How to change instrument sound (e.g. pizz., con sordino) midway through score

MuseScore allows you to change the sound of an instrument mid-staff. So you can alternate strings between arco, pizzicato, and tremolo, or apply a mute to a trumpet, and so on.

The following instructions use pizzicato strings as an example, but the same principles apply to tremolo strings or muted trumpet.

Select the first note of the section you want to be pizzicato;
From the menu, chose Add → Text→Staff Text;
Type pizz. At this point, the staff text is a visual reference and not applied during playback;
Right-click on the staff text and select Staff Text Properties...;
In the Staff Text Properties dialog, select one or more voices on the left (in the Change Channel tab);
From the dropdown menu, select pizzicato
Click OK to return to the score.

Every note after the staff text you added now sounds pizzicato. To return to a normal strings sound later in the piece, repeat the above series of instructions but at step 3 type "arco," and at step 6 select normal.

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