unmeasured music with non-rythmical notes
Hello
as in my last comment on another unmeasured music thread, I was wondering if it could be possible to notate music that doesn't have a specific time signature and uses notes that do not display a specific rhythmic value ? This would be useful for transcriptions of medieval music (12th- 13th century and also plainchant) that offers a lot of rythmical freedom to the performers and focuses more on the rhetorics of the text than on rythm as we conceive it.
What I'm talking about essentially is as simple as round black notes without staves or any other rythmical feature that could be grouped into ligatures or left alone. It would also be interesting to be able to place them at specific positions especially in a vertical setting for polyphony.
Ideally, being able to mark slight differences on some of them would be very useful, in order to notate what was called "plica" and indicated an added short note without giving a specific pitch. This means that the transcriber or performer has to make a choice (in terms of pitch) but should be able to signify they did this. When dealing with plica in "measured music" the conventional sign is the same as that used for a tremolo. I don't know what could be used in the absence of note staves, maybe a tremolo dash that can be positioned at a specific pitch, or a wobbly or italicized round note.
Of course, it is possible to transcribe unmeasured notes as quarter notes or dotted quarter notes but this automatically induces something mechanical that contradicts the spirit of this music and hinders the performance.
This would be primarily used for editing purposes as I can't think of a way for software to acurately perform something that isn't meant to have a fixed rythmical value. But in some cases it could be useful to read from a clarified diplomatic transcription rather than from the facsimile.
Thanks for your help on this issue
GV
Comments
This is actually not too difficult of a project since playback is not an issue.
These are probably listed in reverse order of what you would actually perform them
First of all stemless notes are simple. Select all notes (ctrl-a to select the entire song, press the notes button in the inspector then check the stemless box.
To make all of the barlines invisible right click any barline, and under select chose all similar items. Press V and they will be invisible.
A problem will arise when a whole note appears on beat 3 of a measure. To overcome this, right click on the measure (like a staff line or space) and select measure properties. You can adjust the actual duration of the measure to accommodate the extra beats. In my example, you would set it to 7/4. note: I have Gregorian chant on the brain, so this may never be an issue for you.
If you simply want to change a note head, then either the noteheads palette or the inspector can be used to change note head groups and the inspector also lets you change the head type. Multiple notes can be altered by selecting them at the same time (either by selecting a region or ctrl clicking any notes). This may also be helpful in leading to a crude playback since you can make a whole note and 1/4 note look identical with an x shaped head if you like. You can play with the heads to differentiate between normal and plica notes.
In reply to This is actually not too by mike320
Thanks Mike
I'll have to give it a try. Do you think it would be possible to alternate measured and unmeasured music within the same score? I am primarily thinking of notre dame conductus which have clearly measured parts (rhythmic modes) and more syllabic parts which would be much better off in an unmeasured setting. Some pieces goes back and forth between both styles it would be great to be able to find an accurate way of notating this.
In reply to Thanks Mike I'll have to give by GerardMarkVidal
If you mean doing this on the same line, it should be as simple as unhiding any bar lines you want to see. If your invisible items are not displayed gray, then click Show invisible in the View menu.
If you need unmeasured parts that line up with a measure part then you will need to make the two lines measured and then make the modifications described previously for the unmeasured part. For the unmeasured part you might want to right click the staff and select Staff properties... and uncheck Show time signature. You can make the notes for the unmeasured parts any duration you want. If you use (for an extreme example) 128th notes, once you check stemless on all of those notes, the beams will disappear.
Since the purpose of this is to make the display correct rather than playback, you can use rests to make the unmeasured line up with the measured if needed. The rests can be made invisible by selecting them and pressing V. You can easily select every rest on a staff by right clicking any rest and select-> All similar elements in the same staff. I don't know if you will need to do this, but I provided the info any way.
I know music like this often has an ambitus at the beginning of the unmeasured line. This is located in the lines lines palette in the advanced workspace and can have the range altered as needed in the inspector.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
In reply to If you mean doing this on the by mike320
Hello Mike; I finally got around to trying this out. it's a bit odd having note heads that all look like larger circles with crosses in them but I suppose it serves its purpose. It's also good to be able to keep the plica signs in there. My concern now would be to be able to make the rests look like short vertical dashes instead of having modern measured rests hanging around in there. I can see how to easily make them invisible, but don't have such a clear idea of how to add a vertical line somewhere in the score. I suppose I could use the "add text" to put in large-sized "I"'s in there, but you might have a simpler idea. I'm also going to look for alternative solutions for those specific parts (mainly in order to get simple black notes instead of the crosses)
In reply to Hello Mike; I finally got by GerardMarkVidal
Unfortunately you must use staff text to enter the rests you are talking about. if you make a staff text and press 2 you will click the Musical symbols tab and scroll down to rests. I believe all the symbols you want are in there. You will no doubt need to change the font size to make them work. Make sure you make the standard rests invisible. You can create a custom work space with the proper sized rests for your score and add them to it. That's easier than adding a text staff each time. Turning all the rests invisible is easy, just right click one, select all similar items and press V.
If you need it: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/palette#custom-palettes
Right click on the measure and go to measure properties. Under Measure Duration- Actual, change the meter to the number of notes you want in the measure. For example, if you want 14 eighth notes, change it to 14/8. Highlight the rests and click v to hide them. Use beam properties in the palette to connect or disconnect notes.