transcriptions can be seen (and downloaded) at my score site (MuseScore 'source' is available for all scores).
But beware: currently, each score has the MuseScore source it has been created with, in many case with an outdated 2.0 version; they may or may not load with current 2.0 revision. The plan is to update them to the release version, once 2.0 will be officially out.
Thanks,
M.
In reply to Glad you like it! by Miwarre
I am using this particular feature for transcribing viol consort music. I play regularly in an amateur group that is always on the lookout for music, but a lot of what we find is only available in score, without parts. Or there are parts available but with short bar lengths, e.g. 4/4, when it would be better in 4/2, with the result that there are even more bar lines there to be 'thumped' by those who are inclined to do so...
Did you have anything to do with creating the short and tick alternative barlines? I'm using these for the parts - have yet to find which the group prefer. I start off transcribing with regular barlines (otherwise I can lose my place) and then change them by selecting them with 'similar elements', and clicking on the alternative in the palette. However I can't then change them back to regular length barlines all at once, only to other short or tick ones. To change them back to regular I had to do each one separately.
It's not a big deal - now that I know I just save different versions of the same part (in case someone really objects to the short lines), but wondered if it was a bug or an oversight. I'm using the beta 2.0, not the nightly builds, and it is the Windows version running on Wine, as I don't know how to compile the source code for my Linux distro.
I've had a look at some of your scores, which are really impressive. How did you do the prefatory staves in the Orologio and the Asola? I've downloaded them but can't work out how you've done it. Also, where I write a longa the stem is thinner that the sides of the square notehead, and so it looks a bit untidy - yours don't show that problem.
EDIT: I've just found your Renaissance Incipit SVG Package so will learn how to use it.
Having done a paleography course in the past, but in the days of pen and ink, I am very excited by all the possibilities opened up by Musescore. I've only been using it for a week but find it easy and intuitive and have already been recommending it to my friends. We are members of a national Early Music Forum with contacts ranging from respected pros and academics to amateur enthusiasts - what I would consider a significant if niche group.
Hope this helps you with the core dev group. Very many thanks for supporting the interests of the early music scene.
In reply to My usage by Brer Fox
Viols? I play the viol too, as you may have gathered from the site!
Yes, I'm behind the addition of the alternative bar lines too (as well as other early music relevant things, like figured bass, lute tablatures and so on); I'm trying to make MuseScore as ready for early music as it is possible without breaking too much the current framework.
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About short bar lines:
if you want all your bar lines for a given staff to be short (any kind of shortness), the easiest way is to edit one of the bar lines of the staff:
*) select one bar line and enter edit mode ([Ctrl]+[E] or double click the bar line)
*) drag the top and the bottom bar line 'handles' while keeping [Shift] pressed to enable fine resolution snapping (otherwise the end handles will snap at staff extrema rather than at each staff line)
*) exit edit mode ([ESC] or click away)
This will change the default bar lining of that staff, changing all its bar lines (which have not been modified individually, of course).
In this way, it is also possible to have Mensurstrich bar lining, i.e. bar lines between rather than across stave.
To edit a single bar line, do the same but keeping [Ctrl] also pressed, in addition to [Shift].
To revert a single bar line which has been customized, the easiest way should be to select it and 'delete': it is not really deleted, but it should be replaced by a fresh, unmodified one. Please let me know if this works as it is supposed to do.
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Longa stem:
Yes, I know: the default stem thickness is thinner than the side lines of a brevis, making the stem of a longa to look odd. As I find the default stem thickness too thin anyway, I usually increase it to ca. 0.20 sp (in "Style | General | Notes | Stem thickness"), and then it more or less matches the brevis side bar. Of course, this changes all the stems of the score!
For 'extra' longae, like the ones often found at the end of pieces regardless of the actual measure duration, I prefer to use the ready-made symbol ("View | Master Palette | Symbols" then select the needed font and look for the right longa symbol (up- or down-stem; with Emmentaler, the default font, they are near the end of the symbol table). Then:
*) Select the note(s) you want to turn into a longa,
*) make it/them invisible ([V]),
*) double click the longa symbol
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Linux nightlies: there are nightlies for Linux, both 32-bit and 64-bit here , which should run on most (any?) Intel-based distros.
Hoping this helps!
M.
In reply to The world is small indeed! by Miwarre
To revert a single bar line which has been customized, the easiest way should be to select it and 'delete': it is not really deleted, but it should be replaced by a fresh, unmodified one. Please let me know if this works as it is supposed to do.
Modifying the bar lines, either all at once or singly, work as you describe, and is very useful. Reverting a single line by deleting it doesn't work, though - nothing happens when I try to delete it, (tried del, Ctrl+del, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+Shift +del). This is with the latest nightly, da6215a.
Longa - very nice! I hadn't noticed the Emmentaler font in the Symbols.
Linux nightlies: it seems whether they run depends on the distro. I asked on the MX-14 and was told, "It may be buildable with the current libraries, but the nightlies are built using GCC 4.9 vs our GCC 4.7 which causes the problem."
Once 2.0 is finally released I'll see if I can persuade someone to compile it for me, but in the meantime things are working well enough in Wine.
The figured bass is going to be useful, too. I don't suppose you can get it to create realisations LOL!
In reply to short bar lines, etc. by Brer Fox
"Reverting a single line by deleting it doesn't work, though - nothing happens when I try to delete it...":
I cannot replicate this here: when I select a single modified bar line and press [Del], it is reverted to the staff current default. This happens for any kind of modification: line style, span, both by dragging from the palette and dropping and by entering edit mode and dragging the end handles.
can you provide a sequence of precise steps to reproduce the problem?
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"The figured bass is going to be useful, too. I don't suppose you can get it to create realisations LOL!!:
No way! The realisation depends upon the instrument (a theorbo continuo is very different from a cembalo continuo) and from the time of the piece: shall we add "4 3" resolutions to Monteverdi cadences? Or guess "7 6 7 6 ..." sequences?
Thanks,
M.
In reply to "Reverting a single line by by Miwarre
Sorry - I was just sloppy about reading your perfectly clear instructions. I was trying to delete/revert a barline in a score where all the barlines had been shortened with the Shift key. Reverting a single one (e.g. the end one, which I change to normal length with Ctrl) works just as you describe.
Only joking about the BC realisations of course. I can read figured bass but not fluently, so I'm looking forward to sketching in realisations for my own private use.
The more I use MuseScore the more impressed I am with it.
In reply to Glad you like it! by Miwarre
It's a rare usage, but there is precedent outside of 'early music' for note values extending across bar lines. I'm sharing here an example from Chopin that I recently re-typeset using 2.0 Beta 1.
I haven't worked with this functionality a lot in MuseScore, though I expect to do more in the future. A couple of other examples in Romantic piano music in which it occurs are Chopin's Op. 10 No. 10 and Schumann's Toccata, and I feel sure that there must be many others.
I'm glad this discussion was revived, as I've been curious about the explicit caution ('EXPERIMENTAL'). I would want people to understand this feature actually does have occasional broader applicability than 'early music only', and I'm pleased to say that I've found nothing problematic about working with it.
In reply to I like having this feature! by [DELETED] 448831
So, we 'ancient' are not the weird guys of the lot!
When originally added, this feature was experimental indeed, as I was not 100% sure it had no adverse side effects. More this feature is tested, sooner will be time to remove the "EXPERIMENTAL" caution.
I'm glad that you have found it usable so far. However, it is still possible that its application to more recent music (like Chopin or Schumann) may in the end turn out not entirely satisfactory: for instance, it is designed to work with single note 'chords', as Renaissance / early Baroque part books generally are and will not work with 'real' chords made of several notes.
So, the more tried and tested, the better!
Thanks,
M.