Marcato symbol should default to above staff

• Aug 9, 2016 - 08:26
Reported version
2.1
Type
Graphical (UI)
Severity
S4 - Minor
Status
closed
Project
MuseScore

If a Marcato symbol is added to a note with an up stem, then:
a) The Marcato symbol is displayed the wrong way up.
b) The Marcato symbol is displayed under the note. It should default to above the stem.

Brian
UK

Attachment Size
Capture.JPG 13.05 KB

Comments

• Aug 9, 2016 - 08:58

Go to Style/General.../Articulations,Ornaments and change the setting for Marcato from "Chord Automatic" (which means: away from stem) to "Above Staff".
I guess this setting should be made the default in MuseScore, so the above procedure should be seen as a workaround.
For the record: the corresponding line of code is libmscore/style.cpp, line 290 , changing that to TOP_STAFF should fix this issue, if that setting is really the right thing (I'm not enough of a musician to tell)

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• Aug 9, 2016 - 09:16

Thanks:

The workaround makes it better, but it is still not correct: it should be displayed just above the note and stem, not in the white space above the stave.

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• Aug 9, 2016 - 15:33

Published music is inconsistent about this. Some editors do place marcato above the staff for upstem notes (and this is Gould's recommendation, although she says "usually" and implicitly acknowledges both ways are possible). But other editors place them consistently with other articulations: on the notehead side. In principle I'm fine with changing the default to be consistent with Gould's recommendation, but as far as I can tell, the current default is not "wrong".

Gould also recommends the marking be made clear of the staff, so actually, Above Staff would be appropriate.

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• Aug 9, 2016 - 15:34
Title Marcato symbol is inverted if stem is up ⇒ Marcato symbol should default to above staff

And in any event, the sybol *is* supposed to be inverted when placed below the staff, as must be the case in multip[le voice writing for example.

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• Aug 10, 2016 - 08:42

Do we need a compatibility check when opening 2.0 files in 3.0, and then take the old default and save that? Pseudo code:
if (2.0 file && marcatoAchor not set)
marcatoAnchor = Chord Automatic;

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