Slurring and tonguing with flute.

• Feb 21, 2014 - 08:32

Hi

I have recently retired and have taken up the flute. I find the MuseScore program really good for allowing me to hear how pieces should sound when I am trying to learn them. The only issue I have, is that when I join two or more notes with a slur line, the replayed sounds do not seem to take account of whether the notes are slurred or tongued.

Interestingly putting a staccato mark (dot) over the note does seem make the expected change to the note.

One of my main areas of study at the moment is trying to get the tonguing correct so this feature is very important to me.

Is there something I can set or adjust to get the effect I am after?


Comments

Although MuseScore is primarily a score writing application with playback intended as a sort of 'spell check' convenience rather than a performance tool, a certain amount of tweaking can be done to affect the sound.
For instance, by right clicking on a note head and selecting 'Note Properties', you *can* adjust the offtime offset type and the offtime settings.

Have a listen to the attachment, where I adjusted the offtime settings on the second line.
Regards.

Attachment Size
Flute tones.mscz 2.2 KB

Indeed, slur playback is not implemented, but faking it with tweaks to note properties can be an OK workaround if you need to hear this. Overally, as mentioned, MuseScore isn't really intended for the utmost in accuracy of playback - it's primarily about the notation. But FWIW, I think it's not bad at all overall - especially considering that you can get better sounds than the default by installing a different soundfont (see Soundfont in the Handbook). The FluidR3 soundfont listed there is my favorite overall, although to be sure there are tradeoffs - different soundfonts excel at different instrumentds. But one of the things I like about FluidR3 in particular is that the sound for the wind instruments is more legato than for most other soundfonts. Thus, I don't miss the slur playback as much as I might otherwise.

The next version of MuseScore will include a lot of playback improvements, but unfortunately, slur playback is not one of them. It's one of the next things I personally would like to see tackled, and may try to do so myself once 2.0 is released, but it could prove challenging to really do it right.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.