Fingerings: Some adjustments desired

• Jan 30, 2019 - 10:49
Reported version
3.0
Priority
P2 - Medium
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S4 - Minor
Reproducibility
Always
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project

OS: Windows 10 (10.0), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 3.0.2.5310, revision: b52ed67

See the attached file. The latest fix has improved fingering no end. Just a few adjustments needed:

  1. Fingering / RH Guitar Fingering, measures 13, 14, 16, 22, 23, 25 (upstem) beamed notes: an x shift of + 0.4 sp., centring the fingering to the stem, is better (and was the position in 2.x).
  2. Fingering / RH Guitar Fingering, measures 17, 18, 26, 27 (downstem) beamed notes: similarly, an x shift of - 0.4 to do the same.
  3. In measure 17, downstem notes: there's a irregularity in the placement. You can see this more clearly if you adjust the x offset by - 0.4:
    fingering_irregularity.png
  4. In measure 13 (for example), it would be good if the relation of the fingering to the beam could be maintained, even if it means placing fingering on the staff.
Attachment Size
fingering_ms3.mscz 26.36 KB

Comments

Title Fingerings: Some adjustments needed Fingerings: Some adjustments desired
Priority P2 - Medium

Regarding 1 & 2, I could use a good reference for this. The examples I see are inconsistent with regard to whether fingerings are centered over notes or stems but notes seems more common to me (and if how "most" of Gould's examples appear to me, although she doesn't come out and say explicitly). So I wouldn't want to change this without a good authority to back it up, but it's a simple enough change. Similarly, 4 seems contrary to advice in Gould so I'd want to see an explicit statement from a respected authority before allowing such a change.

Regarding 3, we are a bit at the mercy of how the shape for beams is calculated - we break them into a series of boxes. So we avoid those boxes correctly, but the boxes themselves may or may not be optimal. If the beaming algorithm gets smarter, fingering will inherit it automatically. But there is also the matter that the first/last note of the group is only beamed in one direction, and so we can tuck in a little tighter but maybe subjectively it would look more tidy if we didn't. Not sure how to calculate "where the beam would be if it didn't end" then avoid that and can't see expending a lot of effort on that right now, but I acknowledge it could look nice.

Re: 1 and 2. In MS 2.3, "Fingering" was centred on the stem of beamed notes, so could this continue in 3.0?

The same applies in "Classic Guitar collection" Vols. 1-3 (Ed. Bolotine, Ariel Pubs 1977), e.g. Vol 3, p. 68:
fingerings.PNG

Also in Frederic Noad's "Solo Guitar Playing", Vol 2, pp. 50-67 (Omnibus, 1977), Scott Tennant's "Pumping Nylon" (Alfred Pub. Co. 1995), Vinson's "Music for Classical Guitar" (Consolidated Music Pub., 1971), The Francisco Tarrega Colection (Hal Leonard, 2000), etc.

Did you perhaps attach the wrong image? The one above is kind of inconsistent, but mostly I think it shows what I said - fingerings closer to the notehead center than to the stemSee especially the i's. The m's are maybe a little harder to tell. Check out the "a" and "i" on the first note of the secnd measure for the most obvious case of note centering.

MuseScore 2.3.2 actually does neither - it's not centered over the notehead or stem, but somewhere between. Like maybe centered over a half way between the stem and notehead center.

One practical advantage of moving the fingering closer to the stem is that it does tend to create a collision with the stem and thus sort of address 1 & 2. But I'm not comfortable putting it all the way over the stem since I see basically no evidence that this is the right thing to do.

So I would say, if you want to see a change here, please start a forum thread, and if I see something like a 5:1 ratio of users urging us to violate Gould and do something other than center over the notehead, then it's worth doing, but otherwise I'd rather stick with what still appears to me to be the standard.

Just the impression sometimes of being a spectator, and that the program is made by English-speaking members for English-speaking members :(

Hmm, not sure what you mean by this, but feel free to start the same discussion in non-English forums. I want to do the right thing, but right now, the example posted and the advice in Gould both seem quite consistently pointing to the answer that our defaults are optimum right now. I'm happy to accept arguments to the contrary from speakers of any language.

Don't get me wrong. It's just that the flow of words and writings is so important, for this question as for others, that it's just difficult to follow correctly for members who have to go through a translator (and it's not a panacea), and that you have the impression of missing episodes along the way!

Original:
carcassi_caprice_original.png
MS 3.x:
carcassi_caprice_musescore.png

There is a marginal difference in the centering of the fingering over the beams, but, IMV, it's not a make or break issue.

Just one other thing. If you look closely at the MS 3.x image, the vertical alignment of "i" and "m" is slighty different.

Attachment Size
carcassi_caprice_5_op26.mscz 9.34 KB