Tenuto time stretch in MuseScore Version 3

• Jul 13, 2019 - 07:27

Please make the tenuto articulation time stretch property work. I'm reiterating the requests made in 2 other threads (#282293 by hmscomp on Jan 20, 2019; and #285315 by Laurelin on Mar 3, 2019).

I'm a retired but still active "classical" musician (conservatory, university, and cathedral trained) and avid fan, appreciative user, and shameless promoter of MuseScore. But I'm at a loss about the choice to restrict the time stretch property for tenuto.

I've asked colleagues (including singers, instrumentalists, keyboardists, conductors, composers, arrangers) about their understanding and use of the tenuto mark. Most generally conceive it and use it primarily as a rhythmic device, indicating that the particularly marked note is "held", that is "stretched longer than notated". The duration of that stretch is dependent on context, and must be completely variable, to express the stylistic and emotive needs of the music. (In some instances, a small dynamic inflection is added too; the velocity setting takes care of that.) Most thought this temporal elasticity should almost always affect the duration of all voices/parts; that is: all parts almost always would still continue to be vertically rhythmically aligned. (This is what happens in MuseScore 2.3.2 rev4592407.)

This allows performers (whether in an acoustic or digital environment) to very precisely manipulate extremely subtle rhythmic weighting within the general context of rubato, far more subtle than would be possible using only tempo markings in eighth-note increments. (A work-around might be possible using the fermata or Henze marks in MuseScore 3, but they're visually cumbersome, generally recognized as indicating something else, and the latter still may not be seen as standard notation...)

Some colleagues suggested that while a default tenuto time stretch might be handy, it still must be variable in order to meet different stylistic and emotive ends: that a single pre-set stretch duration might be too long if applied to a long-duration note in a slow tempo, or too short to be discernable in a fast tempo. Some said they'd probably use a slur rather than a tenuto mark to indicate a legato articulation from one note to the next.

For my part, this is such a critical aspect of musical interpretation that I've decided to continue to use MuseScore 2 for now, foregoing the benefits and improvements in MuseScore 3. Please make the tenuto time stretch workable. Thanks.


Comments

I believe that fermatas will indeed give you the desired result. To remove the visual clutter associated with that method, select the element and press 'V' to hide it.

In reply to by osubuki02

The tenuto often means to shift the timing within a measure, without affecting the overall duration of the measure. i.e., stealing time from non-tenuto notes to increase the time of tenuto notes. As such, a functional stretch property is needed.

The fermata cannot accomplish that. It extends the overall time of the entire measure.

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