Improved Pedaling

• Jul 19, 2020 - 05:15

It would be nice if in the next version of Musescore (3.5 or 4) there can be some improvements to the pedal element and action.
1. There is an odd glitch when you want to pedal multiple voices. If the first notes in the measure are in the first voice and then you have a second voice, you can't pedal the second voice. However, if the first notes in the measure are the second voice, then you place the first voice, you CAN pedal the second voice. Odd. Lets say you have a 4/4 measure. You add a whole note in the first voice, then add 4 quarter notes on a second voice. You can only add a pedal to the whole note. When I play the piano, I would pedal on the whole note, then pedal again on the first quarter note and sustain through the measure.
2. If you want the pedal symbol to be below the staff (as it usually is) and you have only one note (say a whole note chord) in the bass clef but many notes in the treble clef, if you add the pedal to the bass clef (so that it is below the staff) the pedal will extend to the whole measure, and it won't let you shorten the sustain to, say, half the measure. The clunky workaround is to pedal the treble clef instead, which forces the pedal symbol to be in the middle or the staff (it won't let you bring it below the staff). Then you have to go into the inspector, turn off automatic placement, and move the pedal element below the staff. WHEW!!!
3. If the bass clef does not have notes, you cannot pedal at all unless you pedal the treble clef, then use the clunky workaround (as above). I think an improvement would be to have the pedal not attach to the notes in the measure, instead it attaches to the measure itself and you lengthen or shorten the sustain by a set amount (default to quarter note, but can be set to any note length) and it be intelligent enough to where, even if you have it set at 16th note intervals, if it sees an 8th note, it will pedal that whole 8th note..


Comments

You can already create Pedal lines across a partial measure, even if the instrument has no notes playing at the time i.e. it is silent.
All you need is to break the measure into multiple rests. If you don't want the multiple rests to be visible, put them in Voice 2 and hide them:
Piano pedal example.png

Attachment Size
Piano pedal across partial measure.mscz 6.43 KB

In reply to by DanielR

Daniel, thank you for that advice. I will use that, but that is still a clunky way of putting pedaling, but not as clunky as the way I was doing it. My advice #3, would solve that if the pedal attached to the measure instead of the note (or rest). Then you can lengthen it or shorten it any way you like.

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