bulk change closed hi-hats to open

• May 18, 2025 - 18:36

Hi folks!

Question. I want to change the closed hi-hats to open hi-hats in various sections of my score. I found the feature to select the right notes:

Select one note head > right click > "Select" > "More..." > check Same Notehead, Same System

But then the Percussion palette doesn't present to allow me to click "open hi-hat". So I went to Google, which proposed two different ways to change them:

1) use the Open Articulation (circle) - When I try this, the circle does appear, but playback is unmodifed
2) change the note head to a circle with an X - When I try this, the note head's appearance never even changes. And the playback is also unmodified.

So I struck out.

But looking closer, open hi-hat appears to be implemented as a different pitch on the staff. I'm wondering if these suggested methods are from an earlier implementation where the pitch was the same for open/closed, but the articulation was different?

So I tried using arrows to move the note heads around in bulk, but that movement seems random and never seems to hit the open hi-hat "pitch".

I value your help! Thanks!


Comments

I do not know if i have understand your purpose correctly. I assume you want to change the pitch of some notes i.e. notes which sounds like Open-Hit-Hat should sound like Closed-Hit-Hat. I use MuseScore 4.5.2 and I could reach this effect in the following way:
1. select the notes you whish to change
2. Press 1 time the arrow "down" . you will see that the notes moves to the 1. line down in the staff and also change the head form.
3. Press again the arrow "down". you will see the notes move again to the original position (line -1) and keep the head of changed instrument and also the sound changes as desired. i.e. you have change the pitch.
I do not know if this method help to solve your problem. Maybe there exists a better way to reach this.

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In reply to by puggbma

Thanks for that feedback!

You helped me get it done, with a couple exceptions.

1) I'm going from Closed Hi Hat to Open. Your instructions were for the other way around. I used UP arrow twice, which worked.
2) I actually ended up choosing to go to Ride Cymbal rather than Open Hi Hat, but that's irrelevant to this post :-)

The main issue is that there is no visual indication when doing that what percussion instrument you're moving to when moving these groups of notes around with the up/down arrows. You have to have the entire MIDI percussion library memorized by pitch. And if you know the pitch from the GUI, then you still have to deal with the fact that the arrows clearly do not move the pitches to adjacent pitches; they jump all over the place. My guess is they follow MIDI numeration; but that again is not useful except for people who have MIDI numbers memorized.

Does anyone agree?

Or is there a better way to do this?

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