Help with Lute Tablature!
Hello lovely people. I am working on dozens of transcriptions from German lute tablature. I am also making full commentary in which I need to type these letters. In MuseScore's text font settings there are 'German lute tablature' options when going to the 'Insert Special Characters' function. Unfortunately there are no open bass notes that I need. The open bass chords consist of:
1 with a slash through the middle (this I make do with the strikethrough option in text)
1 with 2 slashes through the middle (no option for this)
1 with 3 slashes through the middle (no options)
Is there a patch for this or is someone able to create and insert these into MuseScore?
I have attached photos of the manuscript for reference with the above.
TIA!
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| Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 20.10.21.png | 16.58 KB |
| Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 20.10.30.png | 23.86 KB |
| Screenshot 2025-06-02 at 20.11.00.png | 13.57 KB |
Comments
If these aren't provided through the SMuFL compliant/standard font Bravura, it might be something to request over with Steinberg if these are actual standardized glyphs: Just because they're classic/old doesn't mean they won't consider (Gregorian glyphs and other things of that sort are included). Then again it looks like it hasn't been updated for over 3 years (https://github.com/steinbergmedia/bravura).
Alternatively, there may be someone out there who provides a specialized font for these if you know for what exactly you're looking (terminologically speaking) . The odds of someone on the MuseScore forums making a handmade font for you though, so far as I'm aware, is probably close to nil, unfortunately.
In reply to If these aren't provided… by worldwideweary
After taking a look at some options, you might be able to play around with the 1/2/3-line staff glyph to get something that is reasonable from the "Staff" palette. There are multiple sizes up to 6 lines:
![3line-staff.png]( "3line-staff.png")
![staveglyph.png]( "staveglyph.png")
Might need to resize the fonts or even resort to overlaying. Good luck
In reply to Although, you might be able… by worldwideweary
Thanks for this suggestion! It worked for my needs well enough, I just changed the number font to fit it. Downside is that as far as I'm aware, you cannot change the stave boldness/size in the text. Unless you are aware of a way to do it?
In reply to Thanks for this suggestion!… by Aleksandr Udinov
Updated: It appears you won't be able to achieve a bolder look for the stafflines. If you used it as a separate symbol from the master palette, you could resize/rotate, but then you lose the convenient "binding" between it and the number automatically. Good luck!