Tuplet Bracket Rules

• Nov 5, 2012 - 22:57

In MuseScore, you have three options for tuplet brackets: 'auto bracket', 'bracket' or 'nothing'.

I just wondered if there were rules about them, perhaps in Elaine Gould's 'Behind Bars' book?

I ask because the auto bracket result is different from an existing transcription I have and wondered if better defaults maybe achievable.


Comments

I think there's no universally agreed standard. Editors put either:
* Number
* Number + bracket (a bit modern)
* Number + slur (most common in scores from 1880-1930 like Peters)
* Relationship (eg. 3:4)

In some cases, the bracket is used only if one or all the notes have no beams (1/4, 2/4, 4/4 notes), while nothing or a slur is used elsewhere. But in old scores, brackets are never used, only slurs.

I'm just entering a Strauss song, which is almost entirely in 12/8 for the left hand, but he has notated it in triplets. So there are triplets (numbers only) on the first few groups, and then sporadically where I suppose it might clarify. I found myself forever selecting these things and switching off both numbers and brackets. (Perhaps I missed something: I still don't understand the relation between 'defaults' 'preferences' etc.)

But anyway, it seems to me that as long as you can select the format for any piece once, the thing you then need to be able to do is toggle the triplet indication on/off (or show/no show) in some really convenient way.

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