Applying different dynamic to right and left hands of piano part
I've been away from Musescore for a while, but have figured out (anew, I suppose) that it doesn't support, in playback, different dynamic markings in the two staffs of a piano (e.g., mf in right hand and mp in left). But in a certain section of a piece, I really want the right-hand volume to come up. Since I wasn't sure exactly what I might have done in the past to this particular composition, I deleted all dynamic markings within it; then I used CTRL+A to select all of the notes in the piece and then set their velocity to 64.
I then moved to the section where I wanted the contrast, and just for purposes of testing, I set the velocity of all of the notes in the right hand to 127, and to all of the notes in the left hand to 32.
I tried this with both the Muse Keys Grand Piano and the Vienna Concert Grand. In neither case does it seem to have any effect whatsoever on the playback. What gives?
Comments
Add a dynamic to a note in one staff of the piano (or other multi-stave instrument). Select the dynamic and go to the Properties panel (upper left) / Dynamics / Voice assignment. You have a number of options here. The All button has two settings: All voices on instrument and--the one you want--All voices on this staff only. As you can see, you can also set a dynamic to only affect a particular voice on a staff.
Click on one of the dynamics in my small example score and look at its Properties. Good luck!!!
In reply to Add a dynamic to a note in… by TheHutch
Thanks very much, Hutch. That's very good news!
This facility does seem yet a bit buggy, as I had to tweak and twiddle quite a bit to finally get both staffs doing what I wanted dynamically. At first I couldn't get the right-hand to come up dynamically at all, even when I assigned an ffffff! But then I eventually discovered that if I assigned the dynamic in the next measure, where there was also an assignment in the left hand, it worked (and I had to reduce it all the way down to f, which is about where it should have been to begin with).
So I think maybe it's a little bit sensitive to where the dynamic markings occur on the two staffs. For now, I think I'll probably always make an assignment on both staffs, even if I'm just confirming what I already specified for one of them.
Have you noticed anything like that?
In reply to Thanks very much, Hutch… by manonash
Not sure I understand what happened to you.
Let's say you have an mp assigned to the piano. At a certain point you want just the left hand to be f. So you select the left hand measure and assign f to it.
OTOH if you mark both staves, a real player would know just what to do also.
In reply to Not sure I understand what… by bobjp
It doesn't work that way. See previous comments, or try it.
In reply to It doesn't work that way… by manonash
It does work that way. Here's that same scale I posted earlier with the dynamics changed so they happen on only one staff at a time. You simply have to assign each dynamic with the appropriate settings: "All voices on instrument" or "All voices on this staff only". The default is the former.
20250509 223426.mscz
In reply to It does work that way. Here… by TheHutch
Yes, I'm aware of that. But what I described in my more detailed post above was what my own experience was.
Note also that, in bobjp's message, to which my last comment was a response, he did not say anything about changing the voice assignment after placing the dynamic mark (implying that just selecting a measure in the targeted staff would make it specific to that staff). That was the point to which my comment "it doesn't work that way" referred.
In reply to Yes, I'm aware of that. by manonash
OK. Sorry, I may have left out a step. Practice on a piano piece that has no dynamics in it. The default dynamic is roughly mf. So if you are practicing and change a staff to mf, you won't hear any difference.
Lets raise the treble clef to ff.
1. Select the treble clef measure or note in question.
2, Apply a ff dynamic to it.
3. select the ff you just added.
4. Go to Properties. You will see a Voice Assignment blue box that says "All". I you don't do anything more, the ff gets assigned to both staves. You don't want that, so...
5. Select the "All". Select "All voices on this staff only". The treble clef is now ff. The bass is still mf.
Same for Bass clef. As I said , practice on a part that has no dynamics in it already until you get used to how it works.
You can also assign dynamics to individual voices. Save that for later.
In reply to OK. Sorry, I may have left… by bobjp
Thanks, bobjp. I know all of that and have done all of that. My previous comments stand.
In reply to Thanks, bobjp. I know all of… by manonash
Did you select a note in the bass clef to add a dynamic just for that staff?
In reply to Did you select a note in the… by bobjp
Sigh.
In reply to Sigh. by manonash
Obviously, we don't understand your issue. The directions we have both supplied work. If they are not working for you, we need a more detailed description than the one you have provided thus far. Don't refer us to your earlier note: we've read that and we still don't understand your problem. Describe what's happening in GREAT and EXCRUCIATING detail! You probably can't provide too much detail, so give more!!! (When you've provided more detail, see the previous sentence :-)
In reply to Obviously, we don't… by TheHutch
All I did in my response to your first comment was to thank you for the helpful information and indicate that I did get what you suggested to work, but only with some buggy inconsistency. I reported in reasonable detail, for the record, what I did and what Musescore did in response. I didn't ask anybody to fix anything or do anything further; and in fact, since I don't know who you are or what your role (if any) is with respect to Musescore development, it's not likely that I would have made such a request.
I recognize that someone attempting to debug the issues I report would either need to see the score in which I experienced the problem, or need to see it isolated in a simplified test score, or need a stepwise prescription that would reproduce the problem in any score. Since I'm not comfortable sharing the full score at this time, I would have to set up and try some experiments to give you what you're asking for. But that will take time that I don't have at the moment.
I do recognize the importance of such efforts to helping to improve the problem, so when I have the time to do it, I'll see what I can come up with. Or I may just try to apply staff-specific dynamics to some other scores of mine that need it and see if I continue to experience any similar problems.
I appreciate the help both of you have offered, but at some point when I say "I did this and that happened in response" I'm going to need you to take me at my word. I am retired now, but I worked with software my entire professional career as a programmer, trainer, writer, and technical support provider so I'm not a complete dumbbell in these matters.
In reply to All I did in my response to… by manonash
OK. No one answering questions on the forums actually works for MuseScore. We are al users like yourself just trying to help each other> Most problems that come up can be sorted out here. But sometimes real problems happen that need to be reported to Github. You've been around long enough to know that we need your score to be able to help. Otherwise we are wasting everyone's time guessing. And usually guessing wrong.
No one is doubting your word. But your score, Even part of it helps everyone.