Lip Slur Symbols (includes drawings and details)

• Feb 22, 2012 - 03:05
Type
Functional
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
No
Project

I'm basically a Jazz musician and am using musescore for making readable copies of solos I have transcribed. The marking for a very common and often used jazz effect, a "Lip Slur", seems to be missing from musescore. There are basically 4 different types of lip slurs, a gliss up to the note, a gliss down at the end of the note, a gliss up at the end of the note and a bend in the middle of the note. I've attached a page with examples.
As I said these are common effects in the Jazz world and their inclusion would really increase musescore's usefulness.
Thanks.
bc

Attachment Size
lipslursjpg.jpg 298.33 KB

Comments

Thanks Jall2. I'll admit I'm new to musescore and, as I said, I did try to use the slur in the Palettes/Lines but with limited success. I checked out the examples in your attachment and they look pretty good. I guess I just need a bit more practice. I still have to say that since most of what I will be doing with musescore is going to be Jazz oriented, and these effects are extremely common in that idiom, It would still be nice to have these markings included as pre-made made symbols rather than having to repeatedly manipulate an existing symbol. Maybe once I get the hang of it it will not prove to be that much of a deal. Just like anything, "Practice makes perfect".
Maybe a way to save user created custom markings would be a good feature addition to the program?

It is certain that using slurs to mark a way to play is a stopgap and a few functions MuseScore need to be improved.
"Features request" is made for that and I join you to request an extension of the palette "Symbols".

Ooh, those look pretty good! I'm excited. I hadn't thought of it, but I guess the second one can be used for both the lip gliss up to a note and the up gliss at the end of a note since it's the same symbol, just a mater of placement. There is one more which is a pitch bend on a note where you hit the note on pitch, bend the pitch down and return to on pitch. All you need to do is rotate one of the symbols you already have so it looks like a smile (and maybe increase the curve a tiny bit and make it about the same width as the note head).

Hey lasconic,
First off, I'm no expert on the subject, just a guy who has played and performed in various music settings for quite a few years.
I checked out the nightly and the falls /doits look pretty good and are easy to use. They are a bit too big and maybe a touch too flat for my taste. I'd also like the placement to be slightly different but that's just my opinion though. As an aside: the program also seemed a bit more "snappy" with the palettes opening quicker and notation appearing, seemingly, faster too.
But back to the problem at hand. I did some online research and put together a PDF of the results. It came out over the 2 MB limit and when I split it up I had some problems getting multiple attachments to download to the site so here's a Dropbox link you can use to get the PDF http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4878882/Jazz%20Notations.pdf .In a nutshell here's what I found. Unlike classical notation, which by it's compositional nature and age has very set notation, Jazz notation, because it's a more recent form and has it's roots more in the improvisational realm is... well... somewhat murky in it's notation. I found nomenclature and symbology to be surprisingly (and somewhat scarily) inconsistent. I found a lot of notations that I've never seen before, some of which I was unsure of what their usage was( possibly for Brass instruments, I'm a Woodwind player), and some which I thought "Wow I've always wondered how to notate that!" Add to that the fact that Jazz musicians are constantly coming up with new ways to alter the sounds produced on their instruments and you pretty much get the feeling that Jazz notation is still very much a work in progress.
Here are some links to some of the more reputable websites that seem to be trying to codify things (the same pages are in the PDF).
A book that is I believe associated with the IAJE (International Assoc. of Jazz Educators) http://books.google.com/books?id=7pjNgehSSDIC&pg=RA1-PT37&lpg=RA1-PT37&…

An article from the US Army Field Band http://bands.army.mil/masterclass/tusafb/dec2000/jazz.htm

www.jazzleadsheets.com/images/examples3

Hey lasconic,
After thinking about it for a few days I realized that the attachment with my previous post was probably way more info than you wanted. I took some time today and tried to come up with some designs for the symbols the original post was concerned with (we'll get to the other stuff later?!?!?). I based 5 of the symbols on what I've seen in my years as a performing musician and 2 on the results of the research done for the above post. I think they came out pretty good. I am attaching two files that show that work. In the mscz file I had a problem with getting the locations of the symbols to save. I'm sure I'm just doing something wrong but I couldn't figure out how to do it. So I included a screen shot of the page that shows where everything is supposed to be. Here are the adjustments that need to be made to the mscz file to make them fall into place.
Fall: x = 0, y = 0.10 space
Doit: x = 0, y = -0.10 space
Lip Bend Up: x = -1.0, y = .80
Plop: x = -2.20, y = - 1.70
Bend 1: x = -1.50, y = - 0.70
Bend 2: x = 0, y = - 0.50
Bend 3: x = 0.20, y = - 0.50

Attachment Size
Pitch Change.mscz 4.09 KB
Pitch Change Pic.png 166.63 KB

I was checking the working links lasconic posted to the stuff I attached with my previous post (I have no idea what I did wrong??) and noticed that I inadvertently created two versions of one symbol with the only difference being the name (more specifically the "Doit" and the "Lip Bend Up"). Oooopppps! In my defense I can only say that in my concentration on creating the symbols (something I'd never done before) and, even more so, the confusion of trying to juggle multiple reference documents I got a bit.... overwhelmed. Worse yet, despite viewing the documents more times than I care to recall I still embarrassingly didn't notice the similarity (even though the symbols are right next to each other!). I believe the most common terminology for this effect is the "Doit".
I also noticed that in the png version I neglected to deselect the Bend symbol in the third bend example before I took my screenshot, hence all the jumble covering the symbol. It should look exactly like the previous Bend (the bend between the notes and slightly above the horizontal plane of the notes). I included it to show how that symbol could be used to more specifically denote timing of a bend.
I should also mention for those trying to view the mscz document it was created in one of the Nightly versions of the (upcoming) MuseScore2.0 and is not compatible with Version 1. I did this because the symbols for the Fall and Doit included in Version 2 were better starting points then anything available in Version 1.

Initial implementation of plop and scoop done, pull request pending.
Note: bend is still missing, as is the option to change the line type (curved vs straight etc.).

Status active closed
Regression No
Workaround No

Fall, DoIt, Plop, Scoop and Slides are all available in 3.x and 4.x with the latter providing basic playback for some of them.