Simplifying input
I haven't figured out why my input, via my MIDI keyboard, seems to bunch up notes like a chord, even when I am playing a scale. MuseScore seems to do many things which look very professional but I find it difficult to work with. Any problem I have seems not to covered by a tutorial.
If I am playing in quarter notes and then hold the key down for a half measure , or more, it would nice if MuseScore just kept displaying the note with a tie. Maybe it does this, but I can't figure out how to do it. Also, I would be nice if MuseScore allowed the musician to determine the split point between the Bass and Treble Clef. My MIDI keyboard allows me to change the split point on the keyboard but it does not show this on the MuseScore music score.
Comments
Have you read the Handbook or watched the tutorial videos? As explained in the documentation. you need to enter notes one at a time and to select the duration for a note *before* entering the note. And as explained here in other threads as well as in the Handbook, you need to choose which staff to enter ntoes on - it simply would not make sense for MuseScore to constantly move the cursor up and down and backwards and forwards. It sounds ncie in thewory, but you would find it absolutely impossible to work this way in practice.
In reply to Have you read the Handbook or by Marc Sabatella
Antoni, to do what you want (real time note entering), it sounds like you need a sequencing program like Sibelius. With Musescore, you must "step write" your scores. This is achieved by using your computer keyboard or a MIDI keyboard. Either way, you're still step writing. Musescore can play back the resultant score through MIDI.
Marc, please correct me if I have made an error in my reply. Thanks.
- Lee
In reply to Antoni, to do what you want by Lee Batchelor
Thanks for the feedback. I gave up with Musescore and uninstalled the program. Not to totally demean Musescore, it is an easier program to use than Finale and to some extent Sibelius but Musescore doesn't do what I want it to do.
The ONLY thing I want to do is compose with my MIDI keyboard and have left hand note inputs show up on the Bass Clef and right hand inputs on the Treble Clef. I read the Sibelius user manual to find out how I could do this and found the directions for the above on page 74. Why such an important step is hidden on page 74 is beyond me !!!! You can supposedly select the split point between the two staffs (usually Middle C). The only problem is that in my case it didn't work. It is impossible to contact a human being,and like this Forum, it is impossible to get an answer whether or not Musescore or Sibleius will actually do what I want it to do, i.e. Split Stafs during note input. So based on this inability to get any answers I uninstalled Sibelius as well.
Before computers, keyboard musicians ALWAYS wrote left hand notes for the Bass Clef and right hand for the Treble Clef, with few exceptions.
Antoni
In reply to Thanks for the feedback. I by Antoni Scott
Get yourself a Speedball, a bottle of India ink, and some staff paper, because no computer program is going to satisfy your requirements as they presently stand. Composing directly into a scorewriting program is pretty much a waste of time, anyway. I compose on the harpsichord and make the first draft using a pencil because it's faster than using the computer. It isn't until I start arranging and orchestrating that I start working with MuseScore.
There's a common misconception amongst people who think that because it's easier and faster to write a book, poem, or other literary text directly into a word-processor, it should be the same for composers using scorewriters. But text material involves single-value, sequential, linear input; music notation involves multi-valued, simultaneous, vertical and linear elements, which cannot all be input using single keystrokes, and one rhythmic unit often require a whole series of two-key commands (especially for multi-voice/chordal material such as piano music). If you insist on trying to input as you compose, you will spend more time correcting wrong notes, misinterpreted keystrokes, and other hiccups than you will composing.
Simplify your life: Just scribble it out on a pad of staff paper as you work. Then, when you've got it pretty much worked out, go fire up the computer.
BTW--If you've never seen bass clef in the right hand, or treble in the left, take a look at Couperin's or Bach's keyboard works, and you'll see more than that. Clefs are used as needed, where needed, to avoid forcing the performer to read too many ledger lines.
In reply to Get yourself a Speedball, a by Recorder485
You are 100% correct. I think the last words in my post were "in most cases". I am aware that notes for the right hand cross over into the bass clef and vica versa. I agree that it is faster to write it out on paper. I could transcribe it onto MuseScore once composed. My problem is that my music writing skills are not that good. Also I wanted to permanently notate some of my improvisations. Once I have improvised from my head to the keyboard I usually forget what I just did to put it on paper - that's why I wanted to have something that wrote as I played.
In reply to You are 100% correct. I think by Antoni Scott
I understand; but it's the same for every composer (and worst for pianists who improvise a left-hand harmony under the melody and then can't remember everything they played long enough to scribble it down). But if you are waiting for a computer program that will take irregular, imprecise human input of up to eight simultaneous notes and spit out perfect, intuitive notation for it, you are going to be waiting for a long time, I'm afraid. For one thing, computers measure time in nano-seconds, and human fingers can't match that precision. Programmers can define limits of acceptable deviation, but no set of limits will match the technical skills of every player. So called 'real-time input' is pie-in-the-sky: good for selling programs to users who don't know any better, but not for much else.
For another thing, as Marc Sabatella mentioned, the program has no way of knowing which hand you played that middle C with...so unless you use a two-manual midi device, and can figure out how to send the signal from one manual to the left hand and the signal from the other to the right, you're going to wind up with notes on the 'wrong' staff.
But the real point is, you're trying to use MuseScore for something it wasn't designed to do: 'record' music. Always remember that scorewriters are primarily graphics programs. The fact they can also produce audio playback from the input is a great big bonus, especially for less-experienced musicians who can't look at notation and hear it in their heads...but it is a bonus, not the main event.
For composing music, there are two ways you can approach this problem:
1. Work out the bass line first and write it down, using either figured bass notation (or chord names such as Gm7) to indicate the harmony you want. Once you're done with that, transcribe it to MuseScore and then start working out the melody on the computer. When you've got that done, you can realise ('flesh out') the harmony from the figured bass or chord chart, also working on the computer.
2. Work out the melody first, and write that down. Then experiment playing simple root-position chords until you like the harmony, and write in the chord names. Transcribe it to MuseScore, and start refining your bass line and realising the harmony, paying attention to your voice-leading as you go and using appropriate inversions, etc., to produce a balanced whole.
In reply to You are 100% correct. I think by Antoni Scott
As to writing down your improvisations: Why don't you make an audio recording and use it to jog your memory when writing it down? You could then improvise on a real piano rather than on a MIDI keyboard.
In reply to Thanks for the feedback. I by Antoni Scott
Again, there is no way the computer can know which notes should go in which staff, and trying to guess based on how the note is *would not work*. It would produce terrible results, absolutely unreadable by human musicians in msot cases, and would be frustrating to use because the cursor would be constantly jumping up and down and backwarfds and forwards.
You are right that musicians generally put notes for hte left hand in the abss clef and notes for the right hand in the treble clef. But musicians have always had to decide which notes to put in which staff, and computers don't read minds, so musicians still ahve to make that decision. That's just how it is and always will be until computers learn to read minds. Even if it did a very dumb thing and assume all notes below middle C belonged in the bass clef, this would rwquire guessing about where to enter that note in the measure. Consider: enter three quarter notes above middle C; these go to the top staff. Now enter a note below middle C, so it goes to the bottom staff - but on what beat? Does it go to beat 4? If so, how would you ever enter notes to be played in both hands at once? So the cursor would more liekly need to jump back to the beginning of the measure, which would be distracting, and it would be hrd to keep track of your current position. It's just not a viable system.
For some reason the comments above missed one other (faster) way of
inputting notes in MuseScore.
(a) input rhythm by hitting number-"b" ( or "a", or "e" etc.) on your keyboard
(4b,5bb,3.b and so on)
(b) switch on the "pitch correction" mode (one click) and play your melody not
caring about being precise rhythmically.
(c) then use copy and paste for phrases with the same rhythm, which will be
many, as it is in the nature of (Western) music (at least) to be repetitive,
and then overplay melody in the "pitch correction" mode as above.
You may need to shift notes by an octave up or down (??), but that is easy too.
I do realize the question was about something different, but the newer version
of MuseScore seems to be less tiresome about entering notes "one at a time",
doesn't it?
And Tip Number Two: input seems to be faster and much easier when I use a
Wacom tablet peripheral with a pen, not the mouse.
In reply to For some reason the comments by subharmonic2
Touch-screen/'pen' input would be about the only way to compete with the speed of an experienced manual copyist; but only if the tablet/pen combination allows the user to draw flags or beams or open note heads to define the duration of the note. If it doesn't, it's probably not even as fast as keyed input using a small midi keyboard and a dedicated number pad.
I do not write code, but even so I can see some hairy work ahead of anyone who wanted to create a program that could recognise all the variations in music 'handwriting.' (As an example of what the program might have to contend with, I offer a snippet from one of Johann Georg Pisendel's works, the concerto for 2 oboes and bassoon in E-flat major. ;o)
In reply to Touch-screen/'pen' input by Recorder485
The above sample of Pisendel is an example of what I am talking about. It is a composition written for Oboe and Bassoon. Obviously, keyboard composition is somewhat different although the instrument range of the piano or organ is equally as wide.
The music score evolved over the early years of keyboard composition from one giant staff of 10 or fifteen lines to two five line staffs. Somehow it was decided way before Bach that it was easier to read music from two Stafs.
All I want is to have the ability to split the Staf into a bass and treble at middle C and have the majority of left hand inputs end up on the Bass Clef and the majority of right hand inputs end up on the Treble clef with a few notes from either clef transgressing into the one above or below.
Interestingly, Sibelius supposedly has an option to pick a "Split Point" between the Bass and Treble Clef but unfortunately I couldn't get it to work. Worse yet, it's impossible to contact a human to find out how to get it to work. I guess they don't want me to buy their product.
In reply to The above sample of Pisendel by Antoni Scott
Here's a possible solution.
If you're able to use DAW software (and I've done this before), create two MIDI tracks - one for left, one for right hand piano. Do your editing, and then save the MIDI file. The DAW needs to have a scoring function that lets you save the score as an .xml file. After the two tracks are stored as .xml files, they can be imported into Musescore for final tweaking. Does this sound feasible?
In reply to The above sample of Pisendel by Antoni Scott
MuseScore has a Split Staff function which is very easy to use, but it does not take 'live' input in the way you are thinking. Instead, what this function will do is split the notation in an existing staff above and below a user-definable note onto two new staves.
Here is a simple melody, written on a treble staff:
Now here is the same material SPLIT into two staves, with the split point defined as C3:
That's easy enough; all you do is right click on any measure in the score and select Split Staff and then set the split point in the dialog window which will appear.
If you want to split chorded or multi-voiced material, you will need to enter it onto a single staff FIRST, and then split it as above:
So, if you're willing to do your two-handed input onto a single staff first, it seems that you MIGHT be able to get a reasonably-correctable grand staff out of it afterwards. But there WILL be notes on the wrong staff; for instance in the above example, you can easily see that the A in m15 on beat 3 belongs to the right hand, and the three eighth notes in m.16 in the bass clef are part of a run that should be played in the right hand as well.
It's obviously not perfect, but that's how you could use it.
Note: I don't own Sibelius nor know it, so I can't be sure but I suspect their spit staff function works in a similar manner. Maybe someone who runs that software could confirm that?
In reply to The above sample of Pisendel by Antoni Scott
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding how note input works for MuseScore as well as most other programs. Note input is normally *one note at a time*. Left to right, one note at a time, choose the duration for each note as you enter it. In this case, as I have already explained, it simply *would not work* for the cursor to constantly jump up and down and backwards and forwards while entering music. it would be completel unusable, and that is why no programs ever would try to do such a thing.
What is becoming clear is that you are actually wanting is something completely different. you don't want one note at a time input, you want *real time* input, wehre you just play something in both hands and have the probam figure out not only which notes go onto which staff, but also, what the durations of the notes sshould be, when to use multiple voices, etc. This is, again, something else *entirely*, but indeed, but such a system, of course guessing about staves would be a part of the system just like guessing about durations etc.
MuseScore does not currently have such a system, but Finale and Sibelius do. the split point feature you are reading about is undoubtedly intended to work only with that special real time entry mode, which is why it appeared to have no effect when using it with normal entry (where it would notmake sense, as I have been trying to explain).
With MuseScore, you can use a sequencer to record your improvisations in real time, save the result as a MIDI file, then import that MIDI file, and it *will* do exactly what you are asking for - it will assign notes to staves based on some sort of algorithm (somewhat more sophisticated than the simplisitic split point), etc.
So, simply record your improvisations into a sequencer and improt the resulting MIDI file into MuseScore and you will ahve what you want - or use the equiavalent real time note entry mode of Finale or Sibelius, which does essentially the same thing but withut the need for a eparate sequencer.
Note that the reuslts of doing this are almost never actually good readable music notation. There are far too many guesses needed to expect good results. But it's a starting point, at least,. for further editing based on your own musical notation expertise.