Newbie alert - Repeats, codas etc.
Hi everyone this is my first post here,
I play in a covers band and we're trying to get better at keeping records of tunes we cover so I'm looking at Musescore. All we really need is a nice way of noting chords, lyrics and occasional lead parts pretty much like a lead sheet. I've looked at tuxguitar which is pretty nice but musescore seems to be a bit more polished with better support (great into videos - thanks).
Now, I have a couple of small problems.Firstly, getting to grips with the general notation of songs and the most space-efficient way to do so. I'd really like to keep the score as short as possible - two pages max so using repeats, D.C etc.
My second problem is that I don't actually read music as such and don't really understand how the above symbols should be used in the best way. We're about to start work on "Dakota" by Sterephonics and I'm using this as an example to try and learn how to notate it using Musescore. It's a pretty simple song and should help me learn a bit more about notation along the way.
The structure of the song is this:
Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Middle, Verse, Chorus, Middle, Outro.
The verse is 8 bars (2 x I, 2 x iii, 2x IV 2 x I) with an alternate ending on the last two bars (got it!),
So, I suppose I really just want to notate the the verse (with lyrics) , chorus, middle and outro once and include the correct symbols to indicate where to go but that's where I get a bit stuck.
Can anyone help get me going please?
Thanks
NTB
8o)
Comments
Welcome! Unfortunately, the standard repeat and DS/DC/Coda symbols aren't really good for constructing complex road maps. I'm not talking about MuseScore, but notation in general. You often need to write something out more than once when you'd rather not. In your example, though, you can just barely get by, with
Intro segno startrepeat verse chorus endrepeat middle tocoda dsalcoda coda outro
You,d start with the intro, note but ignore the segmo and startrepeat, play the verse and chorus, follow the repeat back, play the verse and chorus again, then fall into the middle section ("bridge" would be a common term), note but ignore the tocoda, then see the ds and go back to the segno. You'd want to add a text marking "no repeat" to the ds, so people would know not to take the repeat. So on taking the ds, you'd play the verse and chorus, fall through the middle, and this time take the coda over to the outro.
You kind of got lucky on this piece that the form on the DS was the same as it was originally - no extra verse, missing half verse, extra chorus, etc. As a lot of songs might have. Really, I find the simplest solution - both to write and to read - is to just notate and *label* the different sections clearly (the Rehearsal Mark text style in the Jazz Lead Sheet template is perfect for this), then put a road map at the bottom of the chart that literally reads "intro verse chorus verse chorus bridge verse chorus bridge outro".
In reply to Welcome! Unfortunately, the by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for your reply, it's really helpful :-)
NTB
Since these are charts for your band only, provided that you don't want MuseScore to play back on the computer, you can do pretty much whatever you want using Staff Text. Start each section on a new line, and put a staff text just above it saying "Middle" or "Outro" or whatever. Then up in the title bar, list the order in which they play. Number the sections, mark up the printouts with a red pen, whatever works....
-- J.S.
In reply to Since these are charts for by John Sprung
Part of me would like to mark these up in a slightly "conventional" manner in the use the correct symbols etc. That way I might get a bit more understanding of other notations. However, you do have a good point. As long as what's written is easily understood and communicated to the rest of the band then really that's all that matters. There's nothing wrong with just doing this with a pen and paper but you then lose the advantage (among others) of being able to easily update new versions and just email them off.
Thanks. Any other advice is welcomed.
In reply to Part of me would like to mark by ntblade
MuseScore does colored text, and you can make the font as big as you want. So really, you should be able to it all within MuseScore. If you can imagine it, you can do it, pretty much.
My point above is that the standard repeat and dc, ds, and coda notatipns are not sufficient for representing complex road maps. And in many of the cases where you can kind of make it work through use multiple segnos, multiple codas, segnos and or codas within repeats or whatever - the result is likely to just confuse most musicians. If you can't do it with just simple repeats and/or a simple dc/ds and coda, it really isn't worth doing that way at all - the results will be cpnfusiong and almost guaranteed to lead to train wrecks. Either write it all out, or use the method I describe where you simply write out the road map in plain text at the bottom.
In reply to MuseScore does colored text, by Marc Sabatella
Good advice Marc.
Regards,
In reply to MuseScore does colored text, by Marc Sabatella
Why not make the playback of Road Maps a part of MuseScore? Rather than fixing the existing repeat bugs, implement a simple arrangement. Roadmap labels would be attached to selected measures, and listed in the road map. The sections would play from their labeled measure to the measure before the next road map label.
-- J.S.
In reply to That leads to a feature idea: by John Sprung
That's pretty clever! It's exactly how some sequencers let you assemble a piece. I could see this being tied to a special type of text element, where you entered the label names in the appropriatw order for playback but it also could display the road map as text, if you so chose. As oppose to needing to create the road map and the text separately.
In reply to That's pretty clever! It's by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for all the help. I'm starting to get to grips with MS. I've attached my first score. I've had to jump through a few hoops (invisible notes etc, to attach lyrics) and I'm still experiencing strange spacing funnies like the lyrics at the bottom of the page but overall I'm pretty pleased.
I would really appreciate some feedback if anyone has the time to have a look at this.
Many thanks for a great programme!
NTB
8o)
In reply to Thanks for all the help. I'm by ntblade
As you don't put lyrics for the whole song, you could use normal staff text instead of lyrics text. Lyrics texts are designed to space out nicely, here you don't need this facility.
In reply to As you don't put lyrics for by [DELETED] 5
Also, the chord name style that is loaded by default in the Jazz Lead Sheet template needs you to use "mi" for minor instead of "m". As it is, your C# minor chords are not being recognized, and that is why they are displaying funny. They also won't transpose correctly or export to MusicXML correctly. If you wish to continue using "m" for minor chords, you should switch to a different chord name style - Style->Edit General Style->Chordnames, and select "stdchords.xml". Then go back over your minor chords - no need to actually retype them, just double click and hit hit Esc - to have them re-parsed. See the section entitled Chord name in the handbook for more on the different styles.
Also - as far as I can tell from your chart, the tune is actually in E, but your key signature says B. That means all your "A" are going to be read as "A#", which I doubt you meant. I see you have a capo 4 notation, but it isn't clear if the notes you have written are taking that into account. Or if they need to - I don't normally think in terms of capos, and don't know what is typical in terms of notating melodies.
In reply to Also, the chord name style by Marc Sabatella
Eeeeeeeeech! 5 sharps instead of 4. Schoolboy error! I started from scratch this morning and didn't notice. Thanks for that. Myself and the other guitarist very rarely use capos and since this will be shared I'll leave it to my mate to decide if he wants you use one or come up with some other nice shape as he usually does.
Thanks for the tips guys - really helping.
Attached newer version, correct key and took out capo comment.
Better? - Thanks
In reply to As you don't put lyrics for by [DELETED] 5
Thanks, I'll give that a try.
Hi,
sorry for reviving this old thread. But I would also like to do somethign similar. Does anyone know if the newer versions of MuseScore supports naming sections of the score, and then play them in an certain order. For example Intro, A, A, Intro, A, B, A, B, A, Coda?
I would rather not write the sections several times, because if I for example change something in section A, then I'll have to correct it all the other places. It also takes up a lot of space, and therefore wouldn't look very nice when printed.
By the way, thank you for a great program.
Best regards,
Jóan Petur
In reply to Repeats, naming sections by coffeemug
For the naming you can use Rehearsal marks and using a text at the beginning decribing the Roadmap, so a musician finds his/her way. Nothing to do with how it plays though, MuseScore won't be able to follow such complicated roadmaps.