Short-hand and magnetic layout.

• Dec 6, 2012 - 02:21

Hey there, I've been writing some percussion music for a while especially with Marching Percussion. It has been a bit hard and time consuming to write out all of the diddles that I envision. I believe that in the next musecore update there should be short-hands which are the slashes that go through the stem of the note.
SHORT-HANDS http://jennifercluff.blogspot.com/2009/05/slashes-through-note-stems.ht…
I have Sibelius 7 and it has the short-hand option in the program and it really helps a lot but for some reason the Sibelius sounds and essentials wont work and I use musescore because it has all of the sounds I have and the notes are mapped out clearly on the keyboard. Sibelius calls it tremolos like musescore does. When I use the tremolos or short-hands in musescore, the notes that i want to hear aren't there. An example is that I have 2 eighth note and both have one slash through their stem. Instead of hearing 4 16th notes I hear 2 eighth notes. I don't think that the tremolos (short-hands) work in Musescore. The other thing is the position or layout of where I want my dynamic texts, crescendo, and decrescendos to be in Musescore. Like if I wanted a 4 bar crescendo, the crescendo line would be there only it wont snap to where it is suppose to be on the music. Sibelius has the magnetic layout. When I put in a 4 bar crescendo, I click on the first note of the beginning measure hold shift and click the last note of the fourth bar. then I go up to the crescendo and double click it and the line snaps to the position where it is suppose to go and it takes up 4 bars which is what i asked it to do. Those are the only two things that would make Musecore the best in my opinion. The short-hands and the magnetic layout would really help. It would be less stressful for everyone and it will be a lot neater than it is now.
MAGNETIC LAYOUT http://www.us.sibelius.com/products/sibeliusedu/features/magnetic_layou…

Comments

• Dec 6, 2012 - 06:33

I agree, magnetic layout would be nice. But do note you can already do most of what you just described. Click a note, shift the another note a few measure later, hit "H", and a crescendo is automatically placed over that range, in something resembling the correct position. Ideally, there would be a style setting to let you control the default vertical position, but there isn't in 1.2. There will be in 2.0, though.

Not sure exactly what you're asking for regarding the tremolo. Are you just asking for playback support? Playback is definitely lower priority for MuseScore, but there does seem to be some improvement coming. At least tremolo *between* notes works, if not tremolo on a single note.

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• Dec 10, 2012 - 04:09

Okay just to make myself clear and I just looked at the local handbook. In the category "tremolo" there are tremolos that are suppose to be for one note going to the next as if it where a trill only the note you start on will end up on a note that was written in the score, and there are drum rolls. When I put in the drum rolls for some of my indoor drum line pieces, i don't get the amount of notes i want to hear in the play back. For example: I have a 4/4 time signature and I have two eighth notes on beat one. (the down and up beat of one). And I put one slash through both of the eighth notes. I expect to hear 4 16th notes on beat one but instead I hear two eighth notes. I was just trying to clarify in this comment if anyone didn't understand what i was saying in my previous ones.

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• Dec 10, 2012 - 10:33

Tremolo playback is not implemented in MuseScore 1.2

There have been improvements in playback of articulations etc in the Nightly builds of 2.0

Including the CHord Articulation editor which enables customisation of trills, etc

I'm not sure whether tremelo is part of this, however.

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• Dec 10, 2012 - 15:58

In 2.0, tremolo between notes works already. Tremolo on a single note does not by default, but the chord articulation editor should allow you to define your own. Still isn't clear to me if that can be used to define a behavior that can be easily reused or whether you'd have to define each tremolo one at a time.

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• Dec 10, 2012 - 22:09

Drum tremolos are not the same as tremolos on a pitched instrument. The slashes through the stem of a note are a shorthand for additional notes that are used in various kinds of drum rolls. For example, this is how a five-stroke roll is notated and how it is played (copied from a drum instruction book).

trem.png

Three-stroke tremolos are also used in drum scores, in addition to two-stroke tremolos.

I just wanted to make sure that the distinction is clear between pitched instrument tremolos and drum shorthand notation.

Fifist (also a beginning Drummist)
Sally

Attachment Size
trem.png 4.7 KB

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• Dec 15, 2012 - 12:13

I'm more knowledgeable in drums than other instruments but my understanding is that for drums (piano too) it's really multiple stokes, multiple notes, while on some pitched instruments, including voice, a tremolo can be more a variation of the volume during the whole duration. For the moment, nighlies implement tremolos as drumroll for any instrument.

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• Dec 15, 2012 - 15:54

I'm not sure, but it sounds like the effect you are describing for voice would normally be called "vibrato" in English. Tremolo would not normally be called for in vocal music because it would be difficult to achieve. It's also not a common effect for woodwinds or piano for the same reason. But for strings, it is very common, and is basically just a shorthand for multiple notes, just as it is for percussion. It is achieved by rapid alternation (up and down) of the bow. Of course, there is also a separate tremolo MIDI program in the GM set so playback could simply switch to that, but I don't know if most soundfonts would include tremolo versions of each individiaul instrument. So implementing it the same as for drums seems fine to me.

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