Pedalling notation problem
It is common in music for a bass note to be held while two or more different (and possibly clashing) chords are played above it. When this occurs in piano music, the bass note is usually held with the fingers, while the damper pedal is repeatedly depressed and raised with each chord. It is unfortunately (to my knowledge, at least) not possible to notate this operation correctly in MuseScore, because the length of time the pedal can be held cannot be less than the duration of the note to which the pedal sign is attached (see example 1 in the attached file). It is of course possible to move the end of the pedal marking closer to where the pedal should be raised (as shown in Ex. 2), but the playback will not reflect this change, and in any case it is impossible to show a second or third operation of the pedal after this. It is possible to achieve the desired effect in playback by marking separate pedal changes under an upper staff, attaching the pedal ups and downs to the chords in question (see Ex. 3), but pedal markings in piano music are never (except possibly in some avant garde works) placed anywhere other than below the bass staff.
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| Pedal problem.mscz | 18.46 KB |
Comments
Sorry, I hear no difference in the 3 examples. Even if I remove the pedal markings altogether.
In reply to Sorry, I hear no difference… by bobjp
Well you wouldn't hear a difference with the pedal markings removed, because the only difference among the three examples is the pedalling!
I will admit that the difference is not as great as it would be on an actual piano -- or if i had voiced the chords more fully, with lots of doublings - but... in the first two examples, the right hand chords are muddied by the pedal -- the G and C# of the first chord mingle with the F# and C-natural of the second chord in an unpleasant way. In ex. 3, there is a nice clean legato connection between the chords, and no discordant overlapping.