string harmonics
I know how they work and how to use them, but not on MuseScore, both natural and artificial. I've attempted such with the handbook with no success (artificial) nor can I find natural.
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How to handle harmonics is instrument specific, but it sounds most likely that you are talking about the violin family. Since I'm not aware of the any actual harmonic sound fonts, I rely on making the notes sound the right pitch on instruments.
For natural harmonics, the circle symbol is found in the advanced work space in articulations and ornaments. From everything I've read, natural harmonics sound as written on the violin and guitar family and an octave higher on the harp family. In the case of the harp I simply put an ottava on the notes(s) and make it invisible.
For artificial harmonics, it depends on how they are written.
If both the fundamental and harmonic fingering are shown I write the two as a chord, then make all of the harmonic fingering an open diamond in the inspector by changing the head type to to half if it's not already and head group to diamond. If there are several, you can select all of the notes of the same pitch by selecting the measures where the note is and then Right Click Select>More... and choose all of the right options (don't forget to check in selection). I then put the sounding pitch in an unused voice (I normally pick voice 3 since it defaults to stems down) and make everything in that voice invisible and use the inspector to make the fundamental and diamond notes not play.
If only the diamond note is written, then it depends upon the sounding tone what I do. If the sounding tone is a multiple of octaves above the diamond I use the appropriate ottava (8va, 15va or 22va) from the advanced workspace and make it invisible. If the sounding tone is not an even octave I will use invisible notes in another voice as above and silence the diamond notes in the inspector.
This takes care of all of the instruments in the violin family. If the guitar works the same as the violin for notation you can use the same methods for it. In any case, you can adapt what I do for the violins if needed.
When you add the harp from the list of instruments, you get 3 mixer channels: Harp, Harp-pizzicatto, and Harp-flageoletti. The Harp-flageoletti channel is meant to be used for harmonics. So if you ever find a harp sound font you can change to flageoletti the same way you change a violin to pizzicato.
In reply to How to handle harmonics is… by mike320
Ah! Thanks, also for your thoroughness.
Now, two things. I made the actual sounds invisible. I'm assuming the ledger lines disappear as well. (Can't tell).
In order to get into staff text properties to go to the 3rd voice, I had to write in harm.(-onics) as I did for "pizz" to right click on and then delete harm. Is there a shortcut?
In reply to Ah! Thanks, also for your… by penne vodka
The ledger lines disappear with the notes. Go to the view menu and remove the check from Show invisible and you'll no longer see them.
As far as text is concerned, it can go into any voice. The only time you need to worry about the sound of harmonics being different in MuseScore is if you have a sound font that makes a difference, otherwise it's just text. If you DID have a different sound font for harmonics and wanted to use it like pizz., you select which voices have a given sound in the staff text properties. This allows for such situations I've seen where the violins are divisi and to top once play arco while the bottoms ones play pizzicato. So, unless I want to make all of voice 3 including the text invisible at once, I usually put all text in voice 1.
In reply to The ledger lines disappear… by mike320
One small problem...did I goof? The two PDFs show before and after I crossed out Show invisible. I'm left w/o the ledger line for the diamond on A and Aflat and there are also errant stems.
In reply to One small problem...did I… by penne vodka
Since I can only see a picture, the best I can do is speculate. It looks like you put the sounding notes in the same voice as everything else and made only the note heads invisible. If this is not true, then attaching the score will get you a much better answer.
In reply to Since I can only see a… by mike320
I thought I'd let you know that a similar passage with string harmonics came up and I did as you have already suggested and this time it worked out without a hitch.
The reason is simple: At first, when you suggested going to voice 3, I thought you meant in STAFF PROPERTIES (the process for changing to pizzicato, etc). This time I used voice 3 in the tray above (the RED one).
I see that you monitor Musescore's facility quite carefully, so I thought you'd want to know that once again, it was pilot error.