Need Help for Baroque Ornamentation

• Jul 7, 2018 - 16:30

I am transcribing some baroque manuscripts and would like advice on how to notate the ornaments. Some of the symbols are close enough in appearance to modern notation articulation ornaments, though they have different meanings. E.g., Hotteterre's coulement looks like a modern notation marcato symbol. So I can use that -- I'm not really concerned with playback accuracy. I just have to be careful that it doesn't invert and show below the staff; I can handle that with style and inspector.

But there are some symbols that don't appear at all in the out-of-the-box articulation ornaments. Is there a way to create my own custom articulations? I couldn't find this in the documentation. Or, by chance, has somebody already created a set of baroque ornaments that I can download -- e.g., custom workspace or custom pallettes?


Comments

You can create a custom palette. See https://musescore.org/en/handbook/palettes-and-workspaces#custom-palett…

In the properties for the palette the is an option that says Show 'More elements...' This put 3 question marks in the palette. When you click this, the master palette appears and you can search for the ornament you want. I would enable this while I'm initially making my palette, but disable it when I think it's complete. You can always open the master palette by pressing z.

You can then ctrl+shift+drag the element to the custom palette from the master palette. Generally you can search for an ornament by starting to type its name in the search box. Occasionally there is an ornament with multiple names and MuseScore may have a different name than you use so you will have to browse to find it. If all else fails, post a picture of the ornament here and people will help you find it or tell you that you need to use a picture of it.

In reply to by mike320

Thanks, Mike320 -- this helps a lot. I was able to find a few of the notations I need in Master Pallette>Symbols. Now that I have them in my custom palette is there a way to modify their behavior -- e.g., always above staff -- the way you can using Style for built-in articulations. Or do I have to do one by one using inspector?

In reply to by lpoleshuck

It seems master palette items have predefined positions that cannot be changed. As far as I know, you must change it's position each time. This can be done by dragging the item to a certain extent or double clicking it and using arrows or ctrl+arrows accordig to normal rules. All of the properties (right click the symbol in the palette) you can apply to the symbol seems to only affect the display in the palette. This does seem to be a bug to me. I would expect a symbol that is displayed on the score would keep it's location when it's copied to the palette. I would also expect a symbol that is displayed far above the staff drawn on the palette to be displayed above the staff in the score.

I could be wrong about the details, it would not be the first time. This is a feature I'm aware of but do not use all of the time.

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