Make accidentals (re-)definable (on a per-score basis) and play back accurately (if possible).

• May 13, 2020 - 01:28

Hi dear MuseScore people,

I couldn't find this in the forum, so I don't think it has been requested before, but if it has, I sincerely apologise and please consider this a non-request:

It would be nice to be able to define, as well as re-define, what accidentals actually mean, in terms of change to pitch, and if this were then reflected in the playback (taking into account any constraints that soundsets / playback devices may or may not have, of course!).

Currently, there's a plethora of accidentals available, but as far as I can tell only the regular flat, sharp, double flat and double sharp actually have an influence on the note played in playback.
If I put any of the more exotic ones, e.g. a half-sharp, like discussed in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd54l8gfi7M, it is properly displayed, but it doesn't seem to actually play the note 50 cents higher.
(I am fully aware, of course, that I can tune each and ever note individually to, I believe, 1/100th of a cent precision, but it would be nice, and less tedious, to have accidentals take care of that).

For even more exotic accidentals, I think it would be desirable to be able to define (on a per-score basis I think) how much they raise or lower the affected notes.
E.g. in the (magnificent) piece "in vain" by Georg Friedrich Haas, https://cdn.universaledition.com/resources/ansichtspartituren/ue36296-d… (see pages 18/19), the composer clearly describes what each accidental means and how it should be played.

I fully understand that, for most users, this is a moot point, but for a sizable portion of contemporary composers, I think it would be awesome to have this capability.

In the meantime, many thanks once again to the awesome MuseScore developers who do such a fantastic job of continuously making the greatest notation software even greater.

Comments

• May 13, 2020 - 22:24

Hi Jojo-Schmitz,

Many thanks for your reply.

I take it you mean plugins like AccidentalTuner.qml?
I've played around with it, and yes, it works, but it may not be as user-friendly as a native implementation could be:

  • When I apply the plugin on a score with accidentals, yes, the notes are tuned accordingly (albeit only to a precision of 1 cent, not to 1/100th of a cent as is possible in the Inspector… unless I edit the MuseScore_AT_Settings.dat file manually, then it does apply the correct values to the notes, so this is a plugin UI dialog shortcoming, not a functional shortcoming).

  • However, when I continue composing my score, adding notes and accidentals to them, these accidentals aren't affected (yet), of course, until I run the plugin again.

I'll understand if this doesn't get picked up and doesn't get implemented.
But to say that a plugin provides the same functionality is a bit like saying that a paper notepad and pencil provides the same functionality as a word processor ;)

I strive to become a MuseScore developer at some point (I've developed software for decades), and if it doesn't get picked up, I might implement it myself and send a pull request :)

Many thanks again,

Matt

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• May 14, 2020 - 07:38

;-)
Step 1 would be to use that information for playback
Step 2 to check whether all these offsets are correct, at least for the majority of cases
Step 3 would be to expose this to the UI to a) show and b) make configurable (the latter needed only if step 2 reveals that the offsets are not always correct or wanted)

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