Tremolo not respecting ties

• Aug 12, 2020 - 21:49

Maybe this is intended functionality or a quirk that can't be fixed, but when I put a tremolo symbol on a note with a tie, MS sounds both notes as if the tie wasn't there. Doesn't matter if I put the tremolo on the first note, the second note or both notes of the tie. There is a workaround: when you want a tremolo on the tie - just don't use a tie. Instead, adjust the length of the first note to the length of the tie. But I can see cases where doing the workaround would be clunky, non-traditional notation.
BTW: What is proper notation etiquette - tremolo on both notes, the first note or the second note.
Thanks


Comments

Tremolos with tie? I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about. It could mean (examples):

1/4 note with tremolo tied to 8th note

8th note tied to 1/4 note with tremolo

2 notes with tremolos with tie between them.

I tried all 3 of the above and got the results that I expect.

As far as what I've seen, this happens some in classical music with the first and third being most common being used mostly for timpani parts.

In reply to by mike320

Don't understand your confusion. It is just what I am saying. A tremolo note ( you know, the two/three slashes across the note) tied to another non-tremolo note. Doesn't matter: quarter, 1/8, 1/128th. When I do it, the first note sounds, then the second note as if the tie was not there. If I take the tremolo off, the tie functions perfectly.

In reply to by odelphi231

I am also confused. Tremolo indicates that a note is repeatedly articulated. A tie indicates that the tied-to note is not articulated. Thus, a note with tremolo tied to a non-tremolo note would indicate to me that the first note is repeatedly articulated and there is no articulation at the start of the second note.

These two measures are equivalent. In effect the first measure is a "shorthand" version of the second measure.

TremTie.png

And MuseScore plays them identically, as it should. Do you think it should do something else? If so, what?

In reply to by SteveBlower

Thanks Steve. Like I said, maybe this is intended functionality. I was hoping that it would play it as if the second note (in your example's first measure) had the tremolo symbol also and it played like a half-note tremolo. Isn't two quarters tied together the same (sounding) as a half-note? I guess I need to put the tremolo on both notes. I am just an amateur notator. In my score, I have an 1/8 note tied to a dotted half-note. So doing just a dotted halfnote wouldn't do it. I would have to do a two-dotted half-note to be the equivalent. It reads better to me to have an 1/8 tied to a dotted half instead of a two-dotted half. The piece is a syncopated piece so there are a lot of dotted notes and 1/8ths ties to a dotted notes.

In reply to by odelphi231

I'll start with two 1/4 notes tied together with a 2 slash tremolo (16th note through stem in the palette). This of course is required if the 2 beats have a bar line between them and the absence of the bar line doesn't affect the way it's played in my opinion. My expectation is that I'll hear 8 distinct notes so the tie is actually redundant. This leads me to expect ties in the other two situations to be redundant as well, though one might argue that the tied note is actually an extension of the first or last note of the tremolo. That is, you would hear one long note and 7 tremolo notes in either situation. I don't agree with this and MuseScore plays it the way I expect.

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