How to do this in Musescore (tuplet tremolo?)

• Sep 29, 2012 - 21:58

Excuse my ignorance, I'm a newbie with musescore and at best an honest amateur with Sibelius.
(part of the problem is I don't know the proper terminology for this typesetting technique, so I'm not sure which keywords to search for). I'm working on a transcription of "Death and the Maiden" (quartet) and there are all these 3-tuplets... it would be nice to have the same notation as in the original score, see attachment.
While now I have 12 notes per bar... gets tiring for the eye and takes a lot of screen and paper space....
Any tips how to achieve this (both dotted quarter and half-notes as shown).

Thanks in advance - Kristofer

Attachment Size
Tuplets.jpg 59.56 KB

Comments

• Sep 30, 2012 - 00:50

You've got the right term. Just enter the notes as you see them - don't expand them into tuplets - then open the Tremolo palette and you'll see those symbols. As with other symbols, select the notes you want to add the symbol to, then double click the symbol in the palette.

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• Sep 30, 2012 - 16:14

Thanks Marc, but I seem to be missing something. If I just enter quarter notes in a 4/4, the single-bar tremolo translates effectively to 1/8th notes (quavers). But if I want to indicate the "shorthand" form of triplets, i.e. 12 notes per bar in a 4/4, the "barred triplet tremolo" quarter notes should be marked as "dotted" quarters or half-notes (see original attachment). But I don't see how I can first fit 4 dotted quarters into a 4/4 measure, and then apply the single tremolo. At least it doesn't seem to work that way here. Or maybe I'm just skipping/missing a crucial step ...
For the record, I don't care whether Musescore can playback this correctly, it's all about having the "correct" visuals here.

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• Sep 30, 2012 - 16:38

Oh, I see now. You hadn't mentioned this was 4/4 time - I saw the four dotted quarters and assumed it was 12/8, so all you would have needed to do is enter the dotted quarters directly. This is kind of non-standard notation, but if you wish to duplicate it, I guess the best way to do so would be to set the "actual measure duration" (right click measure, properties) to 12/8. Another possibility would be to leave it as 4/4 and enter the as quarters, then attach dots graphically, using the symbols palette (press Z) or staff text (press ctrl-T).

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• Sep 30, 2012 - 17:09

It's more complex when - like in the attachment - there are measures with 12 quavers, ones with dotted crotchets and dotted minims and measures with normal crotchets, rests, quavers etc. occurring at the same time. When you make one measure 12/8 the other, simultaneous, measures are also made 12/8.

You need to decide which is easier - add the dots manually to each tremolo group or make the measures 12/8 and then correct the one that should be 4/4. To do this you have to take groups of three quavers and turn them in to couplets.

You might also need to consider playback. Turning a 4/4 measure into 12/8 slows it down (since rate is set as crotchets-per-minute, not actual, nominal beats). You would then need to add a tempo mark, set it 3/2 times the speed of the original, make it invisible and then set another one in the next normal measure to correct the tempo back again.

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• Sep 30, 2012 - 17:38

@underquark, indeed - and in combination with the relative effort of preparing each measure this way made me go for an easier workaround. Actually in a quartet score like this it isn't that the whole System changes to 12/8 for that one measure, it remains isolated to the voice you applied it to - but then, In playback, that voice's measure lasts 4/8 longer, so all the other voices stop and wait for this one voice to finish its elongated measure before continuing. A bit hilarious. :-)
The other drawback (driving up efforts) was that I could not prepare/configure multiple measures at a time for 12/8 actual duration, if I select multiple bars to reconfigure the "Measure properties", only the 1st bar is modified this way.

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• Sep 30, 2012 - 17:33

Hi Marc, thanks for the help. I decided to go with the 2nd option, which is the least work-intensive:
i.e. write them out as plain quarters and add "cosmetic" dots from the Symbols pallette (accepting the fact that they wont play back as triplets). There is now only one funny bug haunting me, i.e. the manually-added dot on the FIRST quarter of each measure gets lost when copy-pasting this pattern from one measure to the next! Is this a known issue?
(it isn't blocking me for the moment, but it is going to get annoying in the long run...).
thanks again!

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