Writing drum sheet music in Musescore4

• Jul 26, 2023 - 18:18

Here's a few suggestions \ feature requests I think would improve efficiency and control.
1. Control: Drum sheets are different from any other notation process, and so its counter intuitive to use the same tools as for regular (pitch based) notation. For example, limiting keyboard notation to A B C D E F G and not allowing any other customization for keyboard control on note input.

  1. Efficiency: Supporting basic drum sheet attributes. For example:
    • Open and closed Hi-Hats are almost never indicated by 2 differently placed X's. Instead we use the open\closed markings O and + which are available but not functional, meaning they do not affect playback. What I usually do is change the notation of open hi-hat to be the same as closed, and indicate with O & +. (Then to control playback I place an invisible Hi-Hat Pedal to close for playback)
    • Parentheses that indicate ghost notes are a crucial part of every drum part's sheet music. I would love for them to influence velocity directly and lower a certain (configurable) amount. It is very time consuming to change velocities to control playback of drums.
    • In most cases, accents appear on the top of the staff, I couldn't find a default setting for them, and just always select them, click them, and then press 'x' to flip them to the top.
  2. In general I think it would be helpful (and not just for drum parts) to implement some kind of 'macros' \ automation systems where one can record a set of actions and then assign them to a keybind or a button.
    For example I want to make a note a ghost note, I would record putting parentheses, and lowering velocity by 40. then I can do this for every note.

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts about my suggestions, and how you feel about transcribing \ creating drum parts in Musescore


Comments

These are indeed known areas for imrpovement, and you'll be happy to hear the team is working on improved designs for a future update.

But I can help with a couple of things. First, if you are writing a score that is exclusively percussion, you can set the default articulation placement for that score to be above. Just flip one manually then select "Save as default" under the "..." menu under Placement in the Properties panel. You can add one customized accent to a custom palette for use just with drums. Or, just wait until you're done with the score, then right click one accent, Select / Similar on this staff, then set them all above together.

Regarding a macro facility, this could be useful for other purposes as well of course. But specific to drum ghost notes, it might be possible for someone to write a plugin to automate that. Maybe even for the hi hat too.

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