Enharmonic changes by user should persist at least through the same measure.
When the user makes an enharmonic change, either on note entry or during later editing, I would like it to apply to all equivalent notes later in the same measure. After correspondence, Marc Sabatella said I could submit this, whether as an option or a default I don't know. It seems to me to apply to all forms of note input, but he may disagree. I usually make such choices when editing later, at which point I would have thought MuseScore wouldn't know how the notes were input.
Comments
Well, the only forms of note input where you are not already making the spelling explicit upon first entry is the Piano Keybaord toolabr. With both keyboard and mouse input, you enter G# different than Ab, so there is no need to "correct" the spelling afterwards.
To be more specific, the request as I understand it is this:
During note input via MIDi or piano keyboard toolabr, when pressing a key that is not in the key signature and MuseScore has to guess how to spell it, it should first check to see if there is an existing pitch in that measure and use its spelling if so. So in other wors, if you are in the key of C and enter an F# and then change to Gb then press that same MIDI key again, it should enter as Gb automatically, because the previous Gb in that same measure is assumed to still be relevant.
Yes, that is my request. Well, more, since I often make enharmonic corrections in an editing phase. If you edit an F# to Gb, then that should be applied to the rest of the measure also. Of course if you really want an F# later in the measure, then you will have to edit again, but this is far outweighed by the advantage of not having to fix every note in a written out trill (or select and raise and lower, which may change other notes).
I don't altogether understand what you say say about keyboard and mouse, but it doesn't matter. (I don't use them. Maybe I should, but the bible does seem to favor piano keyboard and MIDI.) The reason the spelling is explicit is that you have made it so in another step. In fact, if I understand the foot of p47, you are already doing for keyboard and mouse the first part of what I requested for piano keyboard and MIDI. And I would think the second (editing) part of my request would apply to keyboard and mouse also. Cheers!
Except it's the more part I specifically *disagree* with. Making a change to one note should not affect other notes - that would be the wrong behavior 99% of the time. Better to just get the spelling right during entry.
What IO am saying abut keybaord and mouse is that one would never enter a G# if one meant Ab. This happens with MIDI because there is only one button to press that could possibly be interpreted either way and MuseScore has to guess which you mean. When using regular keyboard or mosue input, you always enter G# directly. There would be no way to say "I want a note between G and A, guess for yourself how to spell it". There is a way to enter G#, and a way to enter Ab. So the situation you see with MIDI input does not happen with keybaord or mouse input.
I am not following. With piano keyboard, you first select a piano key and then correct the accidental if necessary. You can do the same with a MIDI keyboard. If you do it with piano, the same interpretation is maintained through the measure, at least that's what I thought it said at the bottom of p47. Why not with MIDI also? The "more" is, if you make the same correction when editing, why not the same as if you had made it when entering the note to begin with? I must be missing something.
Ah--I just tried it with piano keyboard, and the same interpretation is not maintained. That's not what p47 meant. I clicked on the black key between C and D, got C#, changed it to Db by raising and lowering, clicked on the same black key, got C# again. Is that really what you want? I'm definitely confused. How would you enter C Db C Db from the piano keyboard in the key of C? With the mouse I understand: you enter D's and they stay flat after the first one is flatted.
There are two very different kinds of keyboard being discussed here. One is the one that you use to type.
Neither of the being discussed is the one you use to type. One is MuseScore's piano keyboard on the screen. The other a MIDI keyboard attached to the computer
I didn't say the built in piano keyboard (which hardly anyone knows about or uses) is different from MIDI - I specifically said it is quite similar and suffers the same inherent drawback of not having a way to differentiate spellings. It is the *computer* keyboard - the usual method of entering notes into MuseScore - that works more efficiently in that G# and Ab are entered completely differently, so you don't normally enter a note and then have to hope MuseScore guesses which one/ You simply type what you meant the first time, no guesswork or changes necessary. So, typing "G Up G G G" enters four G#'s, each and every time without fail, while typing "A Down A A A" enters four Ab, each and every time without fail.
Thanks. But I have used computer keyboard entry enough to know that MIDI keyboard is WAY faster for me, and would be faster still if the enharmonics persisted through a measure. How would rocking 5ths or octaves be on a computer keyboard?
That's the exception rather than the rule, but sure, wide intervals require one extra keystroke.
Not so rare in piano music, and it is of course rarer still for MuseScore to guess the spelling wrong. :-). A single line can probably be done quickly by any method, once you get good at it, though for me MIDI is far the fastest. But then there are chords, as you say in your book. So MIDI wins hands down in most piano music. It's true I use a 49-key MIDI keyboard, so occasionally I have to raise or lower a note or passage by an octave.
Apparently we have discussed this before, and live in entirely different worlds. It's true that in the attachment, it is quick to enter F down e f e f e f e on a typewriter, but for piano keyboard users it would mean changing gears every time this came along, and judging to do so. Try entering a chromatic scale by letter in 4#. Don't forget you have to account for the key signature. Any pianist could enter it from a piano keyboard far faster, even with enharmonic corrections, and I bet you smart guys could eliminate most of the need for them. Regardless, it still seems to me that the default should be that an enharmonic change to one note persists through the measure (like an accidental), and that would be right way over half the time, not 1% as you claimed. I wouldn't have come back to this were it not one of the major remaining time wasters.
Again, I totally support the idea that during note input, the spelling of a note should check to see how the same note was spelled earlier. What I do not support is the idea that changing one note after having already entered it should have any effect whatsoever on other notes.
I had no clue from the earlier discussion that you supported the idea that during note input, "the spelling of a note should check to see how the same note was spelled earlier", and that is not what happens now. I will be pleased when/if it does.
The reason I would like to go further is that I make transcriptions and typically enter notes on a MIDI keyboard while looking at a score, not the computer screen, so I may not notice a misspelling until several bars later. In the music I am dealing with, it is way more likely than not that a spelling choice will apply for at least a measure. I am not talking about changing a note, only its spelling. Maybe you’re thinking about typewriter entry. I think the same would apply there, though it might occur less often.
I find it hard to believe that MIDI users for note entry are as rare as you seem to think when it is so much faster in many situations than either typewriter keyboard-and-mouse (two hands) or MS piano keyboard on the computer could ever be.
As I said before, the part of your request I disagree with is the idea that changing one note after the fact should change others - that this would be the desired result most of the time. I don't find that to be true at all. But I never disagreed with the idea that spelling during note input should reflect spelling earlier in the measure. I have always supported that.
The thing that said was "exception rather than the rule" were wide intervals that require an extra keystroke (Ctr+Up/Down) when using computer keyboard entry. Most melodies are more stepwise. But saying it's the exception isn't the same as saying it doesn't happen, to be sure. Conversely, though, accidentals that need to be spelled different from the default - no matter what the default is - are also the exception rather than the rule, but when it happens, this will require extra thought and work for MIDI. That's one reason I find, on the whole. MIDI input to be not more efficient - it just trades one slightly awkward situation for another. And currently that awkward situation for MIDI happens quite a lot for the reason being discussed here. So I do believe that if the part of your request I support were implemented, it would help close the gap.
Just to be clear, I never meant to suggest that changing the pitch of a note should change anything else, only that changing the spelling should change the spellings of the same note (and pitch) later in the same measure (and beyond, but clearly I have to give up on that).
Bass lines often jump around, and you really have to be vigilant with letter entry. Another situation where MIDI is advantageous is oom-pah accompaniments with two- or three-note pahs without accidentals (or only accidentals with correct default spellings), quite common in some kinds of music.
In reply to Just to be clear, I never… by jwpratt
Pitch, spelling, size, color, visibility, velocity - doesn’t matter. If I change something about one note, I expect it to affect that one note only. If I want to change some about multiple notes at once, I’d select them first.
Btw, a separate command that explicitly applied to all notes of the same pitch in the measure could be interesting. Would also be useful for cases where someone is copying a written score and forgets to add a sharp to one F, then enters six more over the course of the measure thatare now all wrong.
Thanks. I thought of that. It is even more helpful when you have several measures to correct. Selecting many notes individually is a pain, especially if you have the screen set to show most of a page.
Depending on the specifics, you might find it useful to select a range then use right-click, Select / More, Same pitch to do the selection. I guess you have so many notes to correct because you aren't in the habit of correcting them as you go? To me that's likely the best answer.
Yes, that's what I had in mind. And yes, I don't like to correct, for instance, eight notes in a measure individually as I enter them. I suppose I could switch to letter entry for that one measure if I were smart enough to anticipate, but give me a break, please!