Support for Turkish Folk Music Key Signatures

• Mar 15, 2021 - 10:05

I am amazed by the number of possibilities for new key signatures in musescore. All the microtonal accidentals needed for writing Classical Turkish Music (also known as Turkish Art Music or "Türk Sanat Müziği" in Turkish) are even there! However, I happen to write Turkish Folk Music ("Türk Halk Müziği"), which uses a different set of microtonal accidentals than Classical Turkish Music. I only really need two of these for the music I write: the "flat 2" symbol (a normal flat symbol with a tiny number "2" slightly higher and to the right of it), and the "sharp 3" symbol (a normal sharp symbol with a tiny number "3" slightly above and to the right of it). Is there a possibility that these two symbols could be added to the custom key signature section of musescore at some point in the future? Thank you!

Comments

• Mar 15, 2021 - 10:14

Check the symbols palette of the master palette and there the Turkish folk music accidentals
Not 'first class citizen' as far the the accitentals palette of custome key signature is concerned, just plain elements you can place in your score

What would be the tuning offset for those (100 being a semitone, 50 a quartertone)? Of all of those preferably?

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• Mar 15, 2021 - 10:45

Yes, and for those I am thankful! Those are the Classical Turkish Music symbols I was talking about. When I write Classical Turkish Music I use those. I was hoping for the Turkish Folk Music symbols as well, which are the regular flat symbol with a little tiny "2" above and to the right of it and the regular sharp symbol with a little tiny "3" above and to the right of it. I can sort of get by using the Classical Turkish Music symbols when I write Turkish Folk Music, but that's confusing for many musicians here. I have also tried adding tiny "2"s and "3"s manually by adding system text or staff text (tied to a nearby note or rest), but every time I change anything in the score these seem to shift around, which makes this DIY fix of mine unworkable. I'll include an example of what I'd love to have to give a visual idea - I've only added the little "2" and "3" at the very beginning of the song.

Attachment Size
Example of Key Signature.mscz 8.23 KB

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• Mar 15, 2021 - 10:52

None of the microtonal accidentals do playbacl properly current, but the infrastructure for that is in place, the cent offsets are coded into the table of accidentals. So if adding those 8 additional Turkish folks music accidentals to the 'normal' accidentals palette, we'd wanna know the desired cent offsets.
Here's what I have currently:
acci.png
You want these at the bottom, right? (I just spotted a bug of mine, b² is there twice)
I'd just need those 8 cent offsets to put this into a Pull Request, which then may make it into the next release.
Are they all within the semitone, something line -80, -60, -40, -20, 20, 40, 60, 80?

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• Mar 15, 2021 - 20:03

Wow, there they are! You are amazing. The way you stated it is probably the best in order to make it make sense according to equal temperament thinking. In Turkish music theory there are actually 9 semitones in every whole tone interval, so whereas in Western music an A# is the same as a Bb (exactly halfway between A and B, or 4.5/9 if you think of it as 9 semitones), in Turkish music A "fully" # is slightly sharper than Bb. Because A "fully" # is 5/9 of the way from A up to B, whereas Bb is 5/9 of the way flatter as you go down from B to A. So yes, b4 is -80, b3 is -60, b2 is -40 and b1 would be -20. And #1 is +20, #2 is +40, #3 is +60, #4 (which we just write as # so it's not listed in your chart) is +80, and #5 is +100. That last one is the only one that's different from what you wrote. If that doesn't make sense please ask me for clarification!

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• Mar 16, 2021 - 03:57

Yes, that's the more accurate cent offset. That will cause A "fully sharp" (#5) to be different from B "fully flat", but if that result is acceptable to everyone, then the actual cent offsets would be: b1 = -22.2222..., b2 = -44.4444..., b3 = -66.6666..., and b4 = -88.8888... Then the sharps would be #1 = +22.2222..., #2 = +44.4444..., #3 = +66.6666..., #4 (which we write as just #) = +88.8888... and #5 = +111.1111... Again, this causes a "fully sharped" A to overshoot a "fully flatted" B and end up being slightly sharper than a fully flatted B, but yes, these are the fully accurate cent offsets.

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• Jan 3, 2022 - 19:45

It's not clear what plugin you mean - there is no mention of that word here? Maybe you mean the Turkish accidentals section of the symbols palette that was being discussed earlier? To display the Symbols palette, just press "Z". Then click where it says Symbols in the list at left to expand the list (pet peeve, why isn't that done automatically, and why is there no visual indication that it needs to be expanded?) and then click Turkish folk music accidentals.

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• Jan 3, 2022 - 22:35

Thanks for your reply. Symbol section was also useful for me, I didn't know that. I thought there is a plug-in which we can use Turkish accidentals as a key signature and hear the correct sound (tuned based on the turkish accidental) at playback. But I guess there is no plug-in for that. I just learned how to tune a note in inspector section by entering some cent values manually. So I guess I can do it manually at least. Thank you!

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