Feature Request: Pedal Tones

• Mar 23, 2021 - 05:19

For MuseScore 4.0, would it be possible to allow composers to see what pedal tones an instrument allows without having to defer to an outside source? I was working on a song from a musical I'm writing and I wanted to include a pedal tone of a Bb1 in the trombone, but the program read the note as being unplayable, despite the note being the highest of the tenor trombone's pedal tones, while still saying that any note between an E2 and a B1 is playable, despite the notes being impossible on the tenor trombone. This is, of course, being based on the common, unspecified trombone (which is most often referring to a tenor trombone in scores). As a consequence, many composers using the program to write music to be performed by a professional ensemble may find that they wrote something impossible by the inclusion of notes below the lowest normal tone, but above the highest pedal tone (i.e. B1-Eb2).

A possible way to fix this is by inclusion of a new approach to instrument ranges where the person using the software may use a tickbox, perhaps labeled "Allow pedal tones", which will mark any notes in the instruments pedal tone range (should it have one) as being normally colored as opposed to red or yellow, while moving the note out of the pedal range will make the note red again.

I understand that this may be difficult to implement and may not do much of anything for certain instruments (e.g. strings or percussion), but its inclusion will hopefully prevent aspiring composers/orchestrators from being discouraged from using pedal tones.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.