How to create a visual swing marking
This HowTo shows you how to create a swing tempo mark whose style matches that of the destination score.
I. Swing marking as an image
1. Create a new score
Create a new score and, on the "Chose template file" page, select the Treble staff template, leaving all settings at their defaults.
2. Enter notes
To ensure consistent spacing of the marking, enter it in the 2nd measure. That way no subtle differences can be caused by key/time signatures.
Enter the Swing marking you'd like to create using the G as pitch. Make sure to leave a rest in between the two first notes and the triplet.
Or
The keyboard sequence used to enter the markings is as follows:
N 4 G G 0 5 Ctrl+3 5 G 4 G for the 8ths figure.
Lower each number by 1 to enter the 16ths figure.
If required, use the beam properties palette to improve the readability of the rhythms:
3. Hiding stuff
To avoid seeing rests and staff/bar-lines in the final marking, mark these as invisible.
Hide the rests
- Select the full measure;
- In the Inspector (Properties in Mu4) (F8) click the Rests button at the bottom;
- Uncheck Visible in the Element section (should be at the top of the Inspector);
After deselecting, these rests should now show in light-grey. If that isn't the case for you, make sure you have the menu option View→Show Invisible checked.
Hide staff and barlines
Right-click (Mac: Ctrl-click) an empty part of the staff and open up the Staff properties. Uncheck the options that show the clef, time signature and barlines and additionally check the Invisble staff lines option:
4. Add the equal sign
The equal sign is added as Textes de portée et de système to the in-between rest of the marking. In this case the font is "FreeSerif" or "Edwin" (as of MuseScore 3.6), size 18 and bold, but you can use any font you like.
Using the Inspector, change the Vertical offset to a value around 4.50sp and the Horizontal offset to -0.50sp.
5. Adjust the horizontal spacing
The current marking still looks too compressed. You can fix this either by using smaller font settings in the previous step, or by making the notation wider. In this example, we'll use the latter option.
The easiest way is to apply a line break at the end of measure 6, which results in quite nice spacing. If you'd like, you can still further fine tune the measure by changing its stretch.
6. Using the marking
You can now use the Image Capture tool to copy or save your marking. I suggest saving the marking as an SVG-file, as it'll allow smooth scaling in every score you'll ever need the marking again. Make sure to save the marking using the Print mode to ensure the invisible items are really rendered invisible in the end result.
Also consider then adding your SVG into a custom palette if you plan on using the marking multiple times.
Summary
We've created our own scaling visual swing markings leveraging the notation style of MuseScore itself. Keep in mind that this is a visual image only, for playback you'll still need to add an actual (invisible) Swing text.
You can find the resulting SVGs and mscz files attached below:
- swing_marking_8ths.svg
- swing_marking_16ths.svg
- swing_marking.mscz
- swing_marking_8ths-Jazz.svg
- swing_marking_16ths-Jazz.svg
- swing_marking-Jazz.mscz
II. Swing marking as text
An alternative is to use a system text and the special characters table,
The glyphs needed here are found in Musical Symbols > Beamed group of notes and in Musical Symbols > Individual notes. An example would be to copy/paste this (for swung 8th):
<sym>textBlackNoteLongStem</sym><sym>textCont8thBeamLongStem</sym><sym>textBlackNoteFrac8thLongStem</sym> <sym>staff2Lines</sym> <sym>textTupletBracketStartLongStem</sym><sym>noteQuarterUp</sym><sym>textTuplet3LongStem</sym><sym>note8thUp</sym><sym>textTupletBracketEndLongStem</sym>
or this (for swung 16th):
<sym>textBlackNoteLongStem</sym><sym>textCont16thBeamLongStem</sym><sym>textBlackNoteFrac16thLongStem</sym> <sym>staff2Lines</sym> <sym>textTupletBracketStartLongStem</sym><sym>note8thUp</sym><sym>textTuplet3LongStem</sym><sym>note16thUp</sym><sym>textTupletBracketEndLongStem</sym>
Result:
These too can get added to a custom palette.
The advantage of using this method and system text vs. the image method above is that it nicely replicates to Parties. Another advantage is that it follows the configured Muscical Text Font (but see below). Yet another advantage: You can set the swing settings of that text and so don't need an extra "Swing" text! Also you can give it a Tempo Text style (i.e. bold).
Downside: This (currently) doesn't work with the Musical Text Font "MuseJazz Text" (but does with "Petaluma Text", the other 'jazzy' font), nor with "Emmentaler Text" or "Gonville Text" (but does with "Bravura Text" and "Leland Text"). And it doesn't work with MuseScore 4, for some strange reason that 'eats' the spaces (and using <sym>space</sym> instead doesn'z seem to help either) on save/reopen, possible fix: use Ctrl+Space instead of just Space.
Another alternative is to download, install and use the below mentionend "Metrico" font.
Downside: That is (most probably) not available on MuseScore.com, so a score using it won't render correctly there.