Diminished chord playback

• Feb 6, 2022 - 17:54

So, I'm not sure whether this is a bug, a feature request, or just a playback setting that I've missed, but I noticed today that the voicing used to play back a half-diminished chord symbol is identical to that used for a diminished triad.

Now, I understand why MuseScore has to differentiate between Co & Co7, and can even see the argument for treating C^ as a major triad (whether or not I agree with the decision), but it's just plain incorrect to treat ø as a triad. There's no cause to ever write Cø7, which is what MuseScore requires before playing back the half-diminished chord. In every context I've ever encountered it, both classical and jazz, ø inherently includes the b7.

Am I missing something? Was this an intentional decision, or some quirk of the coding related to when the program recognizes a seventh chord?


Comments

It's not true that there is no cause to write Cø7 - that's the common standard used by those publishers and style guides that call for this symbol in the first place (most recommend notating as minor seventh flat five instead, but that's another matter). Yes, it's true human musicians will be able to figure out you probably meant the seven since ø by itself is otherwise meaningless, but still, I would not at all recommend omitting it. not sure which professionally-published scores you are thinking of that don't include the 7, but I can't think of any myself. I'm sure some must exist, but definitely they would be outliers.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Not a score, per se, but from the nearest thing handy. Just a moment flipping through Levine's Jazz Theory yielded this example (both in the body text & musical except).

PXL_20220207_040722275.jpg

Most people do prefer -7b5, but whenever I've encountered someone who prefers ø, they've used the symbol by itself.

The only reason that ø without 7 is "otherwise meaningless", is because ø7 is redundant.

Attachment Size
PXL_20220207_040722275.jpg 2.41 MB

In reply to by abnyc

Indeed, I have a large library as well as having played with hundreds of professional musicians, so I do have a pretty wide experience to draw from here.

In any case, as mentioned, this is fixed for MuseScore 4, but meanwhile, if you really still want to use the half diminished symbol with no 7, just do that but turn off playback, and also add the correct symbol (with 7) but make it invisible.

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