Guitar Bends (again)
I know guitar bends are often talked about, and the current implementation does actually work (and is a vast improvement from early Musescore) - however, it's still poor notation. Currently for a guitar bend in Musescore, the standard notation does not show the 'actual' notes heard, rather it uses a 'full' or '1/2' indicator next to the fretted note. This doesn't make sense to me, although it is quite common. If is very difficult to notate the 'rhythm' of a bend and release for example. The playback works well, and can be customised nicely, but both the standard and the tab notation do not clearly show rhythmic or pitch information.
I'm looking for a way to notate guitar bends accurately, so that the standard notation actually shows the rhythms and notes heard, using grace notes, slurs etc, while the tab shows the fretted note, and the target note etc. The notation I'm most familiar with is in the screenshot, using 'BU' for bend up, 'BD' for bend down, ('PB' for pre-bend, 'RP' for re-pick, etc ) - this is the notation used by Rockschool for their entire syllabus, so it is certainly widely used - especially in the UK.
I can 'fake' this on Musecore with staff text for the BU and legato notes, but the playback is then not correct. I can fake the playback with 'hidden' glissandos, but that's two workarounds to achieve a simple (and very common) guitar notation, and actually the glissandos can't be adjusted enough to achieve the proper bend sound or rhythm.
Is there any possibillity of implementing this notation in Musescore, or an easier workaround to get bends notated more accurately?
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Comments
Currently the default musescore notation for the screenshot above is:
![musescore default bends.png]( "musescore default bends.png")
which looks bad, (but sounds almost ok) - using the 'out-of-the-box' guitar bend feature.
I can fake Musescore to do the following:
![musescore faked bends.png]( "musescore faked bends.png")
but I had to manually add grace notes, slurs between the grace notes and bent notes, brackets around the bent noteheads, the BU/BD text, slurs between the bent and released notes - so it took 5 times longer, and it still looks bad, and plays back poorly, so is completely impractical for a long piece.
Any suggestions?
In reply to Currently the default… by Tim Sparks
I know this is old now, but I posted about this exact same thing before you, and got no response either. I would prefer to add guitar bends like this, but for some reason they just won't add the functionality
In reply to I know this is old now, but… by HardRockWhat
It's not a question of "won't", just of "when". Tons of other things also being requested and implemented as fast as humanly possible. No doubt this will rise to the top of the priority list eventually, as improved guitar support is an important focus for MuseScore 4 and beyond.
In reply to It's not a question of "won… by Marc Sabatella
Well I look forward to getting my hands on Musescore 4 then! Guitar transcriptions are mostly what I use it for, which is why I'm so insistent.