Playback without highlight

• Jan 16, 2018 - 07:31

Is it possible to switch off the moving highlight during playback? I have not been able to find such a switch.
This would considerably enhance the use of Musescore as a teaching aid.
Best Regards
Stewart

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• Jan 16, 2018 - 09:59

"This would considerably enhance the use of Musescore as a teaching aid."
I am also teacher, and use a lot MuseScore, but I don't understand immediatly what you mean by "considerable enhancement as a teaching aid"? Could you develop the use cases?

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• Jan 16, 2018 - 15:48

I am preparing for an exam in which I will play my oboe with a piano accompanist. During practice I use Musescore as my accompanist.
The moving highlight is a great help for getting the rhythm right (especially with the loop feature) but I have to learn to use my ears while reading the accompanist's notes rather than relying on the moving highlight. But as it seems I can't switch the highlight off, I will as another comment suggested, just follow the music on a print-out while Musescore plays on my computer.

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• Jan 16, 2018 - 18:56

We have this feature in our app for Android and iOS, which run currently only on those platforms. You can hide the cursor by tapping with two fingers on the score.

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• Mar 22, 2022 - 09:23

Hi Thomas,
I just asked the question about the possibility of making the cursor invisible (or motionless) whether it is on the editor or on the app. By wanting to ask the request on the IssueTracker, I arrived at your answer.

The cursor is useful for learning but then, we should be able to use the listening features (back track and page tracking ...) without cursor. It's pretty essential for progressive learning.
I had a lot of problems with the app (Android and IOS, some of which remain in the state but I can use it despite everything.

This cursor problem is the one that is now essential for me. I just checked on my iPad Pro, iPadOS version 16.3.1 and the tapping two fingers on score don't works ( test on scores, my scores and songbook).

Is it possible to revive this request? Thank you. (Sorry for my Googlish)
Andres

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• Mar 7, 2020 - 16:14

I really would love to be able to turn off the highlight during playback.

With the sound turned off, "playback" becomes a perfect automatic page-turner that knows about repeats, jumps and tempo changes!! No more page-turning -- the bane of all musicians since the dawn of written music!

EXCEPT -- the jumping highlight is just too distracting to play along with. The highlight can be helpful when first learning a passage, and maybe it's okay with a simple or slow piece, but when I'm trying to play along:

  • I sometimes want to look ahead but the highlight draws my eye
  • During playback the highlight often lags
  • Highlighted notes are harder to read (blue on blue vs. black on white)
  • Primarily, it's just so distracting! Flashing and leaping about!

Being able to turn off the highlight would be a HUGE help to me in practicing and polishing a piece from beginning to end.

For teaching, removing the highlight would confirm the student is reading the timing of the notes, not just following the bouncing highlight.

I would be thrilled with just being able to turn off the highlight altogether; it would be extra nice if there was an option to indicate the current system being played -- not highlighting the whole line but maybe just the clef or something at the beginning of the line; subtle.

PLEASE consider adding an option to turn off the highlight during playback!

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• Apr 27, 2020 - 13:25

May I add my voice to this request? During the present situation of isolation, I am playing MuseScore scores via the Zoom screensharing facility to choir members (whose mics I have muted). Due to the unavoidable latency problem, the cursor/highlight tends to be out of sync with the playback, which some have found distracting. Making it invisible would be of great assistance! Could this be prioritised?

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• Apr 27, 2020 - 17:12

You wrote:
Making it invisible would be of great assistance!

Hmm...
That's an interesting idea.
Rather than completly disabling the playback highlighter, allow to toggle its transparency.
So, if things like page turning (in Page View) or score advancement (in Continuous View) are dependant, they still function, as the playback highlighter still does its thing, only one cannot see it.

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• Feb 1, 2021 - 19:10

Same. For some odd reason, Zoom does not send the audio and the video at the same time.

Another setting apart from transparency would be the width of the highlight. It's not always necessary for it to highlight the exact note that plays -- if the width can be increased to e.g. 100 pixels then the highlight will tell viewers roughly where the music plays but it won't be confusing if the video is not in sync with the audio.

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• Feb 9, 2021 - 03:29

Add one more supporter of this feature request. It would be great to have a cursor on/off toggle or maybe an opacity setting. I am using MS to create scrolling scores for virtual performers. If the cursor is not perfectly synced to the audio (which can happen when the audio is wild), then it is misleading. I have been able to fix it with special video effects, but life would be much simpler if I could just turn the cursor off when I capture the scrolling playback.

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• Feb 11, 2021 - 05:38
  • 1 to so many comments and request here.

Here are a couple of additional ideas.

Advance and highlight the playback cursor:

      • in full measure increment only — like on MusicScore.com!
      • on beats only — which i'd find far less distracting the every note in the rhythm
      • according to the rhythm of notes in Staff x Voice x — MuseScore's default, and seemingly only option.
      • Hide playback cursor ... or set cursor to alpha transparency to a value between 0 to 1.

I strongly concur with the opinions expressed by these users:

Jovie.Cat wrote:

>> With the sound turned off, "playback" becomes a perfect automatic page-turner that knows about repeats, jumps and tempo changes!! No more page-turning -- the bane of all musicians since the dawn of written music!
EXCEPT -- the jumping highlight is just too distracting to play along with. The highlight can be helpful when first learning a passage, and maybe it's okay with a simple or slow piece, but when I'm trying to play along:
• I sometimes want to look ahead but the highlight draws my eye
• During playback the highlight often lags
• Highlighted notes are harder to read (blue on blue vs. black on white)
• Primarily, it's just so distracting! Flashing and leaping about!
Being able to turn off the highlight would be a HUGE help to me in practicing and polishing a piece from beginning to end.
For teaching, removing the highlight would confirm the student is reading the timing of the notes, not just following the bouncing highlight.

johnvh wrote:
>> If the cursor is not perfectly synced to the audio (which can happen when the audio is wild), then it is misleading.

Excellent teamwork everyone!

scorster

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• Feb 13, 2021 - 17:31

Is it possible for me to somehow download and implement this feature today? I see the linked issue above, so it looks like it's been worked on, but I can't figure out if this is something I can do myself or if I have to wait for an update to come out.

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• Feb 13, 2021 - 23:48

@AvenueQ: Not to Scorster's decent suggestions, but to altering the highlighting color (which includes allowing it to be completely transparent).

I'm also going to attempt sometime to rebase the piano-tutor project that lets a MIDI device become a means to move forward while reading the music so long as the right notes are played (https://github.com/tomcucinotta/MuseScore.git). That in conjunction with no highlighting would be choice for my purposes, with the addition of all the implementations and bug fixes between 3.0 and 3.6.

I'll save you the trouble by linking directly to the github artifacts for now (found in Checks tab of corresponding PRs):

(Linux AppImage):
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/suites/2006160349/artifacts/4012…

(Windows 64-bit (portable i think):
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/suites/2006160348/artifacts/4011…

(MacOS):
https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/suites/2006160352/artifacts/4011…

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• Mar 3, 2021 - 08:27

The playback cursor seems to be a paler (more transparent) version of the Voice1 note colour. By altering the Voice1 note colour to be similar to the page background colour you can make it almost invisible (or, at least, very hard to see).

Edit >Preferences >Advanced
ui/score/voice1/color

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• Mar 3, 2021 - 18:22

Good tip on setting the playback color. This allows the lightening of the cursor color, meeting one of the goals in this discussion.

However, as tykewriter points out, this approach creates a nearly stroboscopic effect as notes changes color during playback. I find that effect more distracting than the default. (With a dark cursor color it makes sense to contrast the playing note the cursor—otherwise it could get lost, say, if the cursor were black. But when notes are black and the cursor is sufficiently bright I see no reason to contrast the playing note at all.)

Whatever the verdict, it's clear that many of us would like to see MuseScore function well for musicians/students who want to study and read along during playback. In this case, I'd argue that less is more:

• A fainter cursor presence (The options to lower the alpha transparency value. At 0 the cursor would be invisible.) This could also be some kind of playback position mark that does not cover any notation.

• Less changing of note color during playback: if the cursor color saturation is below x don't contrast the playing note. Alternately give the user the option to disable playback note contrasting, with a warning if there is too little contrast between the cursor color and the note color.

Less movement:

• options to have playback cursor move like once per measure, like on MuseScore.com (clearly that's already possible)

• As stated above, we'd benefit from various cursor advance options: set the cursor to advance on every beat, rather than every note. Or when the "numerator" of the time signature is evenly divisible by 2, the option to have the cursor advance every half measure. The advance could be defined in the GUI by a standard note value.

Ideally we'd have a MuseScore preference for these options ... which the user can override with a score setting.

scorster

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• Mar 4, 2021 - 18:49

It is possible with that particular issue's build artifacts (executables) which are linked up above. Unfortunately, in the development chat it sounds as if 3.6.3 won't be made, and even if it is produced, it's not guaranteed that the "in-house" team would include the mentioned pull-request, or other ones that are pending, which means for this to be "official", people will have to wait until 4.x is released which might be the end of the year or something.

Almost feel like I'm cheating having my own local builds ;-)

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• Mar 17, 2021 - 04:03

Hi wwweary,

Thanks to you (and to all!) for your work on the Playback Cursor highlight color and transparency!

And thanks for the heads-up that this is committed and would likely be in 3.6.3 ... IF that is released. Could it be the second release that was never intended?

Come on 3.6.3!

A faint or "disabled" playback cursor would be such an improvement in my uses of MuseScore!

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