Russian Orthodox Chant - Repeated Chords and very long measures

• Feb 17, 2022 - 20:13

Hello Musescore friends,

I am working on re-notating some of the sheet music we use at my Russian Orthodox parish. I am trying to use Musescore for it, but it seems difficult to format the music to match the inherent needs of this type of chant. Firstly, there are repeated chords over many words. If I were writing the music by hand, I would indicate a repeated chord by notating a single chord with whole notes and then put two vertical lines on either side of the notes, both on the treble clef and the bass clef. This would indicate the same chord over multiple words of lyrics. Then I would only have to notate a new chord when it was to change. Even if there is a way to notate like this in Musescore, I run into issues trying to get the lyrics spaced nicely.

The only way I have discovered to produce something similar so far is to repeat the chord with quarter notes every time there is a new word of lyrics (not splitting apart the syllables with a hyphen) and then I make all the notes of the repeated chord invisible except for the chord that is approximately in the middle of the lengthy bit of repeated chords. The finished product is ok, but it is time-consuming because I have to select both the note heads and note stems to make them invisible. I can't seem to select multiple chords without also selecting the lyrics.

My second issue is the time signatures. Generally, we split our measures up according to where there is some punctuation in the lyrics. I have been making my measures really long giving the quarter note the beat, but I just ran into a measure where I would have about 40 beats and it doesn't automatically wrap down to the next line. I would love to omit time signatures completely and keep entering notes until I specify that I need a new measure. In music such as this, the time signatures are superfluous, but I don't think there's any way to eliminate them besides making them invisible. But then, I'm just jumping through hoops to humor the program.

Any recommendations on how to notate in a more efficient manner using Musescore or is Musescore simply not an ideal program for what I am trying to do? If the latter, does anyone have recommendations on other music software programs that are a bit less rigid? I don't need anything fancy, as I just notate on a grand staff SATB. Apologies if my descriptions are unclear. I did my best to explain it without having any examples to upload.

Thanks for any input or advice you all might have!

Comments

• Feb 17, 2022 - 21:30

If you do have any links to example images, that would help a lot in understanding the end goal.

It is true that entering lyrics is a lot easier if you have notes/chords in place; which you'll likely need anyway if you want playback for each syllable? The only advise I can currently provide given your described workflow is that it might be easier to enter your invisible notes into a separate voice, for ease of selecting them afterwards.

For suppressing the time signatures (unmetered indeed doesn't really exist within MuseScore) you can turn them off in Staff/Part properties for each stave. Then use join measures or insert mode to create measures of desired duration. If you then need a system break at some point, split the measure again and mark the barline invisible.

Reply

• Feb 18, 2022 - 01:42

Orthodox chant, Anglican chant, and Gregorian psalmody all present similar issues. I have a tutorial on psalm-tones which I have been working on, and will attach, which may or may not help. In the meanwhile, here are a few tips I can offer:

Although you cannot write unmeasured music per se on Musescore, you can delete the time signature (right-click and then Del), and use the inspector to adjust the "actual duration" of the "measure" to whatever length you need*--40 quarter-notes is certainly possible. If it still won't fit on one line, you might have to notate is as two measures, and then make the barline invisible. (as jeetee suggested.)

Those whole notes with lines on either side are Breves, they're on your workplace, or 8 on the keypad for duration entry.

To type more than one syllable or word beneath a note, use CTRL-space instead of just the spacebar, or CTRL-hyphen instead of just hyphen. Musescore will by default try to center the whole phrase under the reciting tone/chord (at that point, it considers it one word); if you don't like the way that looks, you can select the lyric (phrase), and then use the inspector to left-justify it.

*don't forget to take into account that a breve is equal to 8 quarter-notes.

Attachment Size
Psalm_tone_suggestions_(bis).mscz 7.7 KB

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.