Fingering for Violoncello (and other strings)

• Jun 16, 2021 - 15:31

I have added fingering to at lot of cello pieces lately. This has been an tedious affair due to some disadvantages of the automatic positioning fingering which requires a lot of manual adjustment. As disadvantages are connected, I prefer to put these suggestions together. They are alle outlined in depth in the enclosed file Musescore Violoncello Fingering.pdf , but her are the excerpts:

  1. fingering symbols should always be automatically positioned above slurs
  2. When automatic positioning is turned off for fingering numbers, they should remain at the current position, not move.
  3. The violoncello thumb symbol should a) be automatically positioned just like any other fingering symbol and b) benerally behave like a fingering number in any other respect
  4. Align the typography of the thumb symbol with the other fingering symbols (minor issue)

I am Using MuseScore v.3.6.2 and the Leland fonts.

Attachment Size
Musescore Violoncello Fingering.pdf 151.76 KB

Comments

Do you have specific references for number 1? This does not seem to be standard in my experience for other instruments, and it's contrary to Gould.

Turning off autoplace returns things to their default non-adjusted position by design -= most of the time that's what one wants and is indeed the main reason people disable it. It's not clear why you'd want otherwise, but FWIW, you can Alt+drag a marking slightly to disable autoplace while positioning it manually.

The thumb symbol you refer to is used for other purposes as well and is in the palette for that, but you can certainly create your own version that is a true fingering. Just use the Special Characters palette to access that symbol while typing your fingering. You can also drag it from there to the fingering palette so you can simply click it while typing your fingering.

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