Is there a way to make circled finger numbers oval and not circular when there are 2 or 3 together?

• May 5, 2019 - 21:36

In most piano music, when the player needs to shift their hand to a new position, the finger numbers have an oval circle around them if there is more than one (for example 1,3,5 or 2,4). I have attached a copy of a song from a main publisher as an example of the oval.

In musescore, it only gives the option of a circle or square for the finger numbers. This does not follow the music notation that is normally seen once you have 2 or 3 finger numbers.

Is there a way to make the circles oval like standard notation when you have 2 or 3 finger numbers that need to move? I have attached a musescore file so that the circles with multiple finger numbers is seen. I have already tried to make the circle smaller, it doesn't really help, and starts cutting off the finger number if I change that too much....

Thank-you!


Comments

That's actually not how most publishers do it at all, the standard way to indicate it is using a symbol that looks rather like a tie, and can be found on the Special Characters palette (press F2 while editing the fingering to display). But, if you want to add an oval to some text, that too can probably be found in the Special Characters window if you hunt through the Unicode tab long enough. Or find a font that has these ovals.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc,
The posted score doesn't show cases of changing finger on the same note which would require a tie indication as you mentionned, it is just some important fingerings that were highlighted by a circle.
And as these important fingerings are on a chord with several notes, there are several numbers, one by note, and the circle around the fingering is therefore oval.
The text in the original message was indeed confusing speaking of change of fingers.

In reply to by frfancha

I have looked in the special characters tab, there is no oval to surround stacked 2 or 3 finger numbers. Please refer to the file I uploaded from Piano Adventures where it has two finger numbers stacked on top of each other surrounded by an oval, which I cannot find in musescore. For many beginner method books they do this to help the student see the hand shift to a new position better, just like single circled finger numbers for piano.

Thank-you!

In reply to by Ejo1

Well, I wouldn't expect to see specific shapes that include the specialty symbols with ovals and numbers combined used by that publisher - just generic ovals you can combine with numbers yourself. And if not, you can create an oval in a drawing program and paste it in. It's important to understand, again, this is not any kind of standard musical symbol, it's just a unique choice made by an individual editor to highlight something they personally felt was worth highlighting. It's not part of the standard system of musical notation.

In reply to by Ejo1

You can get a bit closer to it if you use a rectangle border with a radius of about 66 and a margin of only 0,10sp
IMO it isn't worth the additional effort to actually try to recreate the oval itself; is it really that much more/less obvious than a rounded rectangle?

If you really want an oval, then going with an image is the way. See the attached SVG which should allow you to scale it as desired. Downside of this approach is that the image will be attached to the notehead, which means that (aside from disabling automatic placement for it to allow it to overlap the number) you have to manually correct the position on each occurrence of it.

Attachment Size
ellipse_1over2.svg 263 bytes
288779_fingering_with_ellipse.mscz 3.74 KB

That's a good idea...either that or possibly a square with rounded edges would definitely save space or make it less cluttered...even a semi circle

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