Add generic treble/bass "instrument" choices, for lead sheets?

• Feb 10, 2023 - 10:23

As most of you know, a lead sheet (are there italics here?) is a basic "road map" for a melody performed solo or by a small group, with improvised accompaniment. Rather than being associated with any particular instrument, it simply has a melody line, chord symbols, and any other details required to perform the music in a casual, on-the-fly setting.

I assume many MS users create lead sheets. When we start a new score for one, though, we must currently choose an instrument, even though we're not using it. (This also usually causes erroneously "out-of-range" notes to appear—though I know you can turn that off in Preferences > Note Input).

How about including generic "Treble instrument" and "Bass instrument" choices for creating lead sheets? It's something I've seen in other notation apps. Thanks for considering!

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• Feb 13, 2023 - 05:37

You're right, JoJo—well, sort of.

It occurred to me that I'd want a piano sound for proof-hearing. (That's a word, right?) But I couldn't find a way to delete the bass clef in a piano part. Apparently MS has no general Delete Staff command, as I've seen in other notation apps; you can only remove the whole instrument (which, in my case, would leave a blank page—obviously not a practical solution).

I could've hidden the bass clef via the Instruments palette. Maybe it's just me, though, but I didn't like the idea of leaving hidden clefs in all of my lead sheets. Software being how it is, it seemed like asking for trouble.

So I used a single-staff treble-clef instrument—which, for the purposes of showbiz-style mystique, shall remain unnamed. Then on the Instruments palette, clicked the "gear" icon next to its name, clicked Replace Instrument, and selected Keyboards > Piano. I was impressed to find MS didn't insist on replacing the single staff with a two-staff piano part... Score a point for non-fussiness, eh? 😁👍

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• Feb 14, 2023 - 14:46

As noted, the existing Treble Clef template do exactly this - no need to choose an instrument explicitly. You can also create your own custom templates, by simply saving a score set up as you like to your Templates folder.

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• Oct 29, 2023 - 00:36

Where can we find the simple "treble clef" instrument? I want to add a treble clef staff without Musescore telling me anything about ranges, then be able to label the instrument at a later time. In Sibelius, one can add a generic "treble staff." I think we need this ability, if we don't already have it, in muse score. We could say the same about a bass clef, tenor, alto, and so forth. How do we add another simple generic instrument with one of these clefs? It is proving unnecessarily difficult for me.

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• Oct 29, 2023 - 10:38

In MuS 3 you can simply start a score with a treble clef or a bass clef. The sound will then be that of a piano. But you cannot add a second treble or bass clef this way.

Each staff is assigned to an instrument - Musescore should be able to play a sound, after all.
So if you add multiple pianos, you get both a treble clef and a bass clef (grand staff) for each. And then you can delete one of the clefs for each piano.
Or you can use the instrument group 'Voice'. Soprano or alto appears in treble clef, baritone and bass in bass clef. You can then assign a piano or other instruments to each staff, for example, to get the right sound.
But no matter which (non-transposing) instrument you use: via the palette you can assign a treble or bass clef to each note line.

I am quite sure that this is possible in MuS 4 as well.

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