SIMPLY add a generic staff to an existing score
I am awed by the power of musescore, but I have an existing score that I simply want to add a generic Stave without any instrument identification or (insrument) key. The added stave should be in the same key as the existing one.
IMHO, there should simply be a way to add a generic staff. Why isn't there an Add,Stave function?
BTW, The concertina instrument as an instrument type is a bit off base: the Anglo concertina that the Irish use is diatonic and does have base on the left side ,treble on the right, but the English concertina which I play is chromatic and doesn't have a base side. There should be two concertina types: Anglo with 2 staves and an English only with the treble Stave.
Comments
See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/create-new-score#add-staff
In reply to See https://musescore.org/en… by Jojo-Schmitz
Yes, i tried that....but MS persists in:
1) thinking the original default staff to be Piano, though i don't want it to be identified any particular instrument
2) when adding a staff, MS wants to make it bass clef. for piano..I want it to be treble...but i see u can change the clef, so that's OK.
Is there a way to get a generic, non instrument id'ed staff?
And....thank you, thank you
I'm wondering then to what end that Staff should serve, if not to be associated with an instrument?
In reply to I'm wondering then to what… by jeetee
I am copying existing sheet music melody lines and then working out counter melodies. It's not for creating a score for a group of musicians it's for me to workout counter melodies.
Also, in the genre in which I work, English country dance music whose canon is popular Tunes from the time of Bach and Mozart, we have sheet music with the melody line played by who-knows-what instrument and counter Melodies are done X temporary. I am working up my sense of how to make those extemporary counter melodies
In reply to I am copying existing sheet… by sdean7855
Those counter melodies are meant to be played by some instrument, are they not?
I mean, at the very least, you'll want MuseScore to play something when playing back that score, right? So why not be using that instrument?
Now, if I'm reading this correctly, you're actually looking to add a temporary (cutaway) staff to an existing instrument. In which case that could be exactly your solution. Add an additional staff to the existing instrument, then after entering the counter melodies on it, turn on the "cutaway" option for it in it's properties.
Then again, if you don't care about which instrument it is for (because "by who-knows-what instrument") then why do you care about which instrument to select for it in MuseScore? Any instrument with the same transposition as you already have would do then, right?
In reply to I'm wondering then to what… by jeetee
If you've seen the dance in Jane Austin movies, that's English country dance. Here is a video of me doing a contemporary English country dance tune in 3/4 time
http://sdean.net/HoneysuckleCottage720.mp4
In reply to If you've seen the dance in… by sdean7855
That link is showing golf clubs...
In reply to That link is showing golf… by jeetee
Yes, sorry about that there's something screwy with the my GoDaddy web service because on Chrome that comes up correctly but on the Kiwi browser comes up as Japanese purses or something. Here's an audio only link.
https://www.squeeze-in.org/2013Concert/2013Concert-EditedAudio/1016A-Mi…
I am playing three different English concertinas a baritone which transpose has down an octave a treble normal and a soprano which transpose is up an octave
In reply to Yes, sorry about that there… by sdean7855
Nice tune!
Now to circle back to the question at hand; what is the actual difficulty you experience when adding a staff to the concertina for your contramelody?
In reply to Nice tune! Now to circle… by jeetee
I have figured out how to beat back the cleverness of MuseScore and get what I need, so everything is good.
In reply to I have figured out how to… by sdean7855
I think it's more a mindset thing than a "cleverness" thing. Notating music only makes sense when it's intended for something/someone to play it; hence it's intended for an instrument.
In reply to I think it's more a mindset… by jeetee
I think there are people - including some well known musicians - who would have disagreed with you about music "having" to be intended for someone to play it. Not thinking of John Cage or others who thought about this kind of thing. Surely it is possible to just have a staff without a link to an instrument - isn't there one which is offered when MuseScore startw - Treble stave?
In reply to I think there are people -… by dave2020X
MuseScore doesn't have a staff without an instrument, and no instrument without a sound. As said below a treble clef Piano staff is a generic as it can get (with MuseScore)
In reply to I think there are people -… by dave2020X
> "Not thinking of John Cage"
4'33" is specified as for "any instrument or combination of insturments", which most certainly is not the same as "no instrument". It just means you can mick any instrument and not care about which one, but an instrument nonetheless.
> "Surely it is possible to just have a staff without a link to an instrument - isn't there one which is offered when MuseScore startw - Treble stave?
No, as already pointed out, it's not. Treble stave is part of a Piano instrument. When you play it back, that is what you get; when you export it to other formats (musicxml/midi) that is what it is identified as. When you look into the instrument properties, it is tied to and identified as Piano.
My counter question thus was (and still is); if it is really irrelevant on which instrument something is played (such as with 4'33") then what's the difficulty/harm in selecting any instrument of your choice.
If music is notated, it is very likely intended to be played at some point by something/someone. And that will always be an instrument.
If the idea is just to have a staff that doesn't play anything back (because it's not associated with any instrument), you can always add a piano stave, customise the name, and mute it in the mixer, right?
In reply to If the idea is just to have… by Nathanael Kumar
Yes, but it's unhelpfully in bass clef...and yes, I did see how to change that to treble, so I'm good now.
But, as I wrote to the person that originally suggested MuseScore:
Yeah, I've gotten to where I can make the bells and whistles shut up....but it was annoying to me that it wouldn't Do. Simple. Things. A good tool should fall to the hand without complexities. There is a quotation, Ezra Pound translating Confucius: “'When making an axe handle / the pattern is not far off.
Software should start simple and allow on to progress to complexity. All notation software is (somewhat necessarily) a briar patch and MS is better than most in being relatively simple, but I Should Just Be Able To Add A Staff without jumping through hoops and finding I have bass clef when I didn't want that.
Having said that....I have for years used a purchased copy of MusicTime for my modest needs...and have now switched to MS, which is MUCH better, less mode-ed in and easy to use
My thanks to all who helped me.
In reply to Yes, but it's unhelpfully in… by sdean7855
The next time you want to add an extra staff for this purpose, just delete the suggested 'Piano' in the dialogue box and choose a treble voice or instrument instead. I presume MS needs a specific sound for playback.
In reply to The next time you want to… by Brer Fox
Your difficulty stemmed from adding a new staff, which means adding an additional staff to an instrument - e.g. a left hand piano staff to a pre-existing right hand piano staff. What you really wanted to do is add an additional instrument with its own staff. So, rather than following Jojo's link in the first reply which perfectly answered the question you asked, you should follow this bit of the handbook https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/create-new-score#change-Instrument-… which answers the question you should have asked, and which I am sure you would have, had you known MuseScore's distinction between "staff" - which belongs to an instrument and "instrument" which belongs to a score.
In reply to The next time you want to… by Brer Fox
A treble clef piano staff is as generic a staff as it can get with MuseScore
In reply to A treble clef piano staff is… by Jojo-Schmitz
Indeed, and it wasn't until after some to and fro of discussion that it became clear that what the OP really wanted was an additional instrument.
In reply to Indeed, and it wasn't until… by SteveBlower
It is however possible to think of some things in fairly abstract terms. A staff is not nothing, it has a diagrammatic representation with five horizontal lines. It may also be embellished with clefs, accidents, time signatures, bar lines etc.
There is a tendency round here to always think in terms of "virtual" concrete representations - thus a grand staff = piano but minus anything which might indicate a piano, such as an associated sound font, pedalling etc.
A treble staff = piano minus anything piano related and also minus the LH part.
I did think the original request was perfectly reasonable and understandable, and just because it turned out that he did want something specific for a relatively unusual instrument did not make it difficult to understand, nor merit the "aha - it was about instruments after all".
In reply to It is however possible to… by dave2020X
Golly, but what a religious spat (if short of a war) my question evoked! Thank you all for the help. I persist in thinking that the greatest good, particularly for newbies, is to have a simple mode for those of us that want undifferentiated music. It seems that patient long-suffering jojo must repost the same link again and again which means two things;
1) People (myself included) aren't RTFMing.
2) People maybe need any easier way into MuseScore, so that it isn't demanding they learn MuseScore Way (tm), but can Just Use It.
In the early day of personal computer, a mainframe computer professional was visiting a friend who'd bought an early Mac. In the course of the evening, he wandered down to it and found it being used by the friend's very young son and silently watched the kid. Kiddo was making a lot of mistakes, but pretty much got it to work in playing some rudimentary game. Then it dawned on him: the kid Could Not Yet Read....but the computer's use was transparent enough that kiddo could play the game anyway!
That is an example of what I am trying to get across. And. The people who are heavyweights are probably using Finale, Sibelius, whatever....but there is a world of musicians that need Something Simple and will shout your hosannas for ease of entry.
Being the guardian of self-righteous perfection is a losing proposition. As I found out long ago, People Want What They Want, which may not be what you know they must have or need. If you can get them started, they will eventually come around to the need for greater understanding and the need to know what's really behind the arras.
With all of that, thanks all for this wonderful notation software and your help getting started.
Now I'll chime in with some of my musical religion.
In the genre I play, English Country Dance, AKA Playford/Jane Austen dance, its heyday 1650-1850, tunes (usually popular song) were provided. There. Was. No. Specific. Instrument. Because it was danced wherever and to whatever instruments were available. It Was. Not. Part. Music. but a melody, often a song, many of them utterly beguiling (when you listen to Vaugh Williams, Holst and the like, they're often cribbing from its canon). And because the hegemony of the violin had not yet taken hold, the music was utterly singable most being popular song, not a mess of arpeggiation and ornamentation.
A man named Playford set up shop in the 1650s and sold "The English Dance Master"; he and his family would publish successive updated (as customs in ECD evolved) up to 1728
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dancing_Master
A typical page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Under_The_Greenwood_Tree,Sawny_was_Tall,_Westmorland,_Well-Hall(PLAYFORD).webm
Alas, even MuseScore does not have the versatility to reproduce that score verbatim.
You will notice from the accompanying sound file, the tune as notated was merely a fake book, a jumping off place for the musician play, ornament and counter melody according to taste and ability.
If you like the music canon, the definitive sheet music source for musicians playing it with both period and contemporary composition, is Barnes' tunebooks, three volumes:
http://canispublishing.com/
Alternately, each tune/dance is reproduced here on separate web page:
https://playforddances.com/
Note also that ECD and other English traditional music and dance (such as Morris, Rapper Swrod and Abbots Bromley Horn Dances) was revived in the early 1900s when the Engish realized that classical music and dance was predominantly German/European , then sought out and revived their own traditions
I was NOT looking for my instrument, though I was pleased to find it, even if the score provided would be more accurate not to have a bass clef. There are two handed concertinas with lower notes on the right, but would be more likely shown all on a treble clef. Also, there were once concertina bands, with basses, cellos and sopranos but such would have had a grand score.
I was told by a fellow concertinist that there is a good sound fount for concertinas:
BTW, Stewart (and anyone else who may be interested), I don’t know if you’re aware you can use MuseScore with a Concertina Sound Font. Phil Taylor (creator of the now-defunct BarFly) created one from digital recordings of his Wheatstone and Don Taylor (no relation to Phil) salvaged it (Phil’s site no longer exists) and tweaked the tuning. Both the tuned and original versions are provided by Don here
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KZ1EPAueS-xBiBLDeMVfa3Fvno85UHH…
David Barnert
Albany NY
Some samples
Morris Dance (done here to a diatonic melodeon):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDaVedHnu6w
Northumbrian Rapper Sword step Dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDaVedHnu6w